Chapter One - Part One: Over the Hills

Note: My original intention was to split the drive down to Florida over two entries. Then, once I got writing, I decided to just keep going while the words were flowing pretty easily. Then, as I tend to do, I changed my mind again, especially after seeing how long of an entry it was going to be if I included both days. So, this is day one of our trek to Florida. Day two will be coming soon, you'll just have to check back to see the chilling conclusion...dun, dun, duuuuunnn... No, wait, that's not right. 

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AND START FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY!

My GPS was suctioned to the windshield, destination Florida. My S3 (that’s a model of cell phone for those technologically challenged readers) was in it’s holder on the dash, playing the Lex & Terry morningradio show. A cooler full of water occupied the middle seat in the U-Haul cab, and the last load of clothes I had washed the night before, along with a few small odds and ends, filled the passenger seat. The sky was still a little hazy with the last of the morning fog lifting, only an hour before midday.

Putting the truck in drive, I pulled out from under the awning into the bright sunshine of a warm, September day. I stopped just before pulling on the road, checked both mirrors, and made certain that I’d actually remembered to get cash for the tolls on the turnpike. Check! It’s somewhat important to note that this may be the first time I’ve ever actually remember that last item on the list at any point before seeing the first sign for the toll and having to dig through my car for change. That small accomplishment on its own made me feel more positive about the journey on which I was about to embark. I headed east  on I-64, a drive that I’ve become very familiar with over the years, at least all the way into Virginia, to connect with the roads that would take us south.

The drive through WV was as beautiful as always. Actually, it was more beautiful than usual, because I got to see more of it. When I take road trips, I usually travel at night to avoid traffic. This time I got cross the mountains and look down in the valleys on all the little towns and homes. The views are magnificent by night, when one’s imagination fills in the gaps between the lighted windows and street lamps below, but even more breathtaking are the scenes where all is visible. There were a couple times I was very tempted to pull over and take pictures, but a large U-Haul on the side of a mountain road in WV tends to spook some drivers. So, I just recorded the images of the rolling hills and white churches to memory.

I spent the second part of the drive after finishing the morning’s Lex & Terry Show like always working my way through playlists on my phone. I use Google Music, so, I have access to pretty much every song I own, which, being a musician and DJ is a pretty extensive library. Over the course of the trip to Florida, I’m sure I went from George Strait to Chuck Berry to AC/DC to BB King to Usher to Led Zeppelin to John Williams and back again. I also took some time when we stopped to try and locate some podcasts I’d enjoy, but I lost interest in that and instead spent some time listening to 24/7 comedy on I Heart Radio.

Just in case you were wondering about
my song selections...

The first day of driving was pretty uneventful to be honest. We drove most of the way staying together pretty close. We made the same stops for gas and at rest stops for both us and the roommate’s dog, Reno. When we got food, it was just something we could eat along the way. FYI, if you are ever at a Sheetz, a chain which hasn’t made its way to Florida, yet, and have the chance to get churros, do yourself a favor.

I was honestly kind of worried about driving the truck that far, not handling it, but just gentle sway of the weight truck putting me to sleep. Based years of study, I almost always fall asleep when I’m riding in a car, In fact, my parents used to drive me around in my car set to get me to fall asleep until they figured out putting me in the car seat on top of the running dryer worked just as well. I don’t often have trouble staying awake driving, though, but I have made the drive to Florida twice in the past and did it all in one shot. Both times I split the drive with someone else, but still, being in a car for that long wears on you pretty hard. This time around, the drive was split over two days, and we were staying overnight in a motel. Surprisingly, I wasn’t even all that tired when we stopped. The lack of fatigue probably had a lot to do with the excitement and adrenaline associate with moving to a new place.

The cause of our less than
desirable accommodations.

The first night after leaving home, we stayed at a Quality Inn that allowed pets. I’ve stayed in them before, and they’re not the nicest places, but it’s usually pretty clean and pretty cheap. This wasn’t a vacation, so, cheap was good. My previous experiences with this and similar chains did not prepare me for the condition of the room. It wasn’t even that the room was dirty – it wasn’t the cleanest, but it wasn’t disgusting – it was more that it was “broken”.

The pet friendly room had obviously held its share of pets in the past based on  the shape of the accommodations we encountered once we got settled in for the night and had a look around. There was a large place at the head of one of the two bed’s where the padding underneath the carpet shown through to the surface. Each lampshade had its share of holes under the plastic cover. A large portion of the wallpaper on one wall was torn with a large corner being peeled back, and in a fashion that reminded me of my home state, the fix for the rest of the split was to tape it back down in place. Being too tired to trudge back to the front desk and complain/switch rooms, we slept in the room, and I made a phone call to Choice Hotels’ customer service department the next day. 

           

You get the idea!

Before I go any further, I’d like to say his about the motel situation. Having spent a lot of time in different chains and locally owned hotels and motels over the years, I’ve found that you can’t really judge one based on its name. You’ll usually find that most chains can be corporate run or locally owned. The corporate locations pretty much all run the same and held to the same standard. The locally owned locations are a different story. The quality you find in these locations is determined by how the owner chooses to run the establishment. I’ve stayed in Marriots and Super 8’s and Red Roof Inns and everything in between. I almost always go with Choice Hotels, and it almost always turns out well. This one experience just happens to be the bad apple.

Anyway, the next day we woke up and got quite an earlier start than the day before. We grabbed something from the continental breakfast and hit the road again. The plan was to get to the apartment by early evening, unload what we had need for the night (beds, a few clothes, bathroom supplies, etc.), spend the rest of the evening cleaning, and finish unloading the truck the next day. It was a nice, easy schedule, not putting too much work on ourselves all at once, but the best laid plans, etcetera, etcetera…

Next: Connection Lost

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I've got a movie blog I update once a week, and a music blog I update once a day. 

Five Minute Florida: Traffic

I’ve decided that there are aspects to my experiences in the Sunshine State that I won’t be able or might forget to cover in my regular posts. To deal with that problem, I’ve decided to create shorter segments entitle Five Minute Florida. Basically, I’ll take whatever topic I’d like to cover, write as much as I can in five minutes, and write one of these shorter segments as often as I can. It gives me the chance to write more often, and hopefully, it’ll bring some more regular readership to my blog. Today’s topic: traffic.

BE SURE TO CHECK THE BLOG ARCHIVE TO THE RIGHT 

AND START FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE JOURNEY!

Living in the area that I do, I don’t really have to deal with traffic all that much locally. There is a small downtown area in which the main street is kind of slow moving at certain times of the day, but I don’t live all that close to downtown Deland. I live more in the outskirts. I’ll delve more into that in one of the main sections of the blog. Traffic here is about like what you’d expect to find in Barboursville, WV. The area itself is similar to that of Huntington’s little sister city, too.

Living here and working at Walt Disney World, I have to travel down I-4, which runs right through the heart of Orlando. This is nothing like I haven’t experienced before. I’ve driven in NYC, Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, Charlotte, Columbus, Atlanta, Nashville, and several other larger cities. The problem here is having to deal with the congestion and crazy drivers so often.

It’s a regular occurrence that I find the normal hour and fifteen minute drive to Lake Buena Vista where Disney is located taking closer to two hours. As you’ll learn later in the blog, it’s our intention to move closer to the city after our lease is up, though. Until that time, I’m stuck sitting in traffic. On top of that, I’ve never seen so many drivers who apparently don’t understand that their swerving from lane to lane, cutting other people off only exacerbates the problem.

There’s no avoiding the highways in Florida either. Since the state charges no income tax, there are tolls everywhere in order to collect money for road upkeep. Just for an example, on my way to rehearsal a last week, I went ahead and used the toll roads. Just to get to practice cost me an extra $6.00 in tolls, and that was only one way! I can’t afford that, obviously, and even if I could I wouldn’t want to pay it all the time. The only place I ever had to deal with tolls back home was on the turnpike. By the way, if you’ve never tried to go through there without cash, do yourself a favor and avoid the headache. Make sure you have cash on you before taking the West Virginia Turnpike; trust me!

I’m becoming more and more accustomed to the driving mentality here, but I can’t seem to adjust my mentality to fit. I still hang back and let people squeeze their car in the lane in front of mine, use my signals properly, and I even stop at all the stop signs still. The road rules in Florida are just one of many small ways that life is different from Mountain State. I can’t say it’s the worst thing ever, but it definitely ranks in the top ten headaches of all time.

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I've got a movie blog I update once a week, and a music blog I update once a day. 

Introduction: Searching for Something, Unsure of What...or: Why I Came Down from Mountains

Regardless of whether you’re first hearing about my move out of state or just looking for an update, I’m finally at a point where I’m settled enough to take some time and record my adventure so far. Before I get started, though, parts of this are going to be fairly disheartening, but I assure that everything has worked out and settled down at this point, so, don’t worry; we’ll get to that soon enough.  I need to start the story from the beginning, though, and explain the thought process that got me where I am.

In 2012, I made some tentative plans to move to Florida with a friend. She had wanted to make the move for a long time and had finally been able to make some headway on saving a little cash to accomplish her goal. She had asked about my interest in going a couple times in the past, but I was never in a place financially where I could afford it, nor was I in a position to leave whatever job I had at the time. Suffice it to say, I always seemed to have something going on to keep me where I was.

I found myself in a different position this past year. I had left the full time job I had held, my apartment lease was running out, and things had really taken a slow turn in the area of music performance opportunities. I was looking for work, but I was unable to find anything that really interested me beyond having steady income. I have had plenty of jobs that were just a source of income, but I wanted to find a career. I had the chance to play with some great musicians, but I wasn’t finding enough opportunities to play in general, and I wasn’t able to focus on the type of music I really wanted to be performing. More importantly, I definitely wasn’t finding an opportunity to make a career of performing, which is my first, but no my only, choice.

This is one of my last shows "back home" with Dustin Burchett & Southern Ground.
Really, I felt like the text need broken up in places. 

The only other things I was going to be leaving were family and friends. My family jumped on board to support my endeavor just like they always have. My friends who are also a very important part of my life were mostly supportive, too. I can honestly say that beyond the familiarity of home, the people close to me are really the only thing I miss regularly…and the mountains, something I never thought about missing.

While I consider many of my friends to be family, each of them seemed to be taking the next step in their lives (marriage, career, children, etc.), and I was having a lot of trouble finding whatever that next step was supposed to be for myself. I guess you could say that I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, but I wasn’t finding it where I was. I don’t know that things will be any different anywhere else, but I needed to find out if they could be.

I really do miss those mountains. The sky is so much bigger here. 

The final decision really came down to a simple thought: what’s the worst that could happen? I move to Florida, sign a lease for a year (the first of which actually wound up not even being that long), I don’t like it, nothing works out, and I come home. On the other hand, I could find a job I really enjoy, get to meet lots of new people, have new experiences, and, if nothing else, miss out on at least one cold, West Virginia Winter. I can even fly home for a pretty reasonable price when I want to come back to visit. I’m currently trying to work out a trip home for Christmas.

So, instead of signing another year lease in Huntington, WV or the surrounding area, I put most of my belongings in storage, and crashed at my mom’s place for about three months until my friend’s lease ran out. During that time, we both worked to save up as much extra cash as we could. I played gigs, had yard sales, sold some things I’d been hanging onto but didn’t really need (finally coming to terms with this is an entirely different story), and continued working a small part-time job.

This all started really picking up momentum in June 2013 when I was out of my lease. By the beginning of September, we were packed and ready to go. On September 4, we loaded the moving truck, twice, because I got in a hurry the first time, and on September 5, we were on the road to sunny Orlando, FL.

That's a 17' U-Haul packed as tight as we could get it.
There's also stuff in the car and the front seat of the U-Haul.

Without going into too much financial detail, we had both saved enough money to be able to survive for a few months, conservatively, without having any real income. We both had an idea of what we wanted to accomplish, and having the money saved up would allow us to take our time to pursue those interests and not be forced to take the first job that came along. I had already done as much math as I could plan ahead for to figure out what the move itself would cost…gas, truck, motels, deposits, etc. I had everything planned out that I could imagine, but as in many instances, what I didn’t imagine was exactly what happened.

Next: Beautiful Sights and a Beat Up Motel

Feel free to check out my other blogs, too. 

I've got a movie blog I update once a week, and a music blog I update once a day.