Sunday #1

In a poor attempt to outdo Adam Wills' infamous Saturdays, I will be writing about my last Sundays before I move away from God's own personal wonderland, Miami. In the past, our Sundays consisted mainly of waking up and eating pancakes together, taking the dog for a walk, catching up on email, watching football, maybe pizza for dinner...nothing fancy. As we've only got a little time left in our sentence down here, we decided we should try to make something of the time we've got. As a bonus, frequent Sunday "open houses" pretty much determine that we have to be out and about. So here comes Installment #1...
Weekend before last, Sara and I decided to drive across the peninsula to visit her mom in Naples, Florida. She had just the week before moved down there and started a new job. We had been informed a couple days earlier to take Tamiami Trail / 8th Street all the way across the Everglades. Tamiami is a good bit further south, is a smaller road, and in general is more remote and animal-filled. There's about 60 or more miles with no gas stations. This is where you go if you want to go on an airboat ride through the 'glades. You pass the Miccosukee Reservation/Resort and head through Coopertown straight into the middle of fucking nowhere. Here's some Miccosukee highlights:

(Population 0008!)






About 45 minutes in, out of the blue, I saw a big ass alligator near the sporadic waterways that run parallel along the north side of the road. Then 10 seconds later, "Another one! Another! Another!" Those fucking things are EVERYWHERE. I probably saw no less than 200. The entire way there are old ones, young ones, little ones, big ones...fucking retardo huge ones...all of that shit. We pulled over and saw regurgitated/recycled/excreted animal fur flesh...Good luck figuring out what this is:


Then we saw about 15 feet away from us in the water a big one, just hanging out...keep in mind, these dudes can run 30 mph on land...(I have heard that if you run in a zig-zag pattern, you are safe):


Up the road a piece we finally got to a rest area that had a "gator viewing pit." There were twenty or so lazy-looking gators of varying sizes mugging it up for the amazing white people who stared in awe. Overheard: "That's at least a 15-footer." Sara made the comment that there is always that guy who feels the need to quantify things for everyone in his party. (Example: "Man, look at that pizza! There's gotta be 200 pepperonis on there!") Perhaps it's just a math fixation that was never properly attended to in school.....


Moving on...here's a sign we liked:


Then: BAM we're in Naples....We met Sara's mom at her new crib/workplace, and she's got a really great thing going on there. Super nice neighborhood. Killer living space. We're hoping everything works out for her. We then went and had some delicious seafood platters at a Crab Shack followed by a drive around Naples, a walk on the beach and then started to head home.


This is where the magic happens...halfway home on Tamiami Trail, the same area that was completely lined with alligators earlier (and did I mention the PANTHER CROSSING signs all over the place..yeah....seriously), all traffic stops. There is NO light out here, we haven't been in "civilization" for a good 45 minutes at least. There really wasn't much traffic prior to this so for it to be backed up a few miles means that it's been stopped for a while...There are ZERO cars coming from the other direction for 20-30 minutes. Everyone gets out of the car in the dark and starts walking around. Where I'm from, this is how people die (serial killers, gators, panthers, aliens, etc. etc.). So we stay put in the car awaiting the ensuing bloodbath. After much discussion we decide we're going to turn around and try out this little bitty tiny road that's on the map that we think is behind us. (There are no road signs, so we are just guessing). About 3 miles behind us, we find the road, take a pee and point our car down it. There's no cell phone signal out here, but we try to call our friend Seb anyway, because we think he's been down it before. No luck. It's a dirt fucking road. Trees wrap over the top of it. It's Sleepy Hollow, Florida. So we have two choices, go back into the line of cars and wait to die, or drive to down the sketchy road and try to outrun the Aliens/Panthers/Gators/various swamp monsters/serial killers/etc. About this time a truck comes flying up behind us and we just barely get out of the way in time...he slams on his brakes, we pull up next to him and he says in some glorious broken English, "You going to Miami? The road is bumpy and long but you can make it." Then he peels out, barreling down the road. We tear out after him. Fuck it, right? Watch the video:


Right. It took about an hour. It was dark, dusty as fuck, and we were bouncing all over the road. It was a scene straight out of Adaptation. Who knows how many evil creatures surrounded us on all sides. It may have been the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life BUT it was fun as shit, and we still got back to Miami in good time. We have no idea what happened back on Tamiami Trail, but I would imagine all of those people are dead now. Too bad, they should've taken ol' Loop Road.

Here's some of the music we listened to on that fateful day:
Them Two - Am I A Good Man --- BUY
Dengue Fever - One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula --- BUY
Matinee Orchestra - Run for Cover (It's Going to Rain) --- BUY
Rhythm and Sound with Love Joy - Best Friend --- BUY

Coming soon: last weekend's Saturday/Sunday adventure in a big fancy, schmancy hotel.