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- category: "Florida" -
May 14, 2006
Jax
Thanks to George Ephrem(www.photographic-images.net) in Jacksonville for snapping up some fun pics of The Couch and me last week!
May 06, 2006
Latest....
Four days ago I expected to be in Charleston, SC this morning, waking up on a new friend’s sailboat in the harbor. Today I find myself helping prep another sailboat in Jacksonville to get it ready to set sail later this morning for The Bahamas. Oh, and I’m hitching a ride.
It’s all last minute and full of excitement. I don’t know how long I’ll be going and won’t know how I’m getting back until it actually happens. Robert (the captain of the boat and my friend and host from CouchSurfing) and his friend Michelle are both sailing out for a month but I plan on returning earlier for some commitments I have in Virginia, DC, and Montreal. So how do I get back? Good question. I’m reasonably confident that I can find another boat returning to Florida that might be able to use another crew member. After all, surely I can learn all there is to know about how to sail a boat in the three days it’ll take to get there. Right? :)
I don’t expect to have email or internet access for the next few days and/or weeks (nor do I really want to, thanks) so the next update might be a bit further down the road than usual. I’ll come back with pictures and stories, I’m sure. Well, that is if I come back…
May 04, 2006
When a "no swimming" sign is unnecessary
You know you're in Florida when it's no big deal to find aligators hanging out around the boat. This lil' guy was swimming around the marina today, taking in the sun. Coincidentally, tomorrow I have a date with another gator who's supposed to pose with my couch. You've gotta love Florida!
Click here for my random photo of the day: A bookshelf with a sense of humor here in Jacksonville
May 03, 2006
Florida or England?
Ok, now I'm confused about where I am today...
Thanks to Rob (www.robpepple.com) in Jacksonville for the awesome shots last night! Check back for more soon.
May 01, 2006
Ocean beathes salty
Goodbye Texas, hello Florida.
 Ahhh.... With each breath I can feel my lungs being replinished by the salty sweet smell of the ocean rolling in towards me from a place even farther from here. I absolutely love the sea. Texas is certainly not "home". Today I find myself 1,650 miles away from a certain little spot in west Texas and the only thing stopping me (today, anyway) from going any further east is the spot where the end of the road meets the ocean itself.
 Thanks to the YaYa's in Gainesville for allowing me to be the only male to penetrate their inner sanctum for a full night, Barb in Mobile, AL for the yummiest waffles yesterday morning and for dutifully filling me in on what exactly a Six Sigma Black Belt is (all hail Barb and her mathematic powers!) Today I'm in the Pirate Hostel (AAaargh!) of St Augustine where Conrad and Elaine are letting me stowaway on one of their beds for a night or two. Much love.
July 29, 2005
Storming the Capital - Red Couch Style
That wacky couch has done it again. Today my host Kerry took me and The Couch all over Tallahassee, the capital of Florida (for those of you less geographically inclined), in search of some great photo ops. Once Kerry
and
I finished wading through the fountain in front of Florida State University we headed straight for the state capital building. With a soaking couch slung over my shoulder I stomped into the governor's office demanding, er, perhaps pleading to get a picture of Jeb on The Couch.
After a few phone calls sent through by his extremely friendly receptionist Laura I found out that my 90 second long dream of meeting the governor of Florida just wasn't meant to be. Maybe I shouldn't have led with the ever so suave question, "is this where the pool is?"
However, my smooth talking did allow me to get Laura and another woman in the office on the couch. Thanks girls!
No need to be dissuaded by the crushing blows of gubernatorial politics. This building was full of potential future governors. The next office down was the office of the attorney general. But, as any reasonably sane person carting around an overblown (pardon the pun) conversation piece I was prepared for defeat as well as compromise. While the AG didn't feel compelled to sit on the finest seat in town I did manage to talk his secretary and personal assistant into posing for the pic (one asked to be taken out of the picture). Does anyone see a theme developing? Bring on the women of government!
While I was loving getting these fun women to pose on my couch I would have felt somewhat defeated if I didn't find one elected official to take a seat on ol' Red. Surely there was one true man of the people who would do me and The Couch the honor.
At the end of the hall I finally met the Commissioner of Agriculture. Besides the governor his was the only official's name I actually knew. All through my many miles of traveling through Florida I saw his name on signs near State Parks and several other landmarks. His was a name I definitely remembered. Charles Bronson! Every time I saw his name I thought of Danny 'The Tunnel King' Velinski in the Great Escape. I never thought I'd actually meet the guy!
Tomorrow I leave the state I've spent almost a month in. Today was the perfect end to a round of good times spent around Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, Key West, Fort Myers, St Petersburg, and finally Tallahassee. I've loved my experiences here and am definitely glad to leave on a high note. Thanks Florida!
July 26, 2005
Blast Off!
Discovery is away! I really lucked out making it back to central Florida by accident when the shuttle was taking off. Unfortunatly I was too late getting through the traffic to a good spot so I didn't have time to blow up the couch. I arrived with 9 minutes to go. But I did get a lot of decent pics of the takeoff. Enjoy!
Discovery shuttle launch, take 2
I'm heading back to Cape Canaveral this morning in hopes that they'll not delay again and actually launch the shuttle Discovery today. It just so happens that I'm back in the area at just the right time. Cross your fingers!
July 20, 2005
Mixed bag of goodies (pics)
I haven't written anything in awhile and I'm starting to feel guilty about it, especially after asking you all to click on the links for my sponsors. I always feel like I need to write a huge wrap-up of everything that's happened. Unfortunately for you all that would take me hours on end to do since every day seems to be full of some sort of excitement. Instead of waiting until I can prepare something mind-blowingly spectacular for you I'm going to go ahead and go with more of a quantity over quality ratio. It'll still be good stuff, just not always the perfection I never get around to achieving.
Here's an easy croud pleaser: pictures!
Isn't it amazing how well a car tire fits so perfectly on my motorcycle? As you may have read earlier we blew out a tire on the way back from sailing in Miami. My host Marcos called up a friend who had a spare he was willing to part with in exchange for a deal on a circumcision. Marcos is a doctor and was happy to offer his services. The guy even lined up another friend of his who wanted one, too. Only in Miami...
Speaking of sailing, above is most of the group that I went out with. Marilyn, the woman on the the left, organized the whole deal. We paid $15 each (wow!) to go out on two of the boats and learn how to sail them. I steered the boat most of the time but learned a lot about adjusting the sails and the value of having an anchor when you're trying to swim (the boat drifts away so fast!) I love sailing! I'll have to get a boat one day or at least crew on one for a few trips.
Of course I got the couch out on the boat. Kasha relaxes on it in the sun.
One of the boats we took out for the afternoon.
July 16, 2005
Flat tire
Here's the deal: right now my current Miami host, a Cuban refugee with political asylum status in the US is on the phone with a junkyard looking for a tire for the car we just abandoned on the road. We had a blowout and it's after 6pm on a Saturday. Luckily Marcos knows a mechanic friend with a connection or two. The machanic is happy to provide a tire for us in exchange for, wait for it... a circumcision. My new friend Marcos is a doctor and is happy to exchange his services in order to get his car away from the illegal place we parked it.
Gotta run get the tire. I'm the only one with any kind of automobile (a motorcycle at that) so here we go!
July 14, 2005
Making the news: Orlando style
Before I slipped out of Orlando I ended up talking to Bob Whitby with the Orlando Weekly, the local alternative news mag. They were interested in hearing more about this motorcycle adventure I'm on and how it could possibly involved an inflatable red couch.
Read all about it here!
Oh, someone please remind me on the 30th to check out the Italian newssource La Repubblica. They're doing a story on CouchSurfing and they will be publishing some of my pictures of the lovable Red Couch. I'll never remember to check for it in two weeks so I'll need more than one of you to remind me.
July 13, 2005
NASA Discovery launch
I made it to Cape Canaveral today for the scheduled shuttle launch. There was terrible traffic from the quarter million or so people that flood into the area to watch the launch. Unfortunately NASA ended up canceling it due to a "faulty fuel-guage reading". Actually the launch is "postponed" until Saturday at the very earliest but as far as I'm concerned it might as well be cancelled. I won't be around the area to see it. Tomorrow I head south for Miami.
Maybe next time!
July 11, 2005
Moto Blues, Part 2
Saturday was a stressful day. I woke up in Kats apartment on a scratchy blanket, my head resting on an old bean bag. It was too hot in the room to lay under the blanket and I was glad to stop trying to sleep around 9am. Besides being uncomfortable I was ready to get rolling on my motorcycle. It was at the Honda shop down the road in St Augustine and they were surely waiting on my consent before working on it. Hopefully they had established what the problem was by now. I had little faith in congenial but, at best, overwhelmingly inept mechanic that I was paying a shop labor rate of $70 an hour for.
My poor motorcycle on the tow truck
Once Kat woke up around 11am I finally was able to call the shop. The bike needed a new starter solenoid (I had obviously done it in when working on the bike the day before) and they couldnt get one until Tuesday or Wednesday. I told them Id find one today and get it to them ASAP.
I quickly I rifled through the phonebook, calling every Honda service department in the yellow pages. When I finally located an after-market part around 30 miles away in Middleburg Kat immediately offered to take me out to get it and then to my bike in St Augustine. Almost two hours and $85 later we arrived at the shop with the requested part.
With a new solenoid in place the bike still wasnt getting juice. I now needed a new ignition switch. Ironically I had finally got a new copy of the key the day before. It was used for the first and only time in the doomed starter. Of course the shop didnt have another one but they agreed to show me how to hotwire it. $4.86 at the auto parts store down the road bought me a little switch that bypasses the key. While I had always assumed it would be fairly easy I really didnt expect it to be so simple to hotwire a motorcycle.
After paying a whopping $186 to the Honda shop for 2.4 hours of labor I was finally on my way back to Roberts boat Candide in Orange Park. Less than 24 hours prior I had hoped to head out of town earlier in the day. I was hoping to get to Orlando before the expectedly turbulent weather from Hurricane Dennis came through the northern part of the state. Too late. By the time I got back to the boat the wind had picked up enough to keep me off the bike.
Even though Id hit rain the entire 130 miles to Orlando the next day I was glad to spend one more night at Whitneys Marina in Orange Park. I had never been on a sailboat before and it was a truly great privilege to be a guest on one. Contrary to what I would have imagined a week earlier I loved the rough, windy nights the best. Sleeping away on a boat rocked by turbulent waters was so much more relaxing than I ever would have thought possible before. I loved it.
July 09, 2005
Moto Blues, Part 1
Written earlier this morning:
And I thought I was going to get off easy. While it seemed difficult at the time hard work and diligence had seemed to pay off as I succeeded in fixing the motorcycle outside of an expensive mechanics garage. It started up and I was happy. Was is the critical word of that last sentence.
This morning my bike sits in a Honda repair shop. It made it there not on its own power but on the back of an costly tow truck. Oh, and its not even in the same town that I type in now.
Yesterday I started the bike up and was thrilled that I had fixed everything properly. I took a little trip down south to St. Augustine, the nations oldest city. I never saw the historical part of the town. While waiting in horrible traffic I switched the bike off in order to keep it cool (it was hot outside and the bike heats up quick when idling too long). As traffic finally started to move I turned the key but the dash didnt light up. I had no power.
I had hoped I connected the new fuse incorrectly and it would be a quick fix. It wasnt. I tinkered around with my newfound knowledge of the bike and couldnt find anything to fix. It was a mystery. Plus it was Friday afternoon. I had decisions to make in a hurry. If I spent an hour or two trying to fix the bike on my own it would be too late to get it somewhere that might be able to look at it before the weekend hit. It was all a question of luck and lots of money.
It took well over an hour for the tow truck to make it to my stranded bike. By the time we made it down the road to the Honda shop it was 4:45. Luckily (if I can use the word luck in this situation) they didnt close until 6:00 and could look at it almost immediately.
Unfortunately for me the mechanic seemed to know almost as much about the motorcycle as I did. He was testing places on the bike that even I knew were unrelated to the issue. During his testing he even confused the positive and negative poles on the battery not once but multiple times. I just kept looking at my watch.
6:00 rolled around with the mechanic failing to find the cause of my loss of power. I was going to have to come back the next day, hoping there was another mechanic on duty in the morning that could figure out how to fix a motorcycle. First I had to get back to the Jacksonville area.
I tried to hitchhike with the first guy I had overheard saying he was going to Orange Park, the town south of Jacksonville where I was staying on the boat. He quickly told me he didnt have time to take me anywhere and sped off. Maybe he was afraid of the helmet I was holding. Getting a ride proved easy enough, though. Three cars passed when a couple stopped for me.
While this story could go on and on Ill go ahead and stop here. The rest of it includes running around the inside of a news station, multiple trips to a lesbian bar, and finally sleeping on a scratchy blanket on the floor in a new strangers apartment. Even after a somewhat decent nights sleep Im still exhausted. Plus I still have to find a phone to check on the status of my bike. If all is well and I can get back to St. Augustine I hope to make it down the road to Orlando. I have the fallout of an impending hurricane to think about so I had better prepare.
Trials on the road can be tough. The hardest part is not being able to stop and have a timeout at the end of the day where you can crawl into a bed you truly call your own. But, even when things seem to just get worse, I still cant shake the sense that Im living another adventure.
July 08, 2005
Motorcycle Worries
I had said before this trip that by the end of it I would probably be an experienced motorcycle mechanic. I anticipated little issues here and there but, for the most part, I had hoped that it was mostly a joke. Yesterday it wasn't.
It all started with a bad cigarette lighter. I have one on my bike that I use to plug in both my iPod and GPS system so as not to kill the batteries while I'm on the road. A week or two ago the heavy bike fell over when I was making a u-turn on a country road and knocked out the lighter. When I tried to plug it back in I apparently shorted something out.
First off, I know (or at least now "knew") next to nothing about electrical systems. I took off the blinker to look inside my windjammer, saw a wire laying around unconnect, and put it on my cigarette lighter. Problem solved. Well, not really.
Apparently this was the wrong one. It blew my new fuse immediately. To test the validity of the fuse (this is where my ignorance made an appearance) I connected the two fused posts together with a wrench.
"Do I smell smoke?"
Yep, definitely smoke. It was coming out of the blinker hole thicker and faster than I thought could have been possible. I almost panicked but I didn't have time. I knew immediately that if the fire didn't stop on its own there was little i'd be able to do. I would have been at least a minute before I could find anything that would put out a fire inside that bike.
Luckily it didn't burn that far. It completely obliterated one of the hot wires running through the bike. It ran through the dash and up the whole bike near the engine. I immediately saw dollar signs flashing in my head. My brain was adding up the cost of a tow truck (how do they tow bikes anyway?), a mechanic or electrician or whoever i'd need to find, and the downtime that would come with waiting for it to be fixed.
Right about the time I was knee deep in dispair a guy named Jim Beebe walked by. He was checking on a boat in the marina and said hello to me on the way in. One good look at the bike and he figured the problem wasn't near as bad as I thought. After he checked on the boat he'd be glad to come back and help.
Jim saved the day. He spent a couple of hours with me taking apart the bike and putting it all back together. Not only did we get the problem fixed but I learned a LOT about how my bike's electrical system works. Plus I know I could do something like this again, which is good knowledge to have.
Thanks Jim!
July 06, 2005
Newsworthy!
I made the news today! NBC in Jacksonville came out and interviewed me and my host Robert today.
Grayson Kamm, the reporter on the scene, seemed genuinely interested in the whole concept of CouchSurfing and we spent a good part of an hour talking about it and my motorcycle trip around the country while Paul the cameraman rolled tape. It was a lot of fun. You can see what they wrote about it by clicking here.
Updated: There's also a link to the video feed at that same link along with a better story about the experience than I posted earlier.
July 02, 2005
State 8
Hello from Florida! It's been a while since I've updated at all so I at least have to say hello for a minute. I made it to Orange Park, FL today (just outside of Jacksonville) JUST in time for a heavy downpour. I was soaked! AND my current "couch" is on a boat! As I'm typing I'm rocking back and forth while the boat catches the wind and rain sweeping through the marina.
I'm beat today so I'm going to take a nap. I'll write more soon, I promise!
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