Road Warriors

We encountered many denizens of the road on this trip, but by far the king of the road critters was this squirrel. He was friendly at first, or so we thought. He was actually the braveheart of his tribe doing recon for a daring strike. In this video I am not zooming the lens, I am actually poking the beast in his head. After he stole a bunch of our food and ran it up the trees to feed his dirty little squirrel family he retired for the evening... only to return at sunrise to pilfer BJ's bike.

Upon hearing a loud rucous BJ arose in a foul and bitter mood assuming I had knocked over his bike and was in the middle of screwing around with his shit. However, when he poked his head outside the squirrel in the video was directing an army of brown bastards around BJ's fallen steed and panniers. Fearing for his safety (and informed of the rising cost of rabies vaccinations) BJ warded the varmit away noblily, but, it was too late holes were chewed and granola was larcened.

One night while peacefully sleeping in one of the many 5 star hotels you encounter across the south I awoke to a strange sticky sensation around my toes. I rolled about in the comfort my damp mildew scented double bed, half in and half out of conscious thought. lucid dreaming.

The bat people I worked for on sunny afternoons had left the jelly out again, this time I stepped in it... it was working its way through my toes... No, there are are no bat people... my toes must have become infected with a terrible Louissianna hill disease and were now bleeding... No, I think I rolled into some human DNA left behind by the previous tenants in a sultry affair... HOLY SHIT! its moving. Wide awake.

Yeah slimy movement through bare toes in uncommon settings has a way of triggering your imagination, but try and imagine what this little guy was doing under the blankets. And yes, what was he living on????

I was really excited to see this guy, he looked like a really friendly land tortoise who just didn't know where he was headed or what he was doing. I pulled off to the side of the road to snap a shot and place him out of harms way. I even took this picture and was half bent over to pick him up... I thought it was odd that he didnt retract into his shell, then BJ pulled alongside me and asked me what I was doing. Somehow I had overlooked the fact that about half the inside of his shell was actually on the outside and we were about twenty minutes too late.

Sanchez this guys for you!!

My Kind of Place

So i had always thought that this would be the perfect thing to accompany drinking, but unfortunately someone beat me to it...



Everywhere you go in the South you can buy dead swamp lizards, or maybe a whole boat load of swamp lizard heads. (Swanp lizards WERE injured during the filming of this)

India House

I met up with my cousin Ethan and his friend Kevin last night. We went to New Orleans and stayed at a hostel called the India House. When you think about it hostels are not really such a great deal, for all 3 of us the price was about the same as a two bedroom hotel room and you end up with less than private accommodations and no cable. The upside is that every one here is very nice and the desk twins are easy on the eyes. A lot of characters live here, but then most of New Orleans is full of those.




Kevin is quite a musician so we went to the French quarter and he played street trumpet for money, he was so good we made $2. Oddly enough his horn was the only jazz to be found in the entire city last night. Unfortunately, as it has happened almost everywhere else, New Orleans has been taken over by hip hop and rap. The French Quarter has the most bars I have ever seen in my life and the level of drunk that people get easily attains Kelleys Island and Put in Bay weekend nights and then some. If you stand in the middle of bourbon street as far as you can see in either direction are bars and strip clubs. Ethan said, "look there are so many bars you can't see where they end, they follow the curve of the earth". We had about 65 beers, which you can take anywhere, including in cars, ate some sliders and went to sleep. Were going to look around for dead people in the city today and find some Gumbo.

I Might Need a Shower

I am not sure, but today is the fourth day that I have not spoken with anyone except over the phone. I don't really mind, I mostly get the 'your an idiot' look from people I talk to down here anyway. I know if you are reading this you either know me or BJ or we liked you enough to give you a sticker, so you probably know the look. The look I am refferring to is the one where you are talking to someone who has no idea what you are saying because they:

1. speaka no ingles
B. can't comprehend your dialect
Third. can't grasp the concepts leaving your cake holster

However, despite which one of the three reasons listed, when you look into their eyes you can tell that inside their head you are definitely an Idiot.

So anyway, back to my point, I haven't talked to anyone in four days. Now this is not completely true I have talked to 4 people, and this is their stories. Meet Bobo, or Bobbo, I don't care how you spell it I am fairly certain he will never and has never touched a computer. Bobo is a homeless guy, very friendly with bad teeth, I saw Bobo walking down the road (opposite side of myself) before I took a rest stop. then after I ate a couple peanut butter sandwiches he came walking back by me and decided to stop and chat. He was smoking a joint and drinking beer out of an old Taco Bell cup. My kind of homeless guy. He told me all I needed to know about the area, where to set up my hobo camp, what areas the cops steal all your hobo stuff at, and what shelters I could get free meals at. He even gave ME a cold beer... yes cold, he somehow had a magically cold beer producing hobo knapsack. the only problem is that I am not homeless Bobo, I just didn't have the heart to tell him that.

Next I meet Steve, same thing happens, no cold beer. Steve did want to know if I got high though, i said no and then he tried to sell me pot... Hey Steve what did you want to get high on if it wasn't weed???

The next two travelers came as a pair, I didn't catch their names, but one had black teeth. They were walkers who met at a truck stop, and I get the feeling they were not walking intentionally.

Now I'm no dummy and I can spot a trend when I am involved in one... obviously if the homeless people think I am one of them the homed (not a real word) people do too!

End of Florida

Well my time in Florida is coming to an end, tonight is the last time I will be in Florida for the remainder of this trip. I can't say it's been fun Florida mostly just smells bad, is hot, muggy, and the natives are less than hospitable.
Goodbye Florida, hello Georgia.

Magic Farmers

This post is for any fans of deadpan comedy.
here is a new joke.

I was riding down this country road and saw a sign that said electric fence.
The fence was wooden.

Now being as how my father is an electrician I decided that the fence could not possibly be electric as wood does not conduct electricity very well, unless of course the wood is made from metal, but everyone knows that.

I was tired so I pulled over to stare at the electrified wooden fence, upon closer inspection I noticed that there were electrical wires hooked up to either end of the fence... thus making a complete current (if this wood was indeed made from metal). I looked closer and noticed that the wires did not continue on either side of the wood, but simply screwed into the posts on either end.

I began to get nervous, one of three things were happening and they were all bad. First the cows in this area were smart enough to read but not educated enough to know that you can't electrify wood, second the locals were being kept out because they were also just smart enough to read but not educated enough to know about electrical conductivity, or the third and most likely answer is that obviously this farmer has magic beyond my scope of imagination... so i left really quick and forgot to take pictures.

it will even out

Jesse always has and always will hate the sun

its exactly what you think

every night we would slip into our sleeping bags and our big tent, and text people to send us pictures or pizza or a joke. the road is tough.it was really hot so there was no reason to share the bed. and the bed had sheets and a comforter so i dont really know why we were so cold.....oh wait the sunburn and minor heat stroke caused by the stinky florida heat. Stinky? yes florida has a plethora of smells that come off the ocean. Some are like grandma in the bathroom after prunes, some are like dad in the woods after eating some old meat he found in a garbage bag at a rest stop, and just when you cant come up with another poop reference like a junior high kid. BAMMO florida sends a new smell.

picture time

Now that BJ has returned to a computer that can upload pics here is a few. this is the picture of how Jesse's rear derailer decided to join the wheel and hang out by twisting itself into it, remarkably not breaking any spokes.

Pictures

Sorry there are no photos up yet, they are coming. I may be at my Cousin Andy's house this weekend and will try to post all the ones relevent to these posts.

Dollar Generals and Walmarts

Around these parts towns are distinguishable in size by Dollar Generals and Walmarts. when you stop to ask for directions or information about the next town a distinguishing characteristic is ALWAYS whether the have a Dollar General or a Walmart. "Oh, its a little bigger than here, I mean they actually have a Walmart!" or, " Well you'll go through three or four little towns first, I mean they have Dollar Generals, but they don't have a Walmart". And please feel free to place inflection on the last sentence so it reads as if the person was scoffing at the fact that those towns don't have Walmarts.


As for the Dollar General, I don't think we have these stores, but watch out for these places. This is for sure, 100% the next Wallmart. EVERY single town Pop. 103 and above has a Dollar General, EVERY ONE! They are everywhere. So I went to one, it's a mini Walmart, they have everything that Walmart does in mini form. And no matter how many Dollar Generals I went into the counter person was trying to figure out how to use the cash register... And I am serious now, trying to figure out pennies(3-4 of them)worth of overcharges caused by some taxed food items. Why did I go to so many? Well I can only stand in 1 line for so long listening to hillfolk customers and hillfolk cashiers sit and call a computer stupid. Anyway I was just trying to get a new shirt, my old ones were all dirty, I ended up getting one at the third Dollar General and they overcharged me! Stupid computers!

All you can eat BBQ

So it turns out once you enter panhandle Florida its really just an extension of the deep south.

Things I like about the deep south:
1. Only being referred to as sweetie, honey, and darling by the ladies
2. Weird shit they put on church signs
3. All you can eat BBQ places everywhere

Things I dislike:
1. All of the ladies I refer to are very large... as in I can hear them breathing when I ride by.
2. No cell phone reception anywhere
3. All you can eat BBQ places everywhere

"Jesse, How can it be that you like and dislike 'All you can eat BBQ'?"
well I am so glad you asked, the thing is BBQ is delicious, and real southern BBQ is really delicious; fried corn, hush puppies, pulled chicken, pulled pork, smoked ribs, cole slaw, beef brisket, corn muffins, tater salad, greens, etc... I mean it really is no wonder that all the people out here are so large. Every little town has a little BBQ shack, I've had it on the side of the road out of a trailer, in a gas station parking lot, in a mini mall, next to a Dollar General (which we will get to), and then I had some at 2 Sisters Country BBQ the other day in Mayo or somewhere around there. It was, of course, all you can eat (they mostly all are, or at least have the option, which you can accept AFTER finishing your first round!!!) and the special was pork. I don't really like to eat that particular meat, but the waitress said it was the best sliced pork she ever had, so i tried it.... it tried four plates of it. Every plate came with fried corn (which is the whole cob deep fried), cole slaw, baked beans, and garlic toast. i ate it all, I was going to eat more, but then decided that since it was 97 degrees out and I did have about 50 more miles to go I should probably stop eating.

To make a long story short, I stopped eating about 3.75 plates too many. A few miles down the road beans and fried corn were racing sliced pork and cole slaw to opposite ends of my anatomy.

Slaw and sliced pork won, beans and corn came in a close second.

I gave it a shot....

Daytona

We were minding our own business outside of a wonderful little country sub sandwich-tackle-taxidermy-tattoo-gas station, laughing about the guy on oxygen who was mad we ride our bikes on the wrong (however correct) side of the road, after all "how the shit yous goona see who runs yous over?", when a couple of the locals at Schweggs roadside chitlin and gizzard specializing cafe came over to size us up. Three large guys, we still aren't sure if they were just hillbilly nice or perhaps interested in 'borrowing' everything we own forever, two of them did not have a full set of teeth between them and the third guy seemed alright. after asking us the usual questions these strange new questions came up... and this really is true;

Q does anyone know your on this trip?
A hahah yes
Q how many people know where you are right now?
A um... well, i guess all of them we have gps tracking (as if they know what that is)
Q how much money you bring with you?
A seriously? cash? why? you plan on killing us and dumping our bodies in the everglades?
(bj starts using a large knife to fidget on his bike, they just keep
looking at me)... long pause... none we definitely do not carry any cash.

They just look at each other and then the smart one goes, well yeah they do all this kind of thing on credit cards (they have no idea that their credit is actually better than ours). After we got the formalities out of the way we started asking them how much further to Daytona. They quickly replied that Daytona is too dangerous for us to go, and that carries more weight coming from a shirtless toothless hillbilly drinking old milwakee 22 oz cans at 11 am, but if we really had to go through it we would know we were there when we started to see the hookers on the side of the road. Moving on down the road, about 65 miles down the road, we stop at a bike shop and ask if there are some good hotels in Daytona. The bike shop guy tells us that there is not anything good in Daytona anywhere and we shouldn't even pull off to the side of the road, we will know when were there because there are hookers everywhere, if we absolutely have to we can stay in an area outside of Daytona, but whatever we do if we absolutely have to go through Daytona DO NOT go there at night and DO NOT stop in Holly Hill. So we get a cheap hotel (slurpee owned) in Holly Hill, wait till it gets dark and then walk down the street to a biker bar. Of course it sounds like a bad idea, but cmon, I already told you the adult left days ago.

So there we are the week before Biketoberfest just outside Holly Hill sitting in a bar with a disclaimer on the door about injuries in or on, yes on, the premise and we met some really nice folks in there (sorry Boston people I forgot your names already, I think there was a Larry, but if you logged in don't forget to sign our guestbook). They asked what the hell we were doing in the bar we needed to go back to the hotel and make sure nobody was stealing our shit, oh and make sure you sleep by a video camera because they could film a new episode of COPS in the parking lot of our motel every night. So we go. Nothing happens, everyone we met was nice, no one robbed us, no hookers anywhere, it looks clean, and it even smells better than the rest of Florida. Apparently when your baseline for 'bad neighborhood' is Detroit, well you get the picture.

On a bad note we both woke up this morning sick, some sort of chest problem, we agree that it was from the motel. The motel was the dirtiest grossest thing on the planet. as soon as we are able to post pictures there will be some of the inside of the motel. disgusting.

This morning we decided to make today a day off and rode 5 miles to the beach, where we find a decent area by lots of bars, movie theatres, a boardwalk, the beach, restaraunts, and motels that were cheaper than the ones in Oak Hill... So thanks Bike shop guy, thanks for telling us where the cheap hotels are.

Cape Canaveral

Well it is the fifth day and were North of Cape Canaveral for the night. We had a gruling 65 mile ride yesterday along the Florida coast. The sun was out and there was a heat index of around 107, so Jesse has a back full of blistered skin and BJ is about a 15 min tan away from one. T dropped out of the tour yesterday so Jesse and BJ have been left without an adult...

The first night we holed up in a crack motel, there we found dirty syringes and dirtier hookers. The good news was that the slurpee indians who ran the place kept it so scary that the roaches wouldn't come in, the bad news is that the bed may have gotten Jesse pregnant. There was a number written in lipstick on the mirror it said 'Call 250-' the rest was probably wiped off when the previous tenants were blowing lines off of it, so we couldn't find out why we were supposed to call, we hope it was not important.

Tonight after a short 40 mile ride and if our stuff is still outside when we leave this delightfully cooled library, we will be camping. more to follow.