On the Road: Florida to the Smokies

Diary

[pictures to be posted in a later rev of this page...]

From the radio alarm, savage rock and roll (the Red Hot Chili Peppers?) ranting: Make It Happen. Indeed. This is the day I leave Florida

Check out of lovely Candlewood Suites. At very first faint light on the horizon, got outside to the roar of I-4 traffic.

Breakfast: my last cherished German Chocolate Danish at Panera. Anonymously (except to you!) dropped a large, 84-year-old, detailed map of Orange County to an unspecified Historical Society, just in front of their entrance. Hope they like it, otherwise, I suppose I committed littering or something.

Packed the car, taking advantage of the car's convex windows by lashing small boxes to large ones with strapping tape. Ended up shipping anyway: one suitcase holding a fan, silver dish, phone charger, and three or four other last minute things, strictly because it was cheaper to ship than to replace them. Didn't get started until 10--I had hoped for 8, ha ha. Fueled up the car--should I buy my gas from Shell, to be loyal to the Dutch? increased tire air pressure, and on the road.

Florida's hyperactive bird life gave me one last show--high above Fairbanks Avenue, a crow was tormeting an osprey who was trying to return to his large nest atop a cell phone tower.

Throwing quarters to pay tolls now, since I turned in my transponder yesterday. It's hard not to drive through at 45--I mean of course 35--risking a collision with some poor slob who stopped in my lane to toss his coins, which of course is exactly what everyone in that lane is supposed to do.

I have lived most of my adult life in Florida, and since there is hardly a place between Orlando and Georgia that I haven't lived, had friends, or visited with lovers, it should not be surprising that every few miles evoked a memory:

Before even leaving Orange County, I passed the soaring interchange to the new SR 429 freeway to Apopka...

At the other end of which, right then at 11:00, my former Minute Maid coworkers were roaming the halls asking each other possibly the only coherent question they would ask or hear all day: "Are you lunchifiable?"

On the Turnpike, passed mile marker 272...

Where in 2001 I slid my car sideways 300 feet into a deep ravine. Fun in its way, but once per life is enough, thank you.

Passed the state highway 19 exit...

Somewhere up there, to the north, within earshot of SR 19's high bridge south of Eustis, lies a sloping field where four years ago I attended the funeral for Brenda's daughter. All those high school kids weeping.

I didn't dare waste my one last opportunity to shoot the finger at Ronald Reagan, or rather the idiotic Florida Turnpike sign "Ronald Reagan Turnpike" which no one but a few Yahoos State Senators (but I repeat myself) has ever called it. See below for reason why I hate Ronald Reagan more than Death.

Stopped to vacuum all the sand from the floorboards, and especially to vacuum the oak pollen from the air-vent intakes. If I have to give up Florida's good parts, I might as well jettison the bad parts, too, and as soon as possible.

Passed the Ocala exits...

Where Tari lived. I thought we might have married, but then she called me in Tennessee one day with news that she was pregnant, and as life would have it, not by me. And I looked down on the Holiday Inn where Tari and I attended her sister's wedding reception. And then I passed SR 326 where I had driven so many late nights, delirious with drink and sleep deprivation. How I made it home to Gainesville, intact, all those nights so long ago I will never know.

Passed Gainesville.

Part of me still considers Gainesville the center of the Universe. I think it's fair to say that I became who I am in Gainesville (even if I became a better me later in Knoxville, with Georges). My love of bird song and the dry sound of palm fronds scraping in the wind, my reawakened love of books and intelligent conversation, all derived or solidified in Gainesville.

One employer, the University of Florida, off to my right. Where I thought I was doing pretty well until one day Ronald Reagan decided the US would never need solar energy or something. My research funding went to hell in a handbasket, and so did my prospects there. Lovely. Thanks a hell of a lot.

To my left, ESE (Environmental Science and Engineering), which funded my return to Gainesville after only 1 1/2 years away. Wiped out four years later by "reorganization" which off course would mean layoffs. I left to work for Georges, beating the wipeout by 6 months. In fact, I guess that means I actually beat layoffs once before. Well--Hell of a way to build a career.

And to the left, the trailer park, where dearest Dawn, to whom I had lost my heart, felt compelled to show me not only her new trailer, but the bedroom that she and her new husband had just, er, furnished. Life's worst cruelties can be unintentional.

Crossed over the Santa Fe River, and thus out of Alachua County...

Where 15 years go, almost to the day, I found myself very sad to be leaving Florida a second time, for Tennessee to work for Georges. And now I'm crossing it again, leaving Florida for a third time. Must be some kind of record. Well, if this venture north is as transforming as the one 15 years ago, it will all be more than worth it. I didn't know then if I would ever return to live in Florida. Of course I did, and I'm sure I'll be able to do so again, if I choose to--but not to work. "Working in Florida" and I are now amply demonstrated to be antagonistic.

Passed State Road 47, Lake City to Fort White.

Fort White, entryway to the Ichetucknee River, a natural marvel in the absolute. You get a large inflatable tube and float down for hours among nothing but silence and the natural world. In my last tubing trip there, some friends and my parents and were propelled through a insanely furious, Florida-style summer thunderstorm, which we saw from the water's level. An astonishing, utterly unforgettable sensory experience.

Passed Blue Springs, on the left...

Where on very hot summer day in 1985 I somehow heard Susan's ten-year-old daughter screaming in a different way out in the deep water, and I dove in after her before the others realized she was in trouble. Talk about winning a mother's love. Only 1%-heroic thing I ever did. All those people there that day are all scattered who-knows-where, now.

A stupendously silly picture of my old car's very first baby step outside Florida. 134490 miles, and it has never been outside Florida. Bundled everything back into the car's trunk (in Florida), got in, and closed the driver's door (in Georgia). See that dapper fellow leaning on the car?--do please leave comments on this blog sometime, if you would, to him.
 

This is of course more of a crossing for me than for the car. At the time, I was more occupied with the ritual of setting up the camera, trying not to get hit by a truck, worrying about chiggers in the weeds than I was occupied with the crossing into my new life. Sometimes I think these ritual photos and receptions and wakes and the like actually serve as distractions from the momentous crossings that are going on. We say that we are "marking" the event, but I wonder if the urge for ritual developed because we can't really stand facing such changes squarely, unadorned.

Georgia has a Withlacoochie River, too, 19 miles north of the border on I-75! I didn't know that.

A Greyhound bus in the opposite direction, displaying its destination as "Orlando."

It's hilarious--just yesterday with my car windows down, I passed the Orlando Greyhound terminal, and the (recorded) announcer was doing his best to sound like the worldly voice of an international airport. "...now departing Orlando for Jacksonville, Savannah..." If it makes the down-and-out passengers feel important, I guess the bus line has to do it.

There was a time when I made this I-75 round trip once or twice a month, between Knoxville (me) and Gainesville/Ocala (Tari). I realize that I have not been on this road for 8 1/2 years...

Not, in fact, since my sister and I drove the monster Supra down from Columbus, Ohio, when I started at Minute Maid. She has never lived where it is cold--the morning she was going to help me drive down, she stepped out of the Port Columbus terminal into the November wind, stopped and looked to the heavens and screamed, "GOD DAAAAAMN, why does ANYONE live here?" I told her, "I'd live here a little shorter time if you'd get off your ass and hurry to the car."

Around Macon, suddenly the trees have buds, not leaves. The limbs are mostly bare, distinct from winter appearance only be a slight thickening and greening of the branches. This seems late, especially as we had an early (muggy) spring in Orlando.

Got off I-75, making a diagonal for US 441, which is Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, passes just behind my (previous) Minute Maid office, is a main drag (13th Street) in Gainesville and UF.

Madison, Georgia is a gorgeous downtown and surrounding area. I notice it has a bypass, which keeps the trucks and speeders away. The main road (US 441) is lined on both sides with individual, not to say idiosyncratic historical houses. I loved it. I also note the Confederate memorial, with whose engraved sentiments read: TO THE SOLDIERS OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY WHO DIED TO REPEL UNCONSTITUTIONAL INVASION, TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS RESERVED TO THE PEOPLE, TO PERPETUATE FOREVER THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE STATES. Carefully worded sentiments which, limited as given, I actually agree. And here I am moving to Land of Lincoln. Uh oh.

The University of Georgia campus, while hilly and more or less forested, is mere red brick and boring. Train tracks even run through it. Not worth the detour. However, the athletic facilities are beatiful--but you would have guessed that, right? Downtown Athens looks something like downtown Tallahassee looked 15-20 years ago. The one nice block of College Avenue should be duplicated throughout the downtown--then they would really have something. At least they have a Starbucks, the first decent coffee since Gainesville, Florida's Borders--250 miles back. And of course the complete absence of chain restaurants--the distinguishing characteristic of college-town downtowns. I have to be careful when driving up and down Athens' steep hills, or I'll have everything from the heavily packed back seat in my lap or around my neck.

Where 441 crosses I-85 sprawls this disgusting infestation of cheap restaurants, outlet malls, discount stores, crap. It goes on and on. I've spent the past hour in parks and driving through woods and quaint towns, but these tens of thousands prefer to spend their time...here. They're welcome to it. I couldn't get out fast enough.

Every bridge and intersection and highway in northern Georgia is named after someone: a Bernie Sims Bridge, John Knox intersection, Jess Parker Road.

And then--and I'm laughing aloud as I write this--there was dinner. The hotel receptionist recommended a Mexican restaurant around the corner in a strip mall. Now, anyone who imagines that Mexican culture is out of place in northern Georgia hasn't visited there recently. Still, I was dubious as I found La Campesino. Back and forth across the parking lot in front were cruising dozens of cars and trucks, and I wondered were the night club was. No, the traffic was to get into La Campesino. I ditched my car and fairly ran inside.

I wasn't disappointed. Three enchiladas with the most exquisite sauce, rice, salad, more beans than I could eat (and that's a lot), and two draft beers, all were excellent and less than $12 on a weekend night. The staff was simply unbelievably efficient--after a party of about 20 they cleared the tables, cleaned them and the chairs, moved the tables, swept under each, and reset the room for individual tables, all in less than three minutes. As I finished my dinner, Salvador the stupendously gregarious owner, chatted with me for a quarter hour, very proud of his operation, very happy to live in the middle of nowhere and not back in L.A. or Seattle, and now proud of opening his third restaurant near Gwinnett Mall (Atlanta) next Monday. Best of luck, Salvador, and you readers: if you are ever near Clarkesville, Georgia, or Cleveland, Georgia, or Gwinnett Mall, stop at La Campesino. Man, what a find.

The printed note on the hotel: Time to Relax. Fat chance. But I do get 7 hours of industrial-grade sleep, for the first time in a week.