March 2, 2015

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 2, 2014, the zzbrenkzz virus.
Five years ago today: March 2, 2010, I watched Avatar.
Ten years ago today: 2005, a bird harness?

MORNING
            Why, it’s the batbike near a Clewiston cane field. This spring cane, remember twelve or so years ago I saw ripe cane for the first time. Didn’t know what it was. Looked like some species of giant cactus. I finally got out of here at 9:15AM and made the open road in an hour. That’s under top quality driving conditions, mind you. There was practically no traffic all the way down Griffin to 27th. Hence began the Great Circumnavigation of Lake Okeechobee, 2015.

            Let’s clear up the preliminaries before you decide you want to see this place. First and foremost, Lake Okeechobee is not, repeat not, a scenic tourist destination. As stated before, there is an artificial embankment around the entire lake blocking the view. Except for one or two overpasses, where no stopping is allowed, you cannot see the lake. And climbing the levee is a no-no.
            Get out the map, find Port Mayaca. That’s the single best vantage point as there is a service road along the top of the levee. But I did not stop there today—Port Mayaca is in the middle of nowhere. Not even a park bench there. There is also a similar but small access in Pahokee, but many people find driving up that steep a slope rather disconcerting. And climbing it in an open sidecar is enough to panic the uninitiated.
            What a choice day, around 40% cloud cover and shirtsleeve warm. My plan was lunch in Moore Haven, not to be confused with Winter Haven. Like I always do. I stayed off the freeways where possible, but you can’t avoid all arteries. It’s not like Texas where you can get anywhere if you know the back roads. Another strange Florida idiosyncrasy is the byroads don’t go anywhere. They’ll end at a T-intersection miles from the nearest town.

            Here’s your view of the lake for most of the trip. Can you see the levee on the horizon? There is a tractor to the left, if you can see it, that will give you the scale. Again, you just cannot see the lake. Another thing to watch for is a disgusting government scam. More than a dozen signs around the perimeter say “Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail”. Lies.
            I haven’t check them all, but I’ve seen enough to know they don’t go to any scenic points of the lake. Or if they do, it is miles inland. Far too long a walk for a family group of varying ages. Whoever pointed out that there is no such thing as an activity that is “fun for the whole family” was referring to these hiking trails, no doubt.
            Also, I’ve reported before that the locals are in on the scam. They know darn well the tourists want to see the lake. Today again I overheard several instances of people being given intentional wrong directions. But when the liar is a little old grey-haired grandmother at the corner store, I’m not about to step in. Make no mistake, there is nothing to see at Lake Okeechobee unless you go through some unlikely inconveniences.

NOON

            “A vegetarian is a person who won’t eat anything that can have children.” –David Brenner (could be David Brecer, the code is unclear)

            Moore Haven, the logical spot to stop on an outbound journey, has surprisingly few services. Two eating places, a Mexican lunch or Burger King. The Mexican meal is huge, but starch and calories, and they don’t serve regular coffee. (Florida Latino places seem to refuse to serve it on principle.) I opted for BK, the total cost of this trip was $27.14. That included $19.25 gasoline. The rest was food, postage stamps, and my customary coffee stop at the Serenity Café on Main. How can you not stop at a place called Serenity?

            I did not include $10.50 for batteries. That’s why you see so many nice pictures today. Here’s my coffee, the familiar scribbler, and my Rand McNally GPS system. It works fine, since they don’t move roads around that much. Although the paving contractors on the Palmetto might cause us to wonder about that. I opted to cut through the Brighton Miccosukee Indian Reservation, noting it is a county called Highland. And by Florida standards, it is high and dry territory. Even the vegetation is dry land compared to the conventional swampland everywhere else.
            Here’s a sign as you enter the area. I can understand the ban on all ATVs, but no camping, hunting, or fishing on the reservation? Okay, insert jokes here. What’s Tonto supposed to do all day? Sit around collecting welfare? That’s mean, but unless that sign means only palefaces, there is an element of hypocrisy that is never going to be overlooked—and don’t tell me the Big Chief doesn’t know it.
            The longest amount of time I was ever in the town of Okeechobee was today. Just over an hour. There is a library, but it is nowhere near city center These small interior towns must necessarily be self-supporting to keep the locals, but it is sometime curious how this manifests itself. That’s why you must drop in to the local pawn shop.

            Over time, the place has evolved to fill a variety of needs that would probably not survive in isolation. Party supplies, raunchy t-shirts, an entire music section, and fiction paperbacks. Throw in a few machines that were museum quality, including a coin counter and a Dictaphone. Anyone here have any idea how those things worked? Not me.
            And look what I found. There it is, plain as day, sitting in the sidecar. Look close, under the tank. A practically brand new Ryobi band saw. I picked it up for $55. I’ll look up what they retail for later, but I knew that price had to be some kind of a steal. (My guess is around $130.) The housing is plastic, so what I say? It looks like it has never been used. Even the paint on the saw blade has not worn off.
            If you are reading this after the date at the top, the Internet system is down at the trailer court. I should have a few more pictures of this trip tomorrow. The “free” Internet here has always been half-broken, but remember, when I moved into a trailer, I thought I was dying. No way was I going to rent an expensive joint to croak in it.

            My decision was to spend the majority of my money (70-75%) doing a few of the things I always wanted. Hey, I only hung out with rich girls, so I’m not paying any alimony. In fact, if I was a prick, I could collect it. But I like independence, and living in a trailer court taught me a few lessons about that. A comparable size apartment in Ft. Lauderdale would run about $1,200 per month these days. That’s $14,000 per year I’m not wasting on rent. And it’s been ten years now whatever that works out to.
            Even the place with Wallace, if he’d kept his promises, was a huge bargain. I mean, where can you live for $200 per month? Did I mention, the place tripled in price because of the announcement on the new city art center? Young Wallace would have made nifty a $53,000. That buys a lot of basement suite up north. But instead, he decided to be clever.
            The Okeechobee stopover meant a late start coming back, so I had to boot it to arrive before dark. This was also a test run of the new battery system, and I discovered the problem is in the wiring system. That’s what I’ve been hoping to avoid, but I think it is time to turn the repair over to the experts. As in tomorrow. The front brakes are worn out again. Just you keep in mind that I’m happy with my motorcycle. Despite the repairs, which I budgeted for long ago, the sidecar gets me places I’d never see otherwise and is only 1/12th the cost of a new motorcycle, and 1/16th the cost of keeping a used car on the road.
            And you can’t beat the adventure.

EVENING
            The batbike stalled three miles up the road, so I had to wait for a boost. That means home again at 7:00 PM, and it’s dark out. Miller time? I thought about it, but I’m tired and dusty. And dehydrated. Motorcycle travel does that just from breathing the air, even when it is cold. And a little sunburned and wind-burned and famished. So give me a good book, ah, here’s an article on plasma drives. They call them the space engines of the future, but I know the real reason. Because nobody has the money to build a light fusion reactor, the “heating element”.

            And even if they built one, who’d shoot it up into outer space? They’d still have to do that using chemical rockets. The plasma engine works by a tiny constant push which accelerates over time. You know, I never could figure out why they don’t use regular small rockets to do the same job. It would cost that much more.
            Here’s a classic, the batbike in front of an abandoned corrugated shed. I passed a turnoff not marked on the map and followed it to the end. Called State Road 721. A dead end. But then I saw this edifice. The picture doesn’t do it justice. I wish I’d parked in back now, where you could see the roof stove in and bullet holes in the walls.
            Did I see anything else new? I’m thinking. Nope. Not even one pretty girl over the entire 154 mile trip. Not a single head-turner. I wasn’t expecting any but it would have been nice. Ah, here’s something new, in all the years that I’ve been to that lake or past it, this was the first circumnavigation. You see, there is a tiny 4 mile stretch at the southeast tip of the ring, see if you can find it. It is the road from Belle Glade to South Bay, two towns where the primary industry appears to be collecting welfare. You will also see how tempting it is to go east from Belle Glade and take the freeway home.
            That makes sense to my known habit of doing everything on the outbound leg, then hightailing it back before dark. So the fact is, I never really actually drove entirely around the lake before. Today was a first, because, you see, I had a band saw in the passenger seat and no way was I piling down the freeway with that. People would think I traded m girlfriend for it.

            Oh, and there were a ton of motorcycles out today. I told you it was ideal weather. If I’d had time, I would have stopped at Port Mayaca and taken some sextant readings. The lake is large enough to affect local weather and it is a known 14 feet above sea level. Instead I snapped this photo.
            This is looking nearly due east at 5:00PM, so I was already running out of sunshine. Can you see the black water? This view is from the overpass, built when the lake used to be a canal passage. You can see the levee zig-zag out to the shore. Don’t let this perspective fool you, the levee is huge, meant to stop hurricane overflow. Because of it there are no beaches on the lake.
            I’ve walked down to the water when I was younger, but it means clambering down over huge chunks of old concrete, I’ve seen the odd block with rebar sticking out the side. Okeechobee is the second largest lake in the US, so I am always skeptical when I hear the authorities announce a summertime water shortage. With this lake as their backup reservoir, I ain’t buying that. But what a pretty picture of the lake, I must say.


Last Laugh