The Prep

Our day started with some last minute packing and organizing, I put Bandit’s new boots on for a few hours to get him used to it. He looks like a baby dear learning to walk, but it’s totally worth it.

The Road Trip

I’ll actually be writing on the road, finally, we caught 30 minutes of traffic over an accident that was already being handled, but it is what it is.

At least we have good company!

Accidental Cult Meeting

Have I mentioned that people speak to me, even when I don’t intend for them to? So as I’m walking Bandit through one of the rest stops a gentleman makes a comment about us being tourists, and I politely nod and smile not trying to encourage more interaction than necessary (usually I’m more friendly but it’s 12am in an abandoned looking gas station in the middle of nowhere.

So he makes minor small talk, and I don’t know what possessed me to mention the oddly specific billboards we had passed.

This dude lights up!

He says the billboards are paid for by the members of this group, and whenever someone in the group commits an act against the group or their rules, they need to pay for a whole billboard to effectively beg for forgiveness.

My jaw drops, and he takes it as “wow I’m so impressed your members have so much money” when it was more like “que manera de comer m*erd*” (what a way to eat sh*t)

He is so excited he runs back to his truck to get something to give to me to consider joining their…uh…”club”.

Needless to say, Bandit and I got in the car before he found whatever it was he was going to give me.

No cults for me thanks, my crazy quota has been met for this year.

That’s How They Get’cha

Somehow we managed to find every abandoned gas station North of Florida on our way up. Miles and miles and miles of poorly lit (or pitch black) roads, absolutely no sign of civilization as far as the eye can see.

Needless to say we started to get a little spooked by this, as we drove through, spotting odd things we don’t see in the city. Things we’d like to remain across the Florida border.

On a scale of 1 to creepy serial killer movie where one person survives…this was definitely up there.

I drew the line when, we reached another shady gas station with flickering lights and this odd man beckoned us into the gas station, not speaking a word to us.

He looked to be somewhere between 80 and 1,000 years old. Just a spooky air about the way he moved, like a specter. Sort of gliding as he did so, he only accepted cash and wouldn’t look us in the eyes, just sort of looked through us…

All I know is it was all very surreal and we pumped 30$ worth of gas and hightailed it out of there as quickly as we could, not speaking about it again.

Arrival Time 6am

When we finally arrived, a little weathered, a little shaken up, it was 6am and we all knocked out for a solid 5 hours before we were fit to adventure again.

I’ll follow up on how the rest of the trip goes.