It had been quite the adventure getting here.
I remember loading up my Metro, backing it into John C.'s muddy backyard with my hatch opened up towards the back doorway. I crammed as much of my possessions into this tiny car completely filling every nook and cranny of the hatch area which had been expanded by folding down the backseats providing as much room as possible. I remember I packed some items that in retrospect I should have thought twice about. Like the big ass 27" TV, an extremely heavy CRT of course. I think now that it might have been wiser to pack many more irreplaceable items like some of my book collection. I had a personal library of over 200 books which I just left to John. Many were very special to me. But I guess I couldn't bare doing without my TV even though I could have bought a new one in Florida. And I could have packed my prints framed under glass more carefully. All of them were damaged, some to the point of ruin, by the glass breaking during the drive down. I should have known. The Metro was a janky ride.
I hugged John goodbye and headed south on Rt. 95. This wasn't my first drive down to Florida in my puny red car, I'd been down a couple months earlier, but due to the front end damage to the car caused by my accident during that visit mentioned in this FLASHBACK post, driving was tricky this time because the wind was catching the hood under where it had been crumpled and it was causing the car to veer wildly to the right. I was especially white knuckling it going over the Delaware Memorial Bridge.
After an overnight stay in Weldon, NC, same little town I stayed in last time, I made it down to Orlando in the middle of the afternoon on May 1st. I found my way to my apartment complex using the printed out MapQuest directions but as I was getting closer and closer to my destination, I was noticing the neighborhood starting to look more and more seedy. Gee, Orange Blossom Trail sounded like such a nice road on a map.
Pulling into my community, my anxiety peaked as I drove slowly around the complex and saw beat up car after beat up car in the lot. Two very thug lookin' dudes were even working on a car they had propped up on a jack while their boombox blared out rap music. Freaked, I decided to pull out of there and I blew off my planned lease signing at the leasing office. Not sure what I was going to do, I decided to drive down to my sister's house in Vero Beach. I told her about the look of the neighborhood and she knowingly nodded. Yeah, Florida was different than Rhode Island, that's for sure. She said I shouldn't worry about, Jan and her would drive up following me in my car the next morning and check it out.
So the next day we drove there, I got the key and we three checked out my apartment before I signed the lease. It was neat and clean, no sign of mold or roaches and for some reason the hood denizen's were not to be seen or heard today so I felt a lot better. Plus, my apartment windows had a great "lake" view. (I soon learned that even ponds are called lakes here in Florida.) I signed my lease and my sister and her wife went back to Vero Beach.
I enjoyed my new apartment and my new Florida lifestyle but maybe a little too much. I spent a lot of time drinking Coronas and living like a tourist on vacation and hardly ever went into work. Being Dial, just like the one up north, they tolerated it well enough. But my finances? Well that's another story.
So now here it is, 20 years later and I'm still here. I have a feeling I'll probably be here to the end. And, well, I guess that's not so bad after all.