WAGONWHEEL WEDNESDAYS: FLORIDA

The stereotype of Florida is that it's nothing but old folks. While I've come to realize this isn't true, there was a time in my life that I thought the only young people were my cousins. If you only go to Florida to visit your grandparents, you'll probably only see retirees. After people stop working, they usually don't associate with teenagers, unless the teens are family, or they don't move to Florida in the first place. So it's an understandable stereotype.

Florida's an odd place. I used to think of it as this anomaly in the South. Geographically Southern but culturally Yankee. There's something to this. You can definitely find a hell of a lot of New York culture in Florida. Unless you venture far enough north of Miami. Jacksonville is without a doubt the South. I took a train once from Philadelphia to Miami. Florida may be a skinny place geographically but it takes forever to travel North to South. So I had plenty of time to see some country ass shit. Red clay everywhere.

I haven't actually spent time in the northern parts and I probably never will. In fact, I don't plan to return to Florida unless I'm visiting family. Miami isn't my kind of scene. Sure there's great food. But the drunk partying fuckers kind of make the whole atmosphere not worth the taste. I'm sure there are many hole-in-the-walls where you can get a kick ass Cuban sandwich far from tourists, but the main restaurants are a mess. You have to wait about an hour to get your food. Not just some places, but almost all places. I guess it's part of experience. Fuck that.

You may've heard that the weather in Florida is amazing. Sure, February is lovely. July though is a mess. Hurricanes, bugs, gators. No thanks.

I do admit the Everglades are pretty cool and I would return to Florida to visit them in more depth. Manatees are rather lovable animals. When I was eight I adopted a Manatee named Titconius. Sadly, I didn't actually take him from the swamps to live in my bathtub. A few dollars a month and that's all. I'm sure Titconius had many foster parents. I just loved that he had "tit" in his name. I had probably learned the word "tit" a week before the adoption papers came. And now I had a manatee named "tit." And you wonder why I was obsessed with breasts at a young age. I was trained that way, damn it!

Today's route will include where I've been by train. I'll denote that with a yellow highlight instead of black.