Day One-Hundred-Ninety-Six, Florida!

Genius.  There's no better way to describe it.  I'm at a new level of hobo skills.  A flat patch of ground, thick in the city.  Invisible even from space.  Under a warming streetlight, no less.  I ought to get a prize.  Or a gold-plated medal.  Or a certified check.  I ought to teach a class.  For new hobos just starting out.  I could build a cabin up here.

Sure I drew blood climbing in.  I don't know how I'll get out.  And traffic is loud.  I'm overlooking a freeway but that only makes it better.  Thousands of people driving by without the first clue that I'm here.

Genius.

Yet, as too often happens these days, I did not get much walking in.  It would be tempting, and not unjust, to blame the Samsung corp.  They conspire against me.  They blister my feet.  They give me indigestion.  They make me spend too much money on pie.  They cover my tent with ice.

I know our men had it rough at Valley Forge.  Winters in Korea were no fun.  But those were brave soldiers; I'm a poet at heart.  I'm not cut out for discomfort.  I was meant to winter in front of a fire, sipping cocoa and warming my toes.

I got plenty wet walking back to the road.  I had to walk through some very tall grass.  Which was wet with melted frost and alive with crocodiles.  And far ain'ts and pythons and possums and such.  I did not pick my way through.  I ran across as fast as I could and wound up soaked to the shorts.

But remained cheerful.  I generate heat.  I am a passionate man.  My shorts were dry by the time I got to the State Line gas station.  Three or four miles up the road.  I was glad it was there.  But not very.  I'd have preferred a cafe.  I was in no mood for heat-lamp biscuits.

Happy Day.  I'll tell you a secret about the State Line. They cook up real food there.

"This is Alabama," they explained.  They try to keep their men fed. 

I had the best breakfast I've had in months.  It was better than Waffle House.  Or as good, at any rate, and a very nice surprise.  The eggs were great.  I think they squeeze them from chickens of their very own.  The nice lady there called everyone Honey.  She called me Sweet Pea.

Which was all I want from my breakfast place.  There were lots of nice people to talk to.  A few too many perhaps.  My chief ambition in loitering there was to type yesterday's report.  I didn't get it done until noon or so, only a half a day late.

The State Line is not on the state line.  I had a couple miles to go.  Down and across a river or two, on this same narrow road.  I stopped when I got to the Florida sign.  It's my custom to take a photograph.  Idaho.  Montana.  Wyoming.  South Dakota.  Nebraska.  Iowa.  Missouri.  Illinois.  Kentucky.  Tennessee.  Mississippi and Alabama.  I got 'em all.  But not Florida. 

Because Samsung sucks.

Worse yet, and it is hard not to blame them for this, I had forgotten my charger.  Plugged into a wall is about the only way I can make my computer work these days.  So it was back up the hill to the State Line.  I took my old seat and ordered lunch.

Chicken pot pie.  It was OK.  It wasn't as good as breakfast.  And the good ladies there had sent my charger ahead.  A man was meant to find me on the road.  He didn't, though.  Now I need a new one.  They'll probably want fifty bucks.

It was a nice gesture.  Everyone meant well.  He must have missed me when I stopped to pee.  It is my usual practice to get well off the road.  I don't want to frighten the ladies.  Or hurt the fellows' self-esteem.  So much for my good intentions.  Now I've got to find a Verizon shop.  Won't they be happy to see me.

The whole misadventue cost me time.  I left the State Line again at two-thirty.  More or less resigned to getting stuck in another motel.  Which made this spot a special blessing.  I found it in the dark.  And saved myself forty bucks and a sleepless night.  So what if it's just a bit cold. 

I'm in Florida now.  Break out your map.  I walked here from Washington State.  That's an impressive hike.  The rest is pudding.  I have conquered the United States.

WOULDN'T IT BE ironic if I were eaten by an alligator.  Half the people I talk to think I will be.  I understand.  They are projecting their own fears.  It is mere coincidence that they always seem to line up so well with mine.

I WISH Phil Spector had put out two Christmas albums.  Seriously.  I can't get enough.

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Day One-Hundred-Ninety-Five, Late Than Never

WIt is not, contrary to popular rumor, Day 195 at all.  Technical problems, don't you know.  It's the morning of Day 196.  But it's not too late.  I can still just recall the magic of yesterday.

It was cold, dammit.  At least in the morning.  I hadn't slept too awfully well.  I shivered some and tossed and turned.  I was haunted by awful dreams.  In one the woman I loved married an idiot, fat with Art Garfunkel hair.  Because he owned five electric razors.  God only knows what it means.  In another an aligator ate my cat.  That one is easier to interpret.

It's no fun at all packing up in the cold.  There are all kinds of zippers and snaps.  All designed to send new kinds of pain shooting through my icy fingers.  But I managed.  I always do.  There was a gas station a quarter mile away.  Too far to do me much imkediate good, but I did not have to wait for my coffee.

And a breakfast biscuit at the attached Arby's.  I bought one more for a stranger.  A genuine hobo in real need.  He rather put me to shame.  I get treated like a hobo a lot these days.  It's an impression I've been inclined to forgive.  But sitting side by side I look for all the world like a soft living kid from the suburbs.

Which I am, but my hobo friend overlooked it.  I guess he just thought I was new.  And offered me all sorts of useful advice, none of which I hope to soon use.  A lot of it had to do with eating garbage and getting the best bunk in jail.  And defending yourself from the kinds of folks who beat up hobos just for fun.  And steal their shit.  Many are cops.  The worst of them, he says, are in Florida.

Which is where I'm headed at long awful last.  It took me a while to find my road.  I spent a day or two zig-zagging about.  I out-thunk myself.  I got too creative.  I put some faith in Google Maps.  Until I finally admitted defeat and settled onto 90 east.

I-90 will take you all the way to Seattle.  I've crossed it on this walk several times.  I even walked it a bit in Montana.  It's your most efficient route across the US.  But this ain't I-90.  This is State Highway 90.  It's a different beast altogether.

It is two lanes wide with no shoulder.  I spent most of my day in the ditch.  Wading through tall grass over very rough ground.  I'm feeling it in my weary old knees.  There was too a psychic cost.  I've developed an unreasonable fear of gators.  I cringe at each shredded tire.

Or rotted stump or beer bottle.  That's the thing about gators.  They hide.  They blend into their environment.  That's how you know they're there.  If you can't see them you're as good as dead.  I tell you, it has raised my pulse.

I'm told they won't eat you all at once.  First they drag you to their pond.  And hold you underwater until you get thirsty.  Then they stuff you somewhere.  And let you rot for a week or two.  Then they sip you through a straw.  Or a length of reed or what they have handy.  They grind your bones to make their bread. 

There is too the threat of fire ants, "far ain'ts" if you prefer.  I'm quick.  They ain't manage to get me yet, but there sure are a lot of them.  And mean as badgers, the arsonists.  They've got a hill every ten feet.  They may be the only thing there is keeping the gators in line.

I hiked as far as Elsanor, a wide spot in the road.  There are two gas stations, one closed, one running.  I was delighted to find they had food.  Real food.  Chicken gumbo with corn bread and turnip greens.  I ate a mountain of it and I ate it fast.  It was getting dark.

I'll tell you one thing about chicken gumbo.  It digests at the speed of light.  I was suffering severe abdominal cramps by the time I got up my tent.  Or got it half up.  I had to pause the procedure.  I had some business to do.  Oh, Lordy.  It could have been ugly.  It is lucky no one got hurt.

"Too cold for gators," or so I've been told.  I guess they hibernate.  The question is where.  I still feel nervous setting up my tent in the woods.  I think some of them just sleep in the woods.  I slept right on top of one.  I thought it was a log.  It messed up my back.  Gators are ornery critters.

And here I am, miles down the road in the small town of Seminole.  On the state line.  I'm at the gas station.  It's where I enjoyed my breakfast.  A proper breakfast.  At a gas station.  I couldn't have been better pleased.  And the nice lady at the counter called me Sweet Pea a dozen times.

I FORGOT TO mention the pelicans.  They are my new favorite bird.  Or second, after penguins.  They are just as ridiculous, but not nearly as well dressed.

LAST NIGHT the whole sky was sunset, not just a patch in the east.  All fluffy pink clouds on a baby blue sky.  Florida.  Miami Vice.

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