Chapter 2: The trip accelerates

I 'closed the bar' that night, after drinking waaaay too many draft beers. I sacked out in the wheelbarrow, covered by my blanket and tarp. It was in the mid-forties that night.

Boy, did I have a big head in the morning! I headed for the public shower house and took a nice, long, cold shower. I changed clothes from the skin out and dug out the wash pan. I figured that since I had a spare day I might as well clean 'house'. I had my tea and honey cake then washed everything that needed washing. Damn, I'd be sad when that stuff either got too stale to eat, or I'd finished it.

I brought about four square inches of it into the bar and split it with the bartender. It was a different guy this morning. He was the owner. When he saw me carrying in something on a plate he gave me a quizzical look.

"Get us a couple of cups of coffee and prepare to smile." Well, he did and we did.

"Damn! Where did you get this stuff?" I gave him the name, address and phone number of the grocery store. It was just a couple miles down the road. He was on the phone placing an order before he finished his coffee.

I held out my hand. "Tony Santorini."

We shook. "Joe Stringer." We sat around shooting the shit for most of the day.

Something was bothering me. I had read about airport theft being on the rise, and wanted to take pro-active measures. I stopped by a local bank and asked to talk to the manager. I described my concern and asked if he could help me out. He told me "I've got just the thing." He sold me a dye pack in a clip for two hundred bucks. After listening to his instructions and warnings I very gingerly placed it into an outer pocket of my duffel and tried to forget about its presence.

Back at the crab shack, I tried some of his other offerings besides fried shrimp. His grilled grouper sandwich was to die for. He had a good slaw going but it needed a little something. His langoustines in butter, garlic and lemon were exquisite. I praised his cooking all over the place, and he purred like a stroked cat.

The next morning I got my ticket at about 7:30. I left Joe with a slightly-used wheelbarrow. As I heaved my duffel in the back of the taxi I remembered the dye pack. The driver must have thought I was nuts when I flinched and dodged away from his trunk. He slammed the trunk closes and we sped off to the airport. I verified my ticket and checked my duffel with an insured value of 15,000 dollars. They tagged it and slammed it onto the conveyor. I shrugged.

"It's your problem now, fuckers" I thought. I walked down the concourse to my boarding gate and was waiting for it to open. I had been standing around for about twenty minutes when I heard "WHAMPF" "Screaaaam!" "SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". Yup, that was my dye pack going off. I headed towards a door nearest the screaming. A renta-cop put his hand on my arm.

"Sir, that's restricted territory. You can't go in there."

"Hear that screaming? That's the dye pack I put in my luggage. Somebody just committed a felony. You'd better get an arresting officer in here, fast." I thought for a second and added "A cop and an ambulance. That asshole probably has third degree burns."

I watched him dither a minute then let him have it with my best drill sergeant impression. "MOVE, ASSHOLE!"

I dodged past him into the employee spaces, hitherto sacrosanct from us peons. I found him. I winced. The ink came out of that pack at over 600°F. It sprayed him all over his face, neck, chest, arms and hands. He was a fucking mess. I could see great big blisters forming and bursting all over him, as he writhed on the concrete. I shook my head. Would he see again? Maybe.

I called 'Outdoors' and told my contact what had happened, the model of the dye pack I had bought and what the effects were. I even took a couple of pictures with their cell phone and sent them along. I bet myself that there'd be a dramatic upsurge in dye-pack purchases among travelers, followed by an equally dramatic upsurge in burn ward admissions near air-ports. The geographic distribution would be interesting. Let's see: O'Hare, Atlanta, JFK, Phoenix, Baltimore, Las Vegas...

Because I'd employed a dye pack commercially in use at many banks, I figured that I couldn't be busted for using an unusually brutal device. (I later found that the guy got fifteen years, despite the long hospital stay.) I had some parachute cord and a potty-trowel to replace that were in that pocket. Eventually I'd want to replace the duffel bag but not until I could find something better. If that duffel had been made of a woven plastic instead of canvas it'd be a melted mess.

It was a twenty-minute flight to Perry, Florida. I de-planed, retrieved my somewhat-worse-for-wear duffel bag, and wondered what the hell would happen next.

A guy was waving around a sign with 'Santorini' on it. I walked up and held out my hand. "Tony." He grinned and said "David. I got your ride."

"Cool." I followed him out the front to a 4x4. "Outdoors Magazine: the Santorini Tour" was written across the side. Aww, crap. A dozen people were waving, so I grinned and waved back. I didn't see the little fucker with the camera this time either.

We headed off t god-knows-where. Eventually we stopped at a bicycle shop in a pretty big strip mall. Hah. This was a bicycle 'Emporium'. It was one of those places that you wondered when you were going to get your obligatory blowjob, considering the prices you were paying. If you didn't get at least a reach-around you knew you were being ripped off. I saw names on the wall like Trek, Jamis, Cannondale, Wilier and BMC. These were brand names whose frames cost over $2,600.00 dollars, never mind the trivial things like shifters, seats, wheels, tires or brakes. When I started looking at the low-end aluminum-frame bikes the salesman started to hyperventilate and had to sit down. Imagine that? He looked like he could do Pike's Peak in one pul but damned near died a the thought of that big sale escaping his clutches. Find a different job, dude. Relax. I grinned like a madman and kept looking. I actually wanted a five-speed road bike but no such luck. I found (at the back of the store where the lights definitely were dimmer) a Diamondback Menona hybrid with standard pedals. I asked for and got Kevlar-enhanced tires and a split saddle to keep my poor ass from getting the 'stun gun' effect. (ask a guy over 30. Ask about the crushed prostate syndrome.)

Next I went trailer shopping. Nothing in their inventory looked appealing. I found, in one of their catalogs, a Burley Flatbed Cargo Trailer. It would max out at one hundred pounds according to the literature. I'd work around that. I threw my duffle on a scale. One hundred twenty pounds. Crap. Okay, drop one water jug. Nope. Drop half the canned food. Nope. I spread everything out on a tarp to give it the evil eye. Nope, I didn't really want to lose anything. I added a pair of panniers and put everything back that I'd dropped. If I stayed in the low gears I'd be fine. I bought a new LED head lamp with a tail-light and a clip for my right pants-leg so my cuff wouldn't get hung up in the front sprocket. (It's a damned dangerous thing to happen when you're pumping your way around a big intersection and your pants lock you up in front of oncoming traffic.)

I spent a couple of nights in a hotel waiting for the trailer to be delivered. During the day I rode around town getting used to the bike. I hit a museum and then treated myself to a good steak and onion rings. Yum. I sent in a scathing journal entry about the current fads in bicycle merchandising, stating that the middle eighty-percent of the retail field was being swamped by the 'at any cost' freak cyclists. I described a middle—of-the-road bike for a middle-of-the-road cyclist, such as myself. I described what I walked out with and why. I wrote a little diatribe about discovering an acceptable balance between conditioning, available time, durability and budget. I think I 'channeled' Colin Fletcher for a while, there. It was refreshing.

Just next to the mall that held the bicycle shop was a WalMart supercenter. I picked up a styrofoam cooler that would hold a couple of six-packs. Along with some brush-on adhesive, brown denim and waterproof wallpaper sizing I waterproofed it and covered it in two layers of cloth. By the time I'd done futzing around with it I had a nice little durable water-proof cooler.

I knew that I'd miss that wheel barow when it came time to sleep. It was entirely too comfortable for words.

The trailer came in. Even without a tilt-bed; since there were two side-mounted tires, I could stretch out and support my feet with my duffle, and get a good night's sleep supported off the ground. I still had to either support the thing on a couple of milk crates or replace the axle with something heavier, if I wanted to keep it from collapsing under my weight. I decided on the milk crate route. The cooler fit in one of them and a water jug fit in the other. Both had room to spare. I figured that's where the bread would go without getting terminally squished.

Well, that was it. I was ready to hit the road once again. The trailer was covered with a folded-up 16x16' silvered tarp, protecting the contents of the cart. Everything was held down by a stretchy spider with hooks on the ends. I picked up some ice, a couple of potatoes, a couple onions and three half-pound pieces of beef at a Walmart. I stuffed myself at the Sonic across the street from said WalMart, then headed north on Jefferson Street. A few blocks later I picked up Hampton Springs Avenue and headed west. After leaving the city behind I found myself surrounded by trees. It was truly a nice ride.

After about fifteen miles, different groups of muscles were complaining that they weren't quite ready for this. I pulled off of Route 98 near where Cabbage Creek Road came up from the south. I made my camp just beyond the view of the road. It took a bit of work to clear a space for the stove that wouldn't set the tree roots on fire. I had to move my camp further back away from the road to find a glade where I could find mineral soil. I broiled a piece of beef and wrapped it in bread for a steak sandwich. The next thing I knew it was dawn.