This is part two of a late posting series detailing the RV adventures with my parents on their retirement RV. The trip was over three days in July. Videos have been taken and will be posted as well.
Daylight blooms on the Road Beast. The winged rats knock on the door, just to get our names and introduce themselves, they swear. Christina kicks me out of bed. Something about a smell. I step out to meet the rats and to pee in a none moving pot. The camp site next to us is infected with unlucky fools that decided to actually use a tent to camp. I could tell they slept well. The vampiric rats were nice enough to leave welts on only one side of their faces.
The bathroom seemed quiet. I decided that it was safe. The moment I get ready for business, that point in which you have committed and can’t easily run, a platoon of bloodsucking bastards come out from hiding. I spend what should have been enjoyable daily first that became a cryptic peeing jig that was only mildly successful.
Back in the belly of the Beast, Mom had carved out sausages on croissants. We hammer down a few and fire up the Beast while chewing down the last bites. Now we are fueled and prepped. The Everglades are letting me down in their ferocity. Dad agrees and suggests ramming it down its throat literally.
Down the road is Flamingo. The bottom end of the Everglades. Some crazy fool of a guidebook author wrote that this would be one of the best ten trips down a road in a National Park. Not one to quibble, we follow the road.
Flamingo is a boat ramp and the shell of an old hotel that Hurricane Andrew did an excellent job of fumigating. To our surprise the free offer for the campsites was revoked here. Bigger surprise was the treeless, concrete yard that charged $18 a night for a stay in glorious “au natural”. Only thing missing from real Florida was a strip mall and a few traffic lights.
After a few photo ops and dodging the monstrous fly machines with javelin sized suckers we load back to the beast. We set our sites on Homestead.
Armed with a massive trifold pamphlet of the historic and must see items of Redland which is actually Homestead but not really Homestead which was Redland at one time (or something like that, just past Florida City, where ever that is) we recognize one such must see, Robert Is Here.
Robert Is Here specializes in hawking weird fruits to unsuspecting tourist that get lost and feel that citrus fruit is key to the Florida experience. Plus milkshakes with the aforementioned fruits. We blow gratuitous money on fruity shakes and feed the beast again.
Homestead is soon in our grips. Christina is looking for some random Hi-Spanic bakery that would deliver the needed copious calories that we desire at any moment. The same tricky bastards that attempted to thwart us the previous night must have regrouped and managed to shrink the streets to un-beast levels. After ripping the front ends of numerous vehicles that had the nerve to stand against us we find the joint. Christina and I brave the floured, sugared hell and return with a bag of glorious carbs.
My turn to pick the next conquered valley. I choose the Coral Castle. These bastards has stood taunting the good people of Florida for too long. A formidable fortress of stone ripped from the ground as lifelong and eternal love letter to some 16 year-old biatch that stood Ed up on his wedding night. Poor bastard spent his life set on prove conclusively that love sucks. Mix in a bit of astronomy and magnet weirdness you have the perfect valentine and the perfect tourist trap.
We paid the 10 bucks to waste film and disc space on documenting the stone castle. I stand listening to the german version of the audio tour when Christina points out the fact that this palace has no roof and it is f@$#ing hot. Welcome to Florida. I kept waiting for a tourist to fall over dead but they seemed to enjoy the lunacy. I think they got and envisioned themselves in their own personal Ed-dom. Poor bastards. I wish I had a way to take their ten bucks.
Back into the beast for the final rounds. Mom and Dad demand that we pay final tribute to Great Florida by visiting its natural fauna and wildlife. Of course it is just outside of Palm Beach. I have seen some of the hags touring those malls. I knew they belonged to some other species but was fooled, in part, by the magnificent shades of red lipstick.
Loxahatchee. Probably Indian for “white man gave me malaria and raped my daughter” but now means “Olive Garden and Applebee’s within driving distance of mall”. This is what we punch into the not-so-automatic autopilot. She begins to scream out left and right turns. A bit of confusion is brewing. I do the only thing you can do when things begin to go south while going north and you are in the gut of Road Beast bound for tourist hell, I took a nap.
I wake in the midst of an RV city. Miles of Road Beast tethered to post, spilling their guts to the rented sewer pipes. Now comes the real work of the camping experiences, meeting the natives. Lucky for us, this clan was friend and smart. We need info and they gave it. With nothing to barter we stay quiet, another example of stealing intellectual property assuredly. But no feds for this deal, we live our Scarface lives another night.
Meanwhile the roars of massive beast float over the trees and …
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