Spring Break had washed up on the Florida Panhandle. Thousands of college kids covered the beaches like migratory seals beached during mating season, surrounded by millions of discarded beer cans. I was heading toward Panama City Beach – the epicenter of all the madness – on my way to California.

I called ahead for a place to camp on the beach. When I asked the guy if his campground was quiet he laughed – “Quiet, are you kidding? It’s Spring Break. It’s all day and all night.” I imagined loud throbbing sounds and screaming drunks throughout the night. I hesitated and told him I’d call back.

As I drove on down the road it dawned on me that I was turning into an old man – more worried about a night’s sleep and a good bowel movement than leaping into an outrageous all night party. I couldn’t let such rigamordous set in yet. I called back and booked a campsite. I wasn’t dead yet.

As I got closer to Panama City Beach the traffic crawled to a stop and became a giant tailgating party. Trucks, cars and motorcycles revved and honked as the college kids screamed and howled with high octane testosterone.

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I got to the beach just in time to see the sun setting over the beer can littered beach. The scene screamed reckless party. Tomorrow I’d get an earlier start.

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The sun went down and I got set for the nighttime party scene. Sleeping would be futile. I sucked down an energy drink and dove into the clubs on the beach. At my age I was a crasher. But in the dark and with the right clothes, I could almost pass for youngish to those who were drunk. With hard liquor I might even be mistaken for young – or so I hoped.

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I moved through the nightclubs snapping photos. Vanity is a powerful force and merely smiling and pointing the camera at them was all it took to get most partiers to strike a pose.   Only one drunk redneck got angry and said he didn’t want to end up on a gay website. I told him he’d have to loose the beer belly to live that dream.

Like you, I ended up only getting to look (ok, some touching). I went to bed to the sound of trucks, cars and motorcycles revving and honking as the children of the night screamed and howled. What sounds they make.

The next morning I stumbled back on to the beach. I think the photos tell the story so I’ll shut up and let you gawk.

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Next Stop – The Redneck Riviera

It was “last call” for life in South Florida for me. I was packed and ready to hit the road. I had only three days left in South Florida and I planned to make them my best three days. The beautiful and charming Polish Princess flew into Fort Lauderdale from Chicago and we drove down to South Beach and checked in to the National Hotel.

She had never seen South Beach. So it was mandatory that she experience staying at an art deco hotel with an elegant private pool on the edge of the white sands of south beach. Our back yard was the pool, the beach and the ocean, while our front yard was the party club land of South Beach.

We swam, fine dined and partied and then headed down to the Florida Keys to relax together. It was a fabulous three days. If only life could be such a fairy tale – for more than just three days.

Next Stop – The fabulous Florida Keys

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I’ve always had a love hate relationship with South Florida (see “Florida – A Love Hate Story“). I love the warm tropical waters and the fun in the sun. Yet the generally vacuous, vain and materialistic mind set of South Florida made living there feel like having sex with a seductive whore – satisfying at first but ultimately empty.

The overall “climate” of a place depends on much more than just the weather. It’s the people and the “vibe” that matter most. After road tripping North American for almost two years, I’ve decided that Northern California, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge is the right climate for me (see “Paradise Found”).

But now that I’ve packed my car for the road trip to California, I feel what I will be leaving behind:

• Rollerblading through the tree and along the water at Hugh Taylor Birch Park.

• Grilling at the park and watching the sunset over the intercostal waterway.

• Seeing the beautiful boats floating by.

• The friends I’ve grown to love.

• Kayaking in the waterways of Fort Lauderdale and seeing the occasional manatee.

• Seeing the many beautiful women from South America, Europe and the USA.

• Swimming in the ocean and diving into the warm waves.

• Warm soft Caribbean breezes in January . . .

The list of what I’m leaving behind is a long one. But travel has taught me how to let go and move on – to trade one beautiful place for another.

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Florida, thanks for all the wonderful moments and crazy good times that are now part of my life.

Next Stop – Glamorous South Beach and the Keys

Rick Ronveaux’s background is French and he is a passionate French speaking Francophile. Knowing his love for all things French, I knew he would enjoy Soraya immensely. Watching them speak French and laugh together I knew the feeling was mutual.

Rick is a formally trained jazz drummer who worked in marketing for MTV in its early days. He’s passionate about music and promotes a rock and roll band that he loves just for fun. I’ve always known him as “Rock and Roll Rick”.

Dolce Vita in Florida

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Amelia Island – the Northern Atlantic Coast of Florida

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I got to know Rick and his wife Kay through Rick Jr. I met Rick Jr. in Costa Rica (see Ricardo the Gringo) and he always spoke with great admiration about his father Rick and his wife Kay. Having gotten to know Rick and Kay, I now know why.

Rick’s lovely wife Kay worked for Delta Airlines. This has given Kay and Rick a free ticket to explore the world, often in first class. They’ve been true jet setters for many years, with frequent trips to France and St. Bart’s Island in the Caribbean.

They live a cultivated life in their hand crafted home, with Fernandina Beach a short stroll away. Rock and Roll Rick trades investments online and write and rants for a financial publication online called “Fortune Bound Happiness” After a couple of glasses of French wine we inevitably fall into ranting about the shearing of the mass populous by the government and the ruling elites and the impending collapse of the fraudulent financial system.

But come what may, the Ronveaux’s always have great food and wine and charming hospitality for those who are lucky enough to be invited into their home.

Nearby St. Augustine, Florida – the oldest city and port in the USA (P0p. 12,157) founded by the Spanish in 1565.

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Next Stop – Forest Gump Land

Florida is a truly amazing state, ranging from the bible-thumping panhandle to the subtropical cha, cha, cha Latino land of Miami. They say that the further North you go in Florida the more Southern it gets. How absolutely true it is.

Over the past four years that I’ve lived in Florida, I’ve driven the entire 1,200 mile coastline of Florida (with the exception of the inaccessible Everglades at the very bottom of the state) from Pensacola down along the gulf and up the Atlantic side from Key West all the way North to Amelia Island near Jacksonville.

It’s a marvelous paradise that has been embraced by so many people that its natural beauty is in danger of being crushed. Each year over eighty million people visit Florida from around the world. Every day over 1,000 of them decide to stay and defect from scraping ice off windshields or from unrest in South America.

Who can blame them? Not me – I’m one of them.

South Florida – One Giant Parking Jam in the Sun?

I chose to live in the South East corner of Florida where it’s subtropical and loaded with people from the entire world. But I have mixed emotions about South Florida.

Like a well dressed whore – South Florida is seductive at first glance. But in time its soullessness can leave one feeling empty like a John holding an empty wallet.

From Palm Beach down to Miami, South Florida is one giant sprawling pile up of people – as if everyone drove down and no one turned around to go back. No wonder Miami has been voted the worst drivers in the US for the past two years.

Chicken farmers have long known that if you pack live chickens closely together in cages they have to be debeaked or they will peck each other to death. South Florida residents are now so tightly packed they are pecking the Hell out of each other on the road, in condo association meetings and in the malls.

South Florida needs to be debeaked because the rampant materialism, lack of community and vanity of South Florida is crushing not just the trees but a lot of good souls.

Perhaps some day the mother of all hurricanes will roll in from the Atlantic with a twenty foot water surge and flush everyone and everything into the everglades. Judging from the escalating insurance premiums the insurance actuarians are banking on it.

Some Floridians aren’t waiting for the hurricane and left Florida for quieter places like North Carolina or Tennessee, where large tracts of trees still survive. Apparently they’d rather be high and dry and contend with boredom than deal with hurricanes, escalating taxes, insurance and crowded roads.

They paved paradise to put up a parking lot . . .

I never understood the meaning of the lyrics “They paved paradise to put up a parking lot . . . ” until I moved to South Florida a few years ago. What a natural paradise it must have been 100 years ago when people actually lived in and among the trees rather than paving them over.

But yet not all has been “developed”. My favorite oasis of unmolested South Florida is the Hugh Taylor Birch state park. Sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intercostal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale, Florida it’s an oasis of old ficas and palm trees, iguanas and birds.

It would no doubt be covered with concrete, condos and cars if not for the wisdom and generosity of Mr. Hugh Taylor Birch. He gave up his Chicago law practice around the turn of the century and purchased over 300 acres of ocean front paradise for $1.00 per acre. He built a modest home near the beach and lived amongst the trees until he died at the age of 90 in 1940.

He must have loved his trees and animals more than money because he gave his property to the state of Florida with the strict condition that his land and its pristine nature be kept in tact.

I thank him for every day that I’ve enjoyed roller blading through his park or relaxed and watched the boats float by on the Intercostal while grilling out.

There is no perfect paradise on earth – anywhere. Even Mr. Birch’s pristine property has mosquitoes. We make our own Heaven and or Hell where ever we are. I hope the people of Florida treasure the beauty of Florida and choose to enhance it rather than crush it.

Crass Florida	Beautiful Florida
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Are we feeling the magic of this little valley nestled in the new age town of Cassadaga? Or are we just having a great day?

The locals, many of whom offer physic readings and healing from there homes, claim that like Sedona Arizona, this special valley is right on a high energy lay line. The story goes that in 1894 a spiritualist in New York named George Colby was “guided” by an Indian channel called Seneca to found a spiritual center in this tiny village surrounded by trees and lakes.

The center became a winter refuge for spiritualists and today is populated exclusively by dozens of “certified” spiritualists who provide tourists with guidance, healing and spiritual education and classes. Those who live in the center area of town must be spiritualist to live there.

Imagine living in a community where every one can read each others minds, bend spoons or commune with ghosts. The locals claim there is no crime. I can understand why.

Learn more about the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp and its spiritualist principles

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Soraya’s Tarot Card Reading

This afternoon Soraya had her cards read by a Dr. Rob. Apparently he was granted a PhD by the local Center and has been doing spiritual readings for over ten years with over 7,200 readings to date.

His bare bones office had less charm and frills than a gas station restroom, with a credit card reader sitting on an almost empty desk. It was so unpretentious that it was impressive – $25 for fifteen minutes and $40 for a half hour.

Soraya has read tarot cards for her personal friends for years. Her insights have often proven to be dead on and her predictions prophetic. Before she had barely shared her name with Dr. Rob, he recounted her past and present as accurately as an old friend. Dr. Rob’s reading genuinely impressed her. Apparently Dr. Rob was impressed by Soraya’s psychic abilities as well because he offered her a job doing readings.

While Soraya would not divulge what Dr. Rob predicted for her future, she did share that Dr. Rob predicted that I would travel continuously for the next two years around the world, while creating this site. I hope he’s right.

Hearing the Inner Voice

The town of Cassadaga, with its rolling little hills and mix of tropical and northern trees does not feel like Florida or any other place in the US or in the world. It feels universal and eclectic.

Only fifty miles away from Mickey Mouse and all the happy plastic bullshit and two hundred miles north of Miami, where so many people run tirelessly from themselves, Cassadaga is a place to slow down and stop running. It invites and encourages visitors to slow down and catch up with themselves – to become quiet and hear the inner voice.

I believe in listening to the inner voice and trusting in intuition. But I’m skeptical of trusting others to see my way for me or predicting my future. To me it feels like giving over ones personal power to another.

The spiritualists believe that the existence and personal identity of the individual continues after the change called death. Personally, I’m not sure and so I won’t pretend to know.

The universe is full of mysteries that we can’t even ponder, let alone know. I’d rather deal honestly with the ambiguity than substitute false certainties, no matter how convenient.

Gangsters and the Spiritualists

Most spiritualists and new age practitioners believe that everything happens for a reason. So how do they explain Al Capone building his vacation hideout right on the edge of their spiritualist camp? Personally if I were hiding from the Feds I would not live next to a large encampment of psychics. The locals I spoke to did not have an answer.

I wonder if the spiritualists accurately predicted that he would do hard time on the Rock in Alcatraz prison for tax evasion of all things and then die after a miserable bout with syphilis?

Hitler also consulted with psychics and mystics. But I don’t believe they were willing to tell him the truth about his future and Germany’s. If they could predict that Berlin would be destroyed as he huddled in his bunker would they really tell him? They could safely predict that such a prediction would probably get them executed.

Perhaps we are all better off inventing our own futures rather than having them revealed.

Next Stop – Dolce Vita in Florida

Our first stop on our way up the coast was the famous  Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida. The rich know how to eat and where to go to avoid the cold. For the East Coast elite of the nineteen twenties the Breakers in Palm Beach was the place for dining during the winter.

My fabulous French travel companion, Soraya, and I decided to sample the life and lunch at the Breakers. Yes, RVing can be elegant if you know where and when to pull over.

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Next Stop – Camping with the spiritualists in pyschic town of Cassadaga, Florida

This string of over thirty major islands below southern Florida (the keys) is connected by by a single highway (Hwy 1). It begins with the big island of Key Largo and ends 100 mile later in Key West. One stretch of the highway spans across the ocean for seven miles. Each key has its own flavor and pace.

The key to enjoying the keys is slowing down and getting off the main highway, which is largely an eyesore. It’s the sleepy lagoons, inlets and bays that are off the main commercial drag that are the real Keys.

I’ve always made it a ritual to stop at the first island, Key Largo, and decompress by snorkeling. In my experience the snorkeling tour of the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is excellent. The boat takes you through the mangroves and then out a few miles to the teal blue waters near the reefs. It’s like swimming in a gigantic aquarium.

You can also kayak in the mangroves and swim on a beautiful beach at the John Pennekamp State Park. If you swim out a little ways from the beach you can dive down a few feet to see several sunken cannons from Spanish warship from the 1700’s.

The big party town in the Keys is all the way out at the end of the string in Key West. The main street, Duval, bisects the old town from one water front end to the other. You can stroll or stagger along this stretch through endless bars, restaurants and stores. You can buy goofy paraphernalia and get plenty goofy yourself. Rent a bike to explore the island or take the tourist train for an interesting historical tour. The old homes built from the original hard wood pine salvaged from shipwrecks are amazingly beautiful and sturdy.

And be sure to try the stone crabs, key lime pie . . . visit Hemingway’s house . . .

Ok, forgive me for playing tour guide. I just want to make sure that if you make it down to the Keys that you have the time of your life. I know I have.

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The above photos are from several trips I’ve taken over the past few years. I love the Keys and with their extreme latitude and attitude they are a fitting first stop for the Great American Road Trip. It hurts to leave them behind in my rear view mirror. But the magnificent North American continent is calling and it’s time to hit the road. I drove North along the Atlantic Coast past an almost endless and unbroken chain of towering developments until we reaching West Palm Beach.

Next Stop – Lunch at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach

Fort Lauderdale – Launch pad for the Great North American Road Trip

Bringing my newly purchased Destiny back to my home in Fort Lauderdale was a fantastic maiden voyage. But it was now time to move out of my apartment and prepare Destiny for the rest of the Great American Road Trip. Her hideous florescent lights and carpeted floors needed to go. With the help of my friend Chuck (aka “Antoine the decorator”), we installed Brazilian wood floors with strip lighting, a new stereo and lounge lights through out. The motor home was now the motor lounge.

The below video is a brief tour of Destiny – after the make over.

The new Destiny motor lounge was ready to party and travel in style. It was time to say goodbye to my neighbors and friends at “Hamilton Landing” – a small apartment community populated by laid back people on a sleepy canal in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

I grew to love this sweet spot and its down to earth inhabitants during the two years I lived there. Tucked away on a quiet canal near the ocean, this small community was a sanctuary within the boob job botox bloated money and toy culture of South Florida.   I grew to both love and hate aspects of South Florida (see – Florida – A Love Hate Story).   But I always loved this sweet community.

Fort Lauderdale, with its 300 miles of canals and river ways, is known as the “Venice of America”. But unlike Venice the water does not smell of raw sewage. It’s also known as the “Yachting Capitol of the World”. It’s a virtual water world on the ocean nestled twenty miles north of Miami and thirty miles south of Palm Beach.

Hamilton Landing’s Bistro –
Where the drinks, conversation and live music flow freely

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On a good day I roller bladed in a nearby rustic park, grilled out along the inter coastal waterway on the West side of the park and then crossed over to the East side for a swim in the Atlantic Ocean. After that I’d return home to the dock in time to launch the kayak for a sunset cruise.

After Kayaking, Chuck and Jamie were typically on the edge of the dock at the “Bistro” with cocktails in hand and an open invitation to make me one. Neighbors drifted in and out of the Bistro and the drinks and conversation flowed.

Hamilton Landing Lifestyle

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Unlike the typical condo association in which condo commandos battle over lawn maintenance and assessments, while residents got caught in the cross fire, as renters we really didn’t care enough to fight. So we didn’t.

Everyone helped each other out in big and small ways. When Ronnie lost her husband, Chuck and Jamie helped her redecorate her apartment to give her a fresh start – at no charge.   When Chuck and Jamie went to Europe Ronnie watched their cats . . . it goes on.

They became my friends and my adopted family. It was a sweet life with sweet people in a sweet spot. Moving out and into my motor lounge and saying goodbye was not easy.

Christening Destiny with Champagne – Bon Voyage!

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To move on down the road you have to leave behind what you often grow to love. It’s the real price that vagabonds pay for their travels.

But I know that like family and friends we will stay connected even when far apart. I know that our paths will cross again.

Next Stop – Leaving Florida

His work has taken him throughout the world, where his clients have sent him to recover their children. Still confused?   Then imagine you’re married to a Brazilian woman who slipped out of the country one night to return home to her native country with your child. The US government isn’t going to chase across the globe to get your kid back. But Tom will.

I’d love to see Tom explain his work to a bunch of kids during “career day”. He’d tell them about the high-speed car chases, occasional gun battles, surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques and other assorted international intrigue. I expect he’d inspire a few young people to pursue a truly exciting career in “Kidnap Recovery”.

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I guess you could say Tom is pro family. So much so that he’ll arrange a covert rescue for a child just to keep the family together.

I met Tom in Costa Rica several years ago. He was married to a Costa Rican woman and they were raising two beautiful daughters. Now Tom lives in Naples, Florida with his Columbian girl friend. But that’s just pare for the course when you work in “Kidnap Recovery”.

I caught up with Tom in Naples. We talked about civil unrest, the current ammunition shortage and over population – amongst other related topics.

So now you know who to call if your spouse goes missing with your kid(s). Tom’s not in the phone book and he doesn’t accept American Express. But I can pass along any valid inquiries.

Next Stop – Fort Lauderdale for the Official Launch of the Great American Road Trip