Back in '64 my dad got a job at the Kennedy Space Center and the family settled in Merritt Island. I came down for a visit prior to departing on a trip across the pond. Back then Merritt Island was "typical Florida Wild. A guy who lived in the apartment complex was on a back road, saw a gator sunning itself and decides to nudge it with his VW Bug. Big mistake, before taking off the gator did some work one of the cars fender bumper and headlight. I saw it after the fact and decided that gators were nothing to mess with. I also met people who poached them, bad gig in Florida at the time and I think even now they are still somewhat protected. Snakes, yep, got them two, and most residential areas have laws on keeping grass cut, if the resident fails to do so the county will at a price. Florida is a nice place to live but it does have its "creatures" and we haven't even mentioned the sharks, Rays, Barracuda and spiders.
...^^^
KSC, what a Gig in 64, back then as a kid, I thought I was in Heaven getting mail from the NASA Fan Club, (which I have to this day), ie books on Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, with stickers like stamps to put in the book, as events took place in years to come. Never thought I'd wind up at KSC for a short time, before heading back to this Desert to build the OV's....
Shit, fkng F-L-A- Spiders: I hitchhiked from this fkng Desert to St. Augustine, (and many other Fla. cities, beaches, night clubs, et al, from the panhandle to the Keys)...
When I got to the beach of Augustine, I laid my sleeping bag out in the dunes & high grass, just 'fore the sun went down. I stretched out, looked overhead, and saw the biggest fkng Spider Web to this day, I have ever saw. An Octagonal 4 foot web (easily), wasn't sure if it were a Banana Spider, tho' it was striped orange and black- more like a Wolf Spider...??? I still to this day don't know wtf it was, but would be able to this day to I.D. it, if I saw another like it....Ya'll have some wild creatures. Hard thing about backpacking, hitchhiking in Fla, many towns would have Trooper's waiting just before we got into their town, and would give us a ride thru the town, to the opposite "outside of town", they just didn't want strange guys walking thru their town, understandable...and quit nice of them, actually...
Then, there is the conundrum, with all the swampy briar filled land, no place to sleep. In the pouring blind rain, at 1am we walked Hwy 1 in the dark, then a 2 lane highway, no lights outside of towns. A more often than not event (walking down dark highways). No way to see the growls of gators, or fear of walking on one, or stepping on a Snake in the middle of the warm roads....We slept in churches, out in the boondocks, gas stations after closing, (which were closed), wherever we could find a dry place to land. Used a U-Haul abandoned trailer for 2 days, that was NOT abandoned. One night under these conditions, we saw a faint light a mile ahead, stopped when we got there, got two quarts of Bud, some Cheez-its, and Pork-n-beans, a traveler's smorgasbord. Once we left that little market out in the middle of nowhere, we found a small white church a mile or 2 down the dark road; that looked like it glowed in the dark. Found its doors open, turned on the Organ, while my buddy played his Dreadnaught Martin, and drank, played music til sunrise....those were the daze. Two big lessons learned,
#1 never leave home without your own set of wheels. Prior to that trip, I sold a 69 Fastback Mustang (Hi-Performance [1,000 built] 2 each 4 barrell Hollie Carbs, with shitloads of electric fuel pumps, not counting its main tank pump.). Sold a Honda 750/4, I wish to this day I still had both...
#2- the thing I was out in the wild looking for, from State to State; was that ground right under My feet, back home, in Ca.
