First Night
January 22, 2017 – Anastasia State Park – Saint Augustine Beach, Florida
Today was so fabulous, so normal, so everything I imagined this trip would be. No snags at all, save the unfortunate “chain” of events on the bridge. (Now, that was a great freakin' pun, admit it.)
I ride my bike over the Bridge of Lions and enter Anastasia State Park, where I'll spend my first night. Why the hell am I nervous? I've traveled alone in some pretty sketchy places. It's just camping. You've camped a million damn times! You've slept out on the beach, in a hammock in the swamp, in your car at a rest stop.
Didn't make any sense. I wasn't terrified, but I was definitely scared. Turns out, I wasn't crazy for being so.
I check in with the park ranger.
Ranger: All right, here's your map so can find all the trails, restrooms, and other goodies. Just to let you know, there are raccoons all over the place in our park and they're not afraid of people. We tell people not to feed 'em, but they do it anyway. You should keep all food items inside in closed containers so you don't attract them. Aaaaand...you should be all set.
Me: Thanks!
Ranger: Oh, one more thing. I don't know if you're aware but we're supposed to get some pretty nasty weather tonight. Since you're in a tent, I would advise going to the restrooms if things get too ugly. It's a concrete structure.
Nasty weather, huh? Nothing this Florida girl ain't seen before.
Not a good start
I'm so freakin' awkward. Really?! I choose NOW to learn to set up a rain fly?! I choose NOW to try and remember all the knots I was supposed to learn when we lived on a damn sailboat?!
I can't just sleep in my hammock tonight. I look at the weather and it is, indeed, going to get pretty ugly.
I'm so nervous I end up over-engineering the shit out of my rain fly. Sixty-seven knots, anchor points, and fasteners. The tent is quadruple-staked to the ground. I would love to say it's a fortress, but I have no damn idea what I'm doing.
I put all my crap inside and settle down to read, even though dusk hasn't yet fallen.
Professional camper, indeed!
After a couple of hours I get really hungry and all I have is trail mix and a few other random things. I had no intention of going back out tonight, but the overwhelming sweetness of all this “food” is unbearable. I need something real for dinner.
All I can find is fast food and it's dark. There's a bunch of shady characters standing outside and sitting inside. Once again I'm atypically scared. I pat my backpack to make sure my firearm is still in the proper “get it out quick” position. Yep. On the way home, the wind picks up.
I can't eat too much. I pack everything up, just like the Ranger said to do. I even double-bag to be super-duper responsible.
Finally some rest. I put my phone on silent and read a book. The rain begins. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a heavy thunderstorm with wind gusts. I poke my head outside to make sure all my knots, stakes, bells, and whistles are holding strong.
I'm jolted out of my book by a piercing siren. I thought my phone was on silent, but it ain't no more. The alert on my screen looks different:
Tornado Warning in Your Area. Take Cover.
Are you fucking kidding me?!!! (And, yes, I say this audibly.)
Pull up some weather app. I plot my shitty-ass, sorry-ass, cheap little tent, with my noob-no-survival-skills ass inside on the Severe Weather map and it looks like this tornado will make touchdown – LIKE BULLSEYE-LEVEL-PRECISION touchdown – on me in just a few short minutes.
Moth-er...fuck-er. I don't need this right now.
I take my phone and peel my ass out of the tent, doing a limbo-contortionist thing cause the rain fly is too tight and too low. I make my way to the restroom building, just as the nice Ranger suggested.
I look back. My shitty little tent is jerking, pulling, and leaning. Looks like a rodeo bull right before they open the pen and dig the spurs in.
I freak out, run back, and peel my ass back in to get my expensive stuff. Yeah, 'cause I just left my laptop (really?! A laptop on a self-discovery trip ya dumb shit?) and professional-grade camera inside. What a dumbass.
Where is everyone?
I sit in the restroom building for over an hour. I'm the only one here.
Did they tell everyone where they're supposed to go? I wonder if they know a tornado is about to kill us all.
But since I'm not motherfuckin' Chicken Little, I stay put and just stare off into the blackness beyond the door.
It's ugly in here. I feel so damn alone. Fluorescent lights assault once freshly-painted cinderblock walls. The washer and dryer, equally zombie-apocalyptic-looking from years of being workhorses for traveler skidmarks.
They've seen some shit. Should prolly just take 'em out back and shoot 'em.
I'm Indian-style on a sad little bench, my head flops onto my hands. I stare at the dirty floor. I can barely hear the howling of the wind outside over the sickening buzz of fluorescent bulbs.
Check the track. We're still probably going to get hit.
I miss him.
You've been my travel buddy for two years you fucking deserter! Why aren't you here right now?!
I shouldn't be mad at him. Why would any sane person choose this over hanging out with friends, watching a football game, and drinking beer in the comfort of a riverfront condo?
Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me?
To waste time I go pee. Walk very slowly back to the sad bench and plop down. The trees are getting quite the shakedown outside. Another 30 minutes.
Fuck this. I'm getting the hell out of here.
I'd rather get blown to Oz right now than listen to another second of these psychosis-inducing fluorescent bulbs.
Outside the world is dangerous, but magical. I stay close to the restrooms, but cautiously venture out to stand beneath the canopy. It's surreal. The branches whip violently, but look absolutely stunning, almost like they're dancing. I think back to the passionate Tango dancers I used to watch in Buenos Aires. The dancers almost appeared to be fighting as the dude whipped and jerked the chick around, their legs interlocking and then gorgeously disentangling before the next round of pasión(!!).
The energy of the wind is intoxicating. I can feel my body picking up little particles of it through the skin. And my hair? I'm most certainly waking up with dreads tomorrow.
But who cares?
The branches creak loudly and repetitively, but not a single one breaks. The sound of the wind screaming would make a fine horror sound sample.
I'm afraid of being knocked out by a falling branch, but don't go back inside because this, right here, has been my metaphor for life ever since I had my epiphany on that beach fifteen years ago:
I might die out here. But that's alright. I'd rather be witness to such beauty, vigor, excitement, and perhaps pain and death than spend another second inside with that fucking washer and dryer.
To be continued...