Day 2 (Fri., Sept. 2)

Wow! I wrote a lot about yesterday's experiences. I hope I didn't bore you w/ any of the 4,080 words I wrote in my first day entry.

And if you're looking to read more about my experiences driving east, get comfortable because I have a lot to say about today, as well. Well, probably not as dramatic as yesterday. I have to say that this morning I felt really confused and worried for the thousands of people still trapped in the area.

So, last night I didn't have a full night sleep. It was 1:41 a.m. when I gassed up and got settled in for some sleep. I was able to sleep just two hours as I was not comfortable sleeping in my car seat. Although I had enough energy to keep on driving, I didn't have the strength to set up my camping tent and lay out for some good rest. So, I decided to hit the road again. I drove around Montgomery for a little bit because the road signs to get through the state's capitol on U.S. Highway 80 were a little confusing. After a loop around the city, I was back on track going east. The road was very dark and foggy, so it was hard to stay focused. Then, at 4:22 a.m., I came across a suicidal raccoon. The little furry thing was in the middle of the road and looked toward the truck as I head toward it at 70 mph. (OK, maybe a little faster, but that's the speed limit and I am sticking to my word when I say I wasn't speeding -- haha). I slowed down and flashed my lights hoping the raccoon would get scared away and run off the road. Then, as I approached it, the raccoon started running towards me.

"What??? Oh oh!... This raccoon is crazy!" I thought as I was challenged by the raccoon to a game of chicken.

Good thing there were no other cars on the road, otherwise I would have been forced into a tough situation. I slammed my fist onto the steering wheel a few times making all kinds of noise w/ my horn. Luckily, the raccoon decided it was too young to die and ran off to the side. It must have thought about its raccoon family members, it's raccoon mate, its raccoon babies and decided to do the right thing.

Oh, I guess you must be saying I got quite the imagination for thinking so much about this incident. You drive across a few states (by now I had been on the road for 20 hours and traveled 853 miles) and try to stay sane.

The site and sounds of the raccoon weren't enough to keep me hyper, however. The previous nap had relaxed me way too much. So now I was a little tired. I decided to take a quick nap 14 miles up ahead at a McDonald's parking lot.

It was 7:18 a.m. and I was back on the road after a good nap that lasted just over two hours. I felt rested now. So, I was ready to go. Seventeen minutes went by and I was crossing yet another state line. This time going into Georgia, home of good peaches. As I headed east on U.S. Highway 80, I realized that it was no longer 7:35 a.m., but it was now 8:35 a.m. because of the time zone change. I've lost an hour off the day just by crossing the border. It's cool. The only other time I was in east coast time was in New York City last year -- also in September.

The sun was bright, the roads were empty and I didn't need to listen to any of my many music compact discs as every radio station on the air had some sort of Katrina coverage. It was inspiring to hear the things people talked about on the radio. Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke about something very important. He told the radio host that it would be a good idea for the U.S. government to do more about the people of gulf states. He mentioned something that I thought was very wise. He noted that the U.S. military is trying to close down a bunch of air bases because they aren't much of use for it. Well, this is the perfect time to use them, Mr. Jackson said. He spoke about sending the victims to these locations, feeding them good food and giving them good shelter. I thought this was a brilliant idea. Will it happen? We're going to have to see.

Most of the talk on the radio was about how slow the government is reacting. Some went all out and said that President George W. Bush did not care. One thing I didn't like was that it was becoming a racial issue. Is it a racial issue? Perhaps. But whatever the reason it might be, this should not be happening. It's time for the government to take care of its own. We'll see what happens.

Two hours and five minutes down the road I came across Knowles Landing just at the end of Houston County. It looked very pretty as I drove over the bridge, so I turned around and decided it was time for a road break. If you are a person who likes to drive straight through things, please let me know before getting on my vehicle on a long journey. I will stop at anything from a suicidal raccoon, a meteor crater (as I did on Day 1 of my San Angelo internship), and many nice places. You just never know what you're going to find. The water level on the river was high. Perhaps from the storm. There was high enough water that I thought this was perfect time to use my rubber boots for the first time. Before leaving Houston, I made sure I had all the right things in order to survive the journey ahead. Boots, ponchos, a tarp, camping tent, lantern, flashlight, batteries, can food, candy, water, soda and a few red bulls, among other things, were part of my survival kit.

Getting out of the truck to do some exploring was fun. I came across a bunch of butterflies. See? Told you. There's always something good at every stop. You just have to look for it. It was cool to shoot the butterflies as they were not scared of me and didn't fly off as I got real close. I got so close to them that I was able to shoot the above photo. I was thinking what other kinds of animals and insects were around. Then I started thinking a lot about alligators. I heard that the south has some of them, so I was beginning to get a little concerned.

Alligators? Man, I was thinking too much by now. Well, I decided that I would scare them off w/ my famous "magnum look" seen in the above photo. Haha. Magnum look, if you are not familiar comes from the movie Zoolander with Ben Stiller. I am always making faces at photos, so there you go. So, by now you might be asking yourself "what's w/ the cowboy hat?" right?

Well, being in San Angelo influenced me into getting a cowboy hat. This is truly a cowboy town. People there wear boots, hats and wrangler jeans. It sure gives you a look into the west. If you are traveling to Texas and want to see true cowboys, don't go to Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth. Definitely not Fort Worth. Even though FW calls itself "the entrance to the Old West", it's by far a real cowboy town. It's all for looks. Go to West Texas and drive into San Angelo, Eldorado, Sonora, Odessa and all those other places in the region. That's where the true cowboys are. So, since I was in the real west this summer, I was influenced a lot. In fact, I started listening to a lot of country music. My favorite is Toby Keith's As Good as I Once Was. So being in there really gave me a true feeling about what it's like to live in a small town. To read more about those experiences go to my San Angelo Journal and see for yourself.

Once I was done shooting in the water, I decided to get back on the road. Oh... here's what my rubber boots look like. Do you like 'em? Haha!

Of course, driving on my truck "La Huera" is a lot of fun. She's taken me all over the place and will continue to do so in the future. So, she's got to get her photos done, too.

As I headed back on the road, I was really happy for what I had just seen. The beauty of it all really makes drives like these worth while. As I drove, I kept on screaming "I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!!" over and over. I love it. It's fun driving on U.S. Highways as opposed to Interstate Highways. That's because you get to see a lot more land and beautiful things. Soon after getting back on the road a couple on a Harley drove west and I waved at them. They waved back. It's so peaceful on small roads.

After reaching Macon, Georgia, I decided to get onto the Interstate Highway 16. It was the quickest route to the coast. I figured if I had taken Interstate Highway 75 South from here, I would be in Ft. Lauderdale by the end of the day. But, there was so much beauty around here that I wanted to explore more. I was in the mood to see more land and driving down the coast to my final destination seemed like fun. After a few minutes of driving, I reached a milestone just between Chochran and Dublin. There, at around 11:19 a.m., I reached the 1,000-mile mark since leaving Houston 26 hours ago. Up to this point, I had been driving 9,390.9 miles since leaving California in May. Wow, that's a lot of driving and I enjoyed every second of it.

Two hours later I reached the East Coast. I was in Savannah. I drove around downtown and I HAD to get off and explore. This place was so beautiful. Above you can see the bridge that connects Georgia w/ South Carolina. Oh, a chance to cross another state line. Hmm. At the moment, however, all I wanted was to explore Savannah. That place is beautiful.

I got off the car and walked around the river walk. I came across 73-year-old Francisco Garcia, a friendly man w/ warm Apache blood who was in town to attend a big boxing match. He played his music and he was very cool as I approached him. We made small talk and he spoke so many good things. I was impressed by him. He asked me of my ethnic background and was delighted to hear that there is Aztec blood in me.

"You call yourself Aztec?" he asked.

"I sure do" I replied.

"That's very good. If we don't call ourselves by what we are, no one else will. We have to be proud of who we are," he said.

After talking to him, he said that he was playing his music to the river because it was in places like Savannah where Jazz and Blues were created. He spoke of the slaves who used music as a way of power. He said that as she played his music to the river, he could hear the sounds that the first people who played their makeshift instruments there more than a hundred years ago.

He was so cool. I took the above photo because it showed him and the reflection on his shades shows his passion: the river and the instrument.

The road on the river walk is all rocks. It's so cool driving on it. A lot of old school architecture. It was so peaceful walking around.

Ok, since I was so close to a state line, I was not going to let the chance go by. So, I crossed over the bridge and took the "I was there" photo. I drove a few miles into SC before turning back around. There were two things that I saw on that road. A place called "Temptations" was the first place I saw. It was a strip joint. Not sure what to expect of a state that gives you this first impression. A few miles down the road I came across Showboat casino. However, the place was run down and it seemed to be abandoned since long ago. I had enough of SC and I headed back toward GA.

On the drive south in Florida I came across a traffic jam. Two hours ago when I drove through this place there was nothing but fast-moving cars going to Savannah. Now, there was a cop car that had flipped over. I hope the officer was OK.

One hundred and three miles later I ended crossing the Florida border. Finally! I was in Florida. I didn't care that Ft. Lauderdale was some six-plus hours away from here. I was in Florida nonetheless. So, since this was a milestone. I took a photo. Of course I had to add the orange. After all, Florida is known for its oranges.

I am going to take a whole big bite out of this state in the next few months. So it was time to dig in.

The first city that I encountered was Jacksonville. I really wanted to go straight to the beach there, but I went on the loop around the city to get acquainted. I also did that because I knew Interstate Highway 10 is in this city. One of my goals in life is to travel from Interstate Highway 10 all the way from the west to the east coast. Being that I grew up near Santa Monica, Calif, where the 10 begins, it was always a dream to see where it ends. However, that wasn't such at fun experience as I was quickly disappointed with the way the freeway ends. I have always figured the freeway ends the same way it starts: right at the ocean. The highway ended just before getting into the city and there was no big "ending" to it. I really couldn't understand why it ended so abruptly. It would have been nice to add the extra 16.74 miles that is remaining from that point to Neptune Beach right on the East Coast. Oh well. I guess it was OK that I had to divert my trip north off the 10 near New Orleans yesterday. It would have been more disappointing to drive all the way there to just have the freeway vanish onto Interstate Highway 95 there. Oh well. I still want to travel the distance across the country that way. So far, I am missing from Jacksonville to New Orleans and a small, less-than-an-hour drive from Sonora, Texas to Van Horn, Texas which I have not yet done. Besides that, I have seen the whole freeway. Wow! that's about 85 percent or more of the distance. Maybe on the way back. That's if the bridge that served as the causeway through New Orleans that used to be the 10 is still there. As you probably know, the bridge came down w/ the hurricane and in some parts of the city, it was under water.

Driving around Jacksonville was cool. I saw the Alltel Stadium, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars pro football team. I also came across a street called Cortez Road. Cool! All the driving was cool. About an hour and half later I ended on the beach near Little Talbot Island State Park, where I planned to spend the night camping on the beach. However, that bubble burst really quick as I found out that all the spaces in the camp site were taken up. Duh! Who tries to show up unexpectedly on Labor Day Weekend. Duh! So, I proceeded down south. Either I was going to drive through the night and get to Ft. Lauderdale or I was going to find camping. At that point I hoped I did find some camping. I was getting restless and I didn't want to miss my opportunity to see all the cool beaches along the way down to South Florida.

I shot the above photo as my truck and I (along w/ Cookie Monster riding on the center console) took a quick trip aboard a ferry that crosses the St. John's River just south of Little Talbot Island State Park. It was a nice setting as the sun kept on going down. However, I wanted a place to sleep for the night. I didn't want to do a motel because I really wanted to use my new tent for the first time.

An hour and half later I ended at Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine Beach. I found camping there. I got there just in time to set up my tent w/ the last rays of sun light. Then, I went on a hunt for ice and firewood. It was odd driving all over St. Augustine and not finding firewood. Everyone kept saying that "it's not the season". What? Not the season? But I was camping. A good camping experience cannot go w/o a good fire. I must have driven around for an hour before I gave up. I was eager for firewood. So much, that I didn't care that I was tired of driving and all I wanted was some rest. I was able to do some photography during my driving time. The famous St. Augustine Lighthouse was working just fine. I drove around to the perfect spot and shot it. Now I feel like I am in the west coast. Lighthouses are so East Coast, I thought as I shot it. I don't think I ever saw a lighthouse on the west. I guess it's all because of the historic aspects of the United States. Everyone that came from Europe during the exploration period came from the east, hardly ever from the west. So, it makes sense. Well, w/ the lighthouse I felt as if I finally "made it" to the east.

I headed back to the beach and looked around for some wood there. I found lots of it. Unfortunately, it seems as if there was some good rain around here lately and all the wood was wet and couldn't get it to light up. Not even w/ a little help from my "emergency" gas tank. Oh well. At least it was good relaxing time. I ate my first meal of the day and relaxed under the night sky. I had the beach just yards away from my tent, but it was dark and I just went directly to bed.

I didn't have such a long day today as I stopped at many places and shot many photos. In all, I drove 559 miles from Alabama to St. Augustine. Tomorrow I drive the final 300-plus miles to Ft. Lauderdale, so I can't wait. In the process, however, I plan to see some more beautiful Florida sites.

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