DRUGGIES, AND INTRODUCING FLORIDA MAN
The Travel Center Is Full of Tweakers Tonight
Is there a full moon or something?
I suppose pleasant late Spring weather brings out the druggies and just trying to carry out our normal routine
The druggies are out tonight. We’ve witnessed it a few times tonight in just a couple of hours. I mean, like full force, tweaking tonight. The weather’s been nice. We got a little rain last night that cooled the temperatures down about 10–15 degrees. I don’t know if there’s an ideal temperature for strange behavior but tonight certainly seems to be it.
We started off our recent overnight schedule of being awake walking into the travel center to get snacks and drinks as we had been doing for a little while now. Everything seemed normal at first. We went to do our normal routine of going straight for the bathroom, then to the store to pick up random sweets and salty snacks along with cold brew coffee in big styrofoam cups.
Odd incident in the bathroom and the pickle jar
It started in the bathroom. I wasn’t sure what was going on a few stalls down but I heard a couple of guys talking about some random, weird nonsense just beyond the stall that my partner was sitting in. I initially thought that they were hooking up but it just turns out that they were just both talking loudly while crapping and it was about as equally unsettling.
Then we went out to get our snacks and then sit down at our normal, comfortable table next to the restaurant closest to the doorway at the end of the long hallway and some dude came up to us. I wasn’t sure what his deal was at first. He was holding a large pickle jar with a fork in it and the lid off. He didn’t seem like a vagrant or anything like that.
Scottie and his “tricks”
He was possibly a traveling musician, stoner, and skater or something. He was a skinny fellow with a few tattoos and he looked to be around 25 years old, Mike’s sister’s age. He introduced himself to us as Scottie and gave both of us fist bumps and then said something about if you want to give me money afterward, like five dollars, that would be cool.
I thought he might show us a magic trick or be delightful and do something unexpected. He said to watch his feet. He tried the old levitation trick. I could see one of his feet on the ground at all times despite his attempts to hide it. I was absolutely certain at that point that he was either stoned or high in a different way. I gave him this weird, ‘what the fuck is this?’ kind of look, and he walked away unsatisfied.
Stoners, not too bad, but Florida Man, oh man…
If that weren’t enough, we saw some people hanging out under the gazebo outside smoking something we weren’t sure of and just tucked away far enough so no one would notice them. We said hi thinking they were people who worked there but ended up just being random strangers probably getting stoned. Oh, well, that wasn’t too terrible.
The kicker is when we get outside after we’re done eating. We have to go get gas for our generator and we notice there’s a car parked right next to us. There is a guy that emerges from the car and he waves to us. We’re not expecting anything nutty. Then we go get gas after he says his polite “hi”s to us.
I make a joke as I look back and tell Mike, “Haha, he’s a Florida man.” I always make those jokes when I see a Florida license plate because stereotypically, I’m always looking for something Florida-like to make fun of. I guess we hadn’t seen anything yet.
Florida Man is insane and tweaking hard
Looks like the guy is here to stay tonight. We’ve been listening and watching him on the cameras for the last hour after we gassed up and started our generator. He’s been constantly yelling, screaming, slamming doors, taking his shirt off, and just giving off the vibe of a general tweaker. I’m so hesitant to even look outside and unlock the door right now.
I’m sure that he’ll tire himself or drive away. If it’s us he’s lashing out at for starting our generator, then he’s the one who chose to park next to our home here. He doesn’t have to stay in this spot.
He better be ready if he’s trying to come at us and I’m glad we took the night shift for now
Mike thinks it’s unrelated and thinks he’s just high on something strong and that we need not concern ourselves with it. I’m just super nervous because he’s super close to our truck.
Well, we are still on overnight to early morning waking schedule. We can keep a close eye on him and our stuff for now and Mike says he’s ready to fight if someone tries to start something with us so that’s good enough for me now.
I just wish we didn’t have to deal with so many druggies tonight. Oh, well, things could be much worse and it’s not. I just can’t wait to be ready to drive off from here and go on our planned road trip.
