Winter Road Trip

At around noon on New Year’s Day, Bryce and I packed up my parents’ car and started driving. As we drove through Madison we ate dinner and picked up some mead, a honey liquor that Bryce has been brewing and perfecting all year.

We left Madison and started driving south. The drive down there was very long but rather uneventful. We had to stop once or twice to take a little nap in the parking lot of a truck stop but we were just excited to be on the road. We drove through Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and then finally Florida. We arrived in Miami at about 3:00 am in the morning after a day and a half of driving.

We had found a campground on the internet before we left that cost only ten dollars per night so we decided to go there and wait for it to open so we could set up the tent and sleep. We parked in their lot and tilted the seats back to nap for a few hours. We were awakened by a groundskeeper knocking on our window. He told us that there was no need to wait and that we could just set up our tent and pay for the site during the day. We gladly obliged and slept like logs for most of the following day.

That evening, we drove to Miami Beach to do a little exploring. There were lots of interesting people and very expensive homes and cars. I bought a few cigars made by a cool Cuban guy and had one as we walked along the beach. After a night of exploring, we went back to the camp site and went to sleep. The following day was just another day of exploring, swimming in the ocean, and talking to interesting people that we met. I also set up meetings with a few of the people I had been communicating with over the internet so I could go see their boats for sale.

The two of us woke up the next morning and ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal. We were meeting a guy so I could look at his boat. We found the marina where he told us to meet him and waited. He finally showed up and introduced himself as Rex.

Rather than keeping his boat at this marina, Rex had his boat anchored in an unused harbor in Biscayne Bay. We walked over to a very rickety old metal dinghy on the shore that he untied. We helped him push it into the ocean and got in. The oar locks had long since broken off and there was one oar that had broken in the middle and one that seemed flimsy but was nonetheless in one piece. He sat in the front and Bryce and I sat in the back. He paddled on the port side and I paddled with the broken oar on the starboard side. We finally made it to his boat after zig-zagging back and forth and we tied up. He invited us aboard and what we found was very surprising. There was junk everywhere: broken boat pieces, a disassembled bilge pump in the sink, cigarette butts everywhere, and not a working piece of electronics in sight. I poked around the boat for a while and finally took the floorboards off to look in the bilge. I found the bilge nearly filled up to the floorboards and the water smelled very strongly of feces. I asked him why the bilge pump was not working and he replied (from outside where he couldn't see the filled up cesspool that was the bilge,) "This boat is tight as a drum; I don't even have a bilge pump because I never need one."

I finished looking through the boat so we all got back in the dinghy and began to row towards shore. I asked him if he usually towed the dinghy behind when he went on sailing trips. “Oh yes, I've never had a problem with it,” he replied. A very small wave hit us as I shifted slightly. The dinghy was so poorly constructed that the hull twisted and water started pouring in at an alarming rate over the stern. He was not aware of the swamping that was in progress since he was facing forward and paddling ferociously with his broken paddle. In between frantic strokes with my own paddle, I asked him whether or not he ever has ever had a problem with water getting into the boat. To my astonishment, he replied, “Oh no, this little boat is unsinkable, it would take a hurricane to get any water inside this thing.” As soon as he was finished uttering those words, another very small wave hit us at the wrong angle and water gushed over the stern at a rate which would cause any seasoned mariner to abandon ship. We somehow barely stayed afloat and continued the now very difficult paddle to shore. As we were nearing shore, the second of the two paddles snapped in half.

We tied up the dinghy and began walking back to the car. I had earlier expressed an unwillingness to leave a boat I buy anchored for five months until I was able to come back and begin my trip. Rex, in his infinite wisdom, decided to show me another harbor owned by a friend of his that I could keep the boat anchored. He told us that it was a very protected harbor and would be very safe there. He then went on to explain that I should not tell the owner of the bay before I anchored it there because he was trying to keep derelict boats out of the harbor. I was again floored by this since it was quite clear that the few boats that were in the harbor were most definitely derelict and were horrible eyesores. When I told him this, he replied, “Oh, those are just fine because they are owned by [names random people that neither of us knew.]” I had had quite enough and told Rex that I would call him the following day with my decision and we drove off.

After this very interesting and humorous adventure, we visited a very cool boat that is cheaper, in better condition, and not owned by a crazy idiot. I am considering buying it but have several kinks to work out beforehand. In the evening Bryce and I drove up to Miami Beach and walked along Ocean Drive and the beach. On our way back, Bryce refused to go with me to sneak into the fancy hotel pools and hot tubs on the beach so we just drove back down to the campground. As we got in, a ranger pulled up to out site in a pickup truck and started talking to us. At first I thought that we had broken some sort of rule (like we did earlier in the day when we hung up a clothesline) but he turned out to be a crazy old man that was desperate to talk to someone. He told us about all the best strip clubs in town and knew exactly how much each of them cost. Even as Bryce and I slowly backed up signaling him to leave, he continued to talk to us about Britney Spears' new boyfriend and Jenifer Lopez's child support payments. He finally left and Bryce and I had a cool glass of mead before going to bed.

I eventually looked at a couple of other boats, all of which were better deals than Rex's. I found one that I liked in particular but for a variety of reasons decided not to buy it at the time, but instead to keep in contact with the seller over the next several months.