The weather is here, wish you were beautiful...

R

What a hell of a day, waking up late in a large bed, an hour behind a so called ‘schedule’. Pack, pack, pack, rush, rush, rush. And on the road we go after thanking the lady at the front desk for TOTALLY hooking me up with an awesome room for cheap. $99 for a two bed mansion it seemed like, instead of the $110 single. Awesome people seem to be basically falling into my lap.

I-4 to Florida’s Turnpike…
I-4 to Florida’s Turnpike…
I-4 to…
Hmmm….
Tampa 60 miles
I-4 to…Where the fuck is the turnpike?!?!
Jesus Christ…

I-4 to I-75 through some craptacular rush hour traffic. Sweet! Once I finally hit the bend in I-75, I turned my car roughly 90* left, strapped the wheel down and crawled into the back for a quick nap. Seriously though, the everglades are nice, water level about eyesight, wide, WIDE shoulders leading up to 9-10 foot tall chain link fences.

I suppose the reason for the wide medians is so people are less likely to stop and go croc hunting, since they’d have to go quite a ways from their car to get to the fence. Of course, I like to think the wide shoulders are to give the crocodiles a fair chance at getting a tender, juicy meal before they make it back to the road.

75 to 27 to 997 and more everglades. I am impressed with them, no matter how repetitive they might be. A part of nature within a few miles from very large cities and it has yet to be consumed. Now I’m no hippie, progress is progress mind you, but being as such, quite an accomplishment. Go soggy bottom!

I wonder what it would look like if all these trees still had their leaves.

Pembroke Pines. I chuckle. Driving some more, almost like home, small ass highway, speed limit signs that might as well not be there for most, jawsome. Maybe the day will get better.

Highway 1, your gateway to the Keys! Friggin whoooo! Two lanes, trees on either side to block the blissful tourists from the swamp, crocodile crossing signs, the whole nine. Little bit of construction, people stick to the limit, life is good. I start to think again, the road spacing out the people in front and behind. I start to think if it’s actually possible to swim to Cuba, at least when it’s warmer. Maybe it’d be a nice lil side trip if I had the money, I could almost smell the cigars from way up here, then the natural gas/swamp gas/gassy gas hit my nose and I almost puked. I hate being so sensitive to those vapors. I cough pretty hard, keeping the car on the road and

F

THUNKkkkkchhhhhhhhhhTHUNKkkkkkchhhhhthuddathuddathuddathudda WHAT THE HELL?!
I brake slowly, noticing the other lane of traffic doing the same and look in my rear view. The crap was a log doing in the road? Someone’s gotta move it I guess, and since I used it as my own personal wake up call I shifted into reverse, backed up, slipped onto the shoulder and got out, as I noticed a few others doing as well. It’s just a log, but any help is appreciated. Then I see what the hubbub is about.

Dudes, I ran over a fucking crocodile. Right the fuck over it. Evidently it had been in the shrubbery blocking the glades from the road, and the sound of construction had been agitating it, and evidently I wasn’t the only one grumpy about the smell, so it tried to munch on my front bumper, which broke it’s bottom jaw, but this thing is like 25 foot long, weighed had to be 400 pounds or more, so it’s momentum took it a lil further forward, and its upper torso rolled under my car, and continued to spin as I made like Speedracer across its jaw. One of the people stopped was a Wildlife ranger type guy, can’t remember what they call them down here, I was too friggin busy staring at the CROCODILE I had just tenderized. He said he saw the whole thing, which saved me from having to explain to the county wildlife committee what I was doing ramping my wagon over crocodiles on my way down to the Keys, and especially a $100,000 fine if they found me guilty of not yielding to a speedy reptile.

That bastard pulled out in front of me. Hate that.

Anyways, we were talking about it and the thing starts to groan, and then we notice that it’s leg is twitching in the old ‘snapped neck’ way, but its eyes are still rolling around and god does it look pissed. I could swear that thing was gonna use its tongue to paddle over to me and show me what was up. Tit for tat. The thing was still friggin alive, crushed jaw, broken neck, a head that had been smashed against the pavement many times when it started to roll (Saturn wagons also practice the ‘death roll’ technique, but instead of drowning you in water, it’s motor oil. More calories, but they get a lot of exercise.) Anyways, the wildlife official checks him out and radios into the crew that he had just called in before he got out of his vehicle and told them not to bother. This thing had been crushed and skinned basically, but those damn groans were really starting to get to me.

We had to put it down.

So, since I was the one that put it in this condition, I had to do the duty. I pulled out my gerber, very nice knife, kept it sharp, but never thought I’d put it to this, and straddled my frozen friend. Now, I hate reptiles pretty much, especially those that want to kill me, and crocodiles who try to snack on my ride are no exception. I’m not doing too good at this point, but nevertheless, suffering is suffering. I put the tip of my knife at the point the ranger had specified, took a deep breath, bit my lip, and shoved the knife forward, completely severing the spinal cord at the base of the skull instead of simply mangling it.

This thing must have had lungs like an oil tanker, and they rushed out as I yanked my knife back out from between its skull and vertebrae. It was a long, tragic death gust, and as it finished off the third eyelids involuntarily slid up, giving his eyes an odd, milky look. Some of the onlookers were none to pleased with me. I’m not sure how well I’m going to be liked in Florida from now on, just glad there was no press to ask me what it felt like to be an amphibian hating redneck. The officer, myself, and a few of the larger construction workers coiled the body up in the back of the truck and said our goodbyes.

Then I got airlifted to my hotel. Turns out that croc had been on the rampage, dealing dope, smuggling crack, murders, pimping, you name it. So tonight Jimmy Buffet is flying down here to Margaritaville to name me the Crocodile Slaying God of Key West in a celebration which will involve much drinking, and then give me a couple mil to ‘stay cool’ as he will put it, and say if I ever need a drinking buddy to call him on his private go-to line. It’s been a bitchin day.