Spring Broke

The job had come to an end. All the college spring breakers were gone, and all the bars were empty. The lease on the condo wasn’t up for another week so we figured we’d hang out. The final week was big for high school spring breakers, which turned out to be far worse than college spring break. Even immature college freshmen have some idea how to keep it together when binge drinking. High school kids get their first taste of freedom away from their parents for a week and the shit hits the fan. Now I don’t mean to sound like an old man who forgot what it's like to be a drunk high school kid, but the amount of fighting, passing out, and crying was absolutely through the roof and becoming obnoxious. One night while casually drinking on the beach I found myself encircled by a group of high schoolers, one with a gun, threatening to kick my ass if I didn’t give them beer. Panama City Beach got lame and I was ready to get out of there and never go back.

Despite the offers to work in several different cities, I didn’t make any real plan of what I was going to do when work ended. Dan and I decided to go to Miami to work for the head of the South East of the company. She was the most important connection we made in Panama City Beach and absolutely loved us. She said to just let us know if we wanted to come down and she’d find us some work.  I sent her an email and left “The Spring Break Capital of the World” with hopes of faking the Miami high life with Dominican women with cinnamon skin. We were still in northern Florida when I heard that she was unsure just how much would be available and she would get back to me later that week. I also had options of working in Charlotte and Raleigh, but Miami clearly seemed like the best adventure. We eventually came to the conclusion that moving to a city as expensive as Miami without a certain job was just too irresponsible, even for us.

5 weeks of Spring Break leaves you with one hell of a hangover. I forgot that most people on this planet live in places where drinking all day everyday isn’t the social norm. I flew too close to the sun and I was plummeting back down to the real world. I’d had enough fun for 10 lifetimes, and I felt like I never needed to party again. I was sick, I felt like my IQ dropped 50%, and I couldn’t sleep. I was hurting. I was in need of a serious detox. It was one of those points in life where you tell yourself, “this is the swift kick in the ass I need to get my act together”.
             I was seriously considering cashing in my chips and moving back to Rochester to settle down with a sensible job and start the rest of my life. I felt like some serious soul searching in the wilderness was just what I needed. Dan and I hiked around northern Florida and stayed as far away from bars as we could. We hiked through one forest that legend said was home to the "Fountain of Youth." It sounded like the perfect prescription for my hangover, which had now been debilitating me for two weeks. We went to a secluded camping spot in the Apalachicola Forest 8 miles from the nearest paved road. I was about to pitch the tent and make a fire when Dan got a bug stuck in his eye. Some folks just aren’t cut out for roughing it in the backwoods. We drove back to the nearest town where we stayed the night before, Blountstown, and found a cheap motel. I couldn’t help but laugh at the irony that, even in the midst of a detox, no matter how hard we tried to leave, we’d always end up right back in Blountstown.
              We went to some of  the strangest and most random places in northern Florida just to kill time. We drove on to the Florida State campus in Tallahassee then to a beach community outside Jacksonville where Dan finally got his eyeball fixed. It was when I was watching two guys walk down the street dressed up as Roman guards, berating and whipping another guy dressed as Jesus, who was screaming and carrying a cross, when I decided I couldn’t handle being in the deep South anymore.

A little "soul searching" at Little Talbot Island State Park

I found out that part time was the best Miami had to offer. My boss I hung out with almost every night in Panama City had moved to Raleigh to work for his sister, who I also knew, and told me he could get us full time work there. It was no Miami, but I had a couple of friends from Panama City Beach there and knew the two guys we stayed with on the way down South. There was nothing too exciting about it, but it was a young city, with cheap housing, and I’d had fun the few times I’d been out there. The next day we pointed the car north after a long hike on an island outside of Jacksonville.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived".
        - Henry David Thoreau