Saturday morning I set out from my aparment in Brooklyn to catch a 3:00 flight to Miami. There were a few airline complications at Westchester County Airport (a.k.a. I missed my flight). I always fly out of WCA in White Plains, which is about thirty-or-so miles outside the Big Apple, because it's less hectic, less crowded, and you can usually meet a beautiful girl from Westchester who drives a Benz and lives off daddy's money.
Because WCA is such a small airport, Airtran only had one flight departing for the rest of the day and it was bound for Orlando. Close enough to Miami, right? I changed my ticket and 2 1/2 hours later at 9:30 PM I found myself rideless, friendless, and broke in Orlando, home of Disney and Sea World. So, what do you do when you are in a city 230 miles from your destination and you don't have money or an actually plan to get where you're going? You trick.... And enjoy the hell out of the adventure.
I did a couple flips on the side of the road a mile from the airport and caught a ride on a local bus for zero-fair and was dropped off near the Florida Turnpike, a direct route to Miami. At about 11 PM I found myself bound south, walking down the turnpike with my thumb up, watching cars speed by. I called a couple friends every hour on the hour as a safety net to send out a search party in case I was molested by a junkie disguised as a palm tree or robbed at gun-point and shot by a senior-citizen hooker. It could happen. Have you seen Monster? But I live in Brooklyn so I'm automatically arrogant enough to think nothing can happen to me and what haven't I seen before, flicked off, and walked past in the subway?
I made it about eight miles down the road when I was picked up by a cop. He offered to take me to a truck stop so that I could catch a ride with trucker from there, seeing as I had no money. He drove me back to within two blocks of where I started. Back to square one.
To make a long story short, I woke up a lot of truckers at 3 AM, made electronic device barter offers in exchange for a ride South, made a couple deals, went to sleep behind a gas station under a palm tree, smoked my first Marlboro (it was that kind of night), woke up at 11 AM, missed my rides, tried to make other deals to no immediate avail, waited around until 6 PM, caught a free ride on a local bus to a Greyhound Bus Terminal that was closed, caught another local bus going the other way to downtown Orlando's Greyhound, bartered off an old digital camera in exchange for a $47 ticket to Miami, met a guy who worked for ESPN Magazine, networked to get Streetflips involved with some upcoming magazine events and shoots, met a beautiful girl, got on the bus, texted the beautiful girl halfway through the trip, got to downtown Miami at 4AM, walked five miles to Miami Beach, watched the sunrise as I laid across the sand and the waves rushed up to against my feet, passed out, woke up, confirmed the tricks battle against Danny Graham tomorrow, and came to the Apple Store to blog about it.
Just another day.
No comments:
Post a Comment