MY VIEW OF THE COAST

My view of the coast.

Earlier this year I made the life changing decision to move to South Florida. The decision to move was years in the making yet I chose to leave in the middle of the night. I had several reasons for doing that but first lets discuss my trip from hell.

Five months after being laid off and becoming part of the 10% unemployment rate, I packed my car with nothing more than my clothes and my Golden Retriever. Having already sold my furniture on craigs list I happily threw away my winter clothes and realized I didn’t have that much “stuff” to haul. So at 11:30 P.M. on April 20 2011 I loaded the car and left upstate New York forever. Yes that’s right stoners I said it. I left on the 4/20! I never meant for it to happen but it did. The were many circumstances that led to me leaving on the national hemp holiday. For starters winter was over and I could now take my 1997 Dodge Intrepid with 225,000 miles on the highway without worrying about breaking down in the cold weather. I had my mind made up that if old Betsy died on some god forsaken highway, my dog Kobe and I would take the plates off and start walking.

Another reason for leaving on the 4/20 was it just seemed fitting for my home town. A town that will remain nameless, but if Spiccoli from fast times at Ridgemont High lived in New York, he would reside in this town. Let’s just say that when I was in high school half the teachers and two thirds of the parents had a stash that would make Bob Marley jealous.

As I embarked on my 24 hour tour of the east coast, I was foolishly optimistic about my ability to drive the 1400 miles without stopping. I was recalling memories of my childhood when my parents would pack half of their lives and their 2.3 kids into the station wagon and make the trip to the sunshine state. Of course we would always leave the house at some ungodly hour of the morning. Seriously when your traveling on a 24 hour trip does it matter what time you leave? As a seven year old child who was good at math I confronted my parents with the fact that leaving our house at dark 30 of the morning would put us right in the morning commute of New York City and North Jersey. Thus squashing their claim that leaving early would help us “avoid traffic”. As you could imagine the ramblings of a demented seven year old had no affect. I don’t ever remember leaving the house. It was like a scene from a bad horror flick. Zombies shuffling into the car wearing tattered sleepwear with no strength to fight back. By the time I woke up we were hitting the rush hour traffic in north jersey and it felt closer to a hostage situation rather than a family vacation.

Well on this particular trip I was watching the sun rise over the stench that is known as New Jersey and entering the state of Maryland when I realized something. My parents were insane and I’m never doing this again. Just for the record, my dad was the only person in the family who had a drivers license. How he did it I’ll never know, but it just further proves my point about the insanity. I was thinking that of all the statistics you hear about flying being safer than driving. Those statistics were starting to make a lot of sense and I realized that all those fond memories I had were from the vacations that started with an airplane. Did I mention the fact that I’M NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN!

Now that I had signed a contract with myself that this would indeed be my last trip from hell, I charged forward like a runway model on her way to go shoe shopping. It was right after I passed the fourteen thousand signs for “South of the Border” and I entered South Carolina that I decided it was dinner time. I had been dreaming about this “New York Strip” for about an hour now. The dinner special was well advertised on the billboards right next to the South of the Border ads.

As I sat down for dinner I realized that I was now in a different world. A world where southern draw is the language of choice and waitresses work under the teeth optional policy. There was definitely no turning back now. I was closer to my destination than my former hometown. Or so I thought. After some quick calculations at the “you are here map”. I realized that I was exactly halfway to my destination. Are you F*#%ing kidding me? I still had 700 miles to go! To quote Bugs Bunny the greatest cartoon character ever; “whoever put the south so far south”?

With my optimism completely stamped out by reality, I grabbed the doggy bag from my toothless wonder of a waitress and headed back to the highway. I won’t bore you with the details of my run through the deep south. It was uneventful and after my “interesting” experience at dinner I was not about to stop again. I guess it was around 11:00 PM when I reached the Florida border. Although I was cautiously optimistic I could still hear Bugs Bunny’s quote in the back of my mind. It had been 24 hours since I left in the middle of the night, and by now my eyes resembled two golf balls that got in a fight with Tiger Woods.

I’m not sure exactly how I made it the last 150 miles. I don’t remember it and my dog was giving me a look that said, “so this is it, we’re going to live in this car now? Who could blame him. It had seemed like a lifetime since we started this scenic tour of the east coast and he didn’t know the plan.

As I was exiting I95 I came to the realization that I was going to make it, and I would not be stranded in a town that makes deliverance look like a family picnic. I had seen the east coast from less than 30,000 feet for the last time.

I arrived at my new treasure coast residence, not knowing just how big of a cultural difference there is between South Florida and Upstate New York. In fact I had planned to write about those cultural differences but I started going off on a tangent about my road trip from hell and decided that it deserved it‘s own space here in Bella Mondos. I guess the cultural differences will have to wait until next month.

I am Doug D., and this is the Doug Out!