10:45 pm
Town & Country Motel, Port Orange, FL (just outside Daytona Beach)
I left the city of James Brown a little after sunrise, a bit later than I should have. Georgia was cold in the morning. I'd say about 30 degrees with a strong wind.
Route 1 in Georgia was mostly very rural, broken up by the occasional small city and/or strip mall.
In Waycross GA, I stopped at a liquor store to pick up a bottle of Blackberry Brandy, which I was told in a text message from back home, Georgia was famous for. I walked in. The man behind the counter spoke with a heavy Georgia accent. He wished me a Merry Christmas. I've never heard of Blackberry Brandy, nor know anything about it, so I asked him what they have, excusing myself for my northern ignorance on the subject. He walked over and showed me his favorite. The finest. It was $10 for a fifth. I bought that and a pint of Absolute that I'm drinking now. When I showed him my license, he said, "Why, you really sure are from up North. What brings you down to Georgia?" I told him I have family in Florida that I'm visiting for Christmas, and took some small Georgia roads to see the country. He was a very nice fellow, and I didn't want to inflict him with the bizarre true nature of my journey. He again wished me a Merry Christmas, I wished him one as well, and was on my way.
Shortly after, I was in Florida. The Sunshine State.
My stereo is much louder when in radio mode as opposed to the auxilliary mode from which I play the ipod. I constantly forget this, and am a little startled whenever I flip it back to the radio because of how loud it suddenly gets. This happened again today after passing Jacksonville, except this time the station the stereo was dialed into from back in Georgia was blaring Winger's "She's Only 17". Now THAT is exactly how I pictured being in Florida would be like. I knew I had arrived. In an attempt to fit in the with the locals, I cranked Winger up even louder, opened the windows, and rode on.
Some distance later, I saw my road internet provider, Starbucks, and went in to upload yesterday's entry. I was working away when two men sat down at a table next to mine. Initially, I wasn't paying attention to what they were talking about, but overheard the words 'faith' & 'prayer'. A woman walked in and joined them. One of the men was saying something about how he's always praying. I deciphered that the man was some kind of a priest who was going to marry the two others. I tuned them out again, finished uploading the entry, and logged into my work computer to see if there was anything urgent I needed to take care of. 56 emails since my first day off last Friday. Ugh. No exclamation point symbols next to the subject lines though. That's a good sign. I still started going through them and doing a little bit of work. Then, miraculously, I lost the internet connection, and was unable to log back on. If that did not happen I probably would have been hooked and wasted another hour. It truly was a miracle! I think it was the preacher's doing. THERE IS A GOD!!!
On I drove, passing Daytona Beach. The sun went down, and the album I was listening to stopped. I saw a motel on the side of the road. Apparently, holiday cheer was found there, or so the sign said. A nice lady in her forties or fifties answered the door. She said they had rooms for $35 or $40. I asked what the difference was. She said the $40 rooms had heat. It was getting down into the forties, and windy. I paid the extra $5.
The town I'm in is called Port Orange. Its just south of Daytona, so I drove back up to Daytona Beach, the place famous for its bike week and and car races, to take a look around.
OK place, a little tacky. Very few people walking around, but lots of cars. It was too dark to see the ocean on the beach. A restaurant I passed was playing 'American Girl' by Tom Petty, a Floridian. I drove back to my room.My back has been cramping up a little from all the driving. I need to stretch more. I've also been eating crap most of the time. I'm doing pushups, sit ups, squats, 100 reps each, before and after bed. I wish hotels had pull up bars, so I could do those too.
Hopefully, tomorrow the mission will be accomplished, but I'll really need to get going just before sunrise, and not mess around. The good news is that I found an unsecured network here that I can use to post this from, instead of having to stop at Starbucks again. Today's drive was about 360 miles, a lot of which was on fast highways. Tomorrow's is 410. If I do finish tomorrow, I could start the drive back to Boston on Wednesday morning and be home by Thursday night, 12/25. The directions I found say that the drive from Key West to Boston is 27 hours. I could do that in two days no problem.
Today's music selections:
James Brown - The Godfather: The Very Best of James Brown
Woody Guthrie - Dust Bowl Ballads
Misfits - Legacy of Brutality
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
John Coltrane - Meditations
Muddy Waters - The Chess Box, Disc2
Jimmi Hendrix - First Rays of the New Rising Sun
Fear - The Album
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