Day Forty Six.....

Rest In Peace, eXplorist 300....

Life was good when I left Hollywood: Got an early start (for once, I actually left BEFORE 10:30am), sun was shining, and I figured to hit Disney World and have pints with Mickey and Goofy by 3pm!!

Shit never happens the way it's planned......does it, now?

A severe thunderstorm came dead outta absolute NOWHERE! I mean, there was dead zero warning.....it was screaming sunshine about two minutes ago......

But this was unlike ANY weather I'd experienced so far on this adventure!! I mean, it was shooting pure sheets of rain that cut visibility to a quarter mile! PLUS, Florida has thee worst drainage of any place on Earf, so this was rapidly developing into a flash flood.......

Crumbs!

Well.....probably not a bad idea to git the hell offa the Interstate, I figured.

Everyone on two wheels ended up cowering underneath an overpass....

.....everyone except the rocket scientist that writes this blog.

Screw that, I figured. I would just hop offa I-95, take U.S. Hwy. 1, cruising gently at 40 to 50 M.P.H. until the storm blows over!

Then......disaster struck......

Apparently, the City of Del Ray, Florida, gave fucking Chessie System (or Conrail, or whatever the hell that huge railroad in the East is called this week) permission to have it's road crossings at three-plus inches above street grade!!!! (Probably so that, whilst the streets went a-flooding, the trains go on uninterrupted).

CN250 hits said tracks, with the hand-held backwoods GPS unit wedged securely between the dashboard and the windscreen......

CN250, E, and the GPS all get biiiiggggg air......and the E finds himself attempting to control the skooter whilst, at the same time, doing a juggling act to save the Magellan from dropping onto the busy street he is currently riding on.....

......keeping control of the bike during an absolute pissing thunderstorm with minor flooding won out over sacrificing one's skooter for a GPS unit......the eXplorist 300 went flying onto the street.

I pulled into a bank parking lot a half-mile down, ran back to the tracks, and found that, while my Magellan can easily withstand being dropped and being submerged in water, it cannot withstand being ran over by five SUVs.....

I almost cried.....

I blame the father of this girl I used to date briefly in high skool.

His name was Phil. He used to call me "trenchcoat" (because I had this cool trenchcoat back in high skool that I used to sometimes wear). I called Phil "man of few words" because he literally never spoke!! He just always fucking grunted!!

"Phil! PHIL!!! Your daughter just won the Nobel Peace Prize in medicine!"

"Mmm *GRUNT*"

"Phil!!! PHIL!!!! You just won $20 million in the New York State Lottery! Congratulations!!!!!"

"Mmm....that's nice.....*GRUNT*"

Phil used to work for Chessie System (or Conrail, or whatever the fuck it's called this week) and he probably asked the City of Del Ray to allow the rail crossings to be elevated three-plus inches above street grade to keep the freight running on time during pissing thunderstorms and minor flooding.

And I also blame those black helicopters and the United Nations one-world-government.....and also chewing the Bubble Yum with the spider eggs in it back in my youth, and......

Soooo.....that sucked!

Had a lot of Geocaching hunts with that GPS..........just kinda pisses me off.......

Made the remainder of the ride to Kissimmee, Florida in sunshine and nice temperatures in about four hours. A pleasant 220 mile ride which was actually quite nice......save for the first 60 miles.....

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Kissimmee is probably one of thee gaudiest places I have ever seen. If you is too poor to stay in one of the resorts inside the Disney Compound, you generally stay here. One huge-ass strip of nothing but motels and places advertising Disney discount admission passes. It was like Las Vegas Boulevard (“The Strip”), except with no buildings over two stories and no gambling and helicopter pads (for tourist flights) every other block. Christ....this place would NEVER pass The City of Beaverton sign code!!! Jesus.....talk about landscape pollution........

Stayed at a place called “The Travelodge Suites” for thirty-nine bucks. Shit....if adding ten more square feet to a standard motel room constitutes a “suite” then I musta stayed in “suites” this entire adventure!!

Hung out with Mickey and Goofy at some pub on Seven Dwarfs Lane (no shit – there is actually a street in Kissimmee called “Seven Dwarfs Lane”), and I was bummed!

Mickey was on his sixth melon ball, Goofy was chugging a sloe gin fizz, and I had a Corona.

Mickey: “Well, E, don't feel to bad. I got word from the guy upstairs that.......”

E: “Guy Upstairs?? Whoozat?? Walt?”

Goofy: “Naw.....Walt's a fucking popsicle!”

E: “Really?”

Goofy: “Whaa? You don't actually believe that snopes.com bullshit, do ya?”

E: “Well....who then? Michael Eisner?”

Mickey: “No, you moron!! God! He told me that your GPS was needed to navigate Tim Russert to heaven.....so it and Tim got called home.....”

E: “Really......? How novel.....”


















Tallahassee redux tomorrow......

-E-