Tuesday, June 02, 2009
My Spine!
Ok. So I’m back for now but will be departing in a few hours for my ghost tour. Meanwhile, let’s discuss the day’s events thus far. As I stated previously, I decided, at 2 in the morning that I was going to go ahead and get the hell out of dodge afterall. I do only have a short time frame I can do this because I am working with a rescue group that helps me out with the cats I’ve rescued. I have to be back by tomorrow evening because they are coming to pick some up to get spayed. They bring them back Thursday night and then come back again on Friday to pick up as many cats as possible to bring to their showings on the weekends. So, it was either do this now, do it on the weekend, (when there are far too many tourists), or do it some other day. I was undecided until I took my trash out at 1:30 and thought, “Fuck it, let’s do this.”
Cleaned all the litter boxes, gave the cats a gallon and a half of water to drink and 3-4 pounds of food to eat while I was gone. They should be fine. Of course, jury is out on what sort of foolishness and mayhem I’ll be returning to once they’ve had their way, unsupervised, for so long. We shall see.
Anyhoo, I arrived here at a little after 8 am and had a decent idea of what hotel I wanted to stay in based on location and price. I made no reservation, obviously and hoped they would have a room. I walked in and the lady behind the counter had the warmest and most welcoming smile and greeting. Instead of the usual bored look on the faces of the staff who seem to be saying, in their facial gestures, that they could not care less if you stayed there or not, this was a pleasant experience.
She indeed did have a room for me and upon hearing that I had been driving since 2 am, told me I could have it early and to get upstairs and get some sleep. I asked that someone call me to wake me up in three hours. I then got my key and trotted off to my room. Where I fell right in to bed, (I drove here in my pajamas. What? Shouldn’t I drive in what is most comfortable?), and I am pretty sure I went to sleep. I woke up a couple of times not sure if I actually slept but I think I did.
Next thing I know, it’s 11:51. No phone call had been made to wake me up. I was a little annoyed about that because I specifically asked for the phone call so that I wouldn’t sleep the whole day away. I did not drive 6 hours and spend almost $100 on a hotel room just to do something I could have done very well at home in my own bed.
I got up and proceeded to the bathroom area to discover I had no soap available to me. Sigh. And here we had started out so well. I got ready and went out to explore. I wanted to go see the Fountain of Youth so I started walking in that direction. I saw some trolleys drive by, loaded with tourists and I initially thought, “Suckers. You won’t see me getting on one of those things. Just fricken walk, people! Get some exercise and save your money.”
Yah. Sometimes I’m a complete tool shed.
By the time I reached the Fountain of Youth, (a 10 minute walk), I was pouring with sweat. I guess I’m not too good for that trolley after all. Sign me up.
I got a ticket for the trolley and then took a day time tour of the jail. The tour guide was....uh...interesting. I know he was trying to be funny and he was in character and sometimes I thought, “He’s talking like this to make fun of us.” Because I have much experience with tour guides talking strange to make fun of the tourists. My co-workers do it all the time. But it was a very informative and rather interesting tour, nonetheless. I found out that some guy named Charles....uh...Powell? Something like that, was being hanged on Feb 28..uh..way back then. Two psychologists or whatever from NY came down in order to research what goes on in a person’s brain while they are being hanged.
Now, of course the person cannot talk and they have their arms strapped to their legs so that they cannot try to pull themselves back up and get the rope off of their neck so how the hell did these two think they would get any answers? Apparently they asked yes and no questions and Charles WhateverHisLastNameIs would open one hand for yes and one hand for no. For 8 solid minutes these two doctors asked the guy questions.
Can you fricken imagine that? Eight minutes of feeling everything happening to you, you know you’re about to die and you are aware enough of what’s going on to answer yes or no questions with your hands.
Because of this, these two doctors took a photo just before the hanging and then their notes and proceeded to fight to stop hanging because it should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Bleeding hearts. If you murder someone, who gives a shit if it’s cruel and unusual punishment?
Anyway, the jail tour was good and I recommend it for anyone who visits.
From there I got on to the trolley and went around town. I stopped at another place I’ll be visiting tonight, the Old Drug Store and got some lunch. This place is supposed to be on the ghost tour tonight so I wanted to see what it looked like in the day time, just like the jail. I gotta tell you, I’m not so sure anything is going to happen tonight. I just didn’t get any feelings.
Of course, I say this during the day.
I continued on and saw many old, historic buildings, the oldest house, 2nd oldest house, oldest school, the history behind Flagler’s building decisions, on and on. All extremely interesting. Very good tour guide on that trolley. I tipped him when I got off but I noticed a lot of people did not. Assholes.
I then stopped at the Castillo de San Marcos, the fort and looked around. I’m not going to write a big old review about it, look it up online. It was also interesting. (Dear readers: Perhaps someone would like to invest in a thesaurus for ol’ Serenity here.)
As the day was winding down, I hopped back on the trolley for one more stop and that was to get back to my hotel. I came upstairs, began to write this and started hearing children SCREAMING outside my window.
Oh. Yah. I am right next to the pool. FUCKING lovely. I get to listen to this shit? Hell no, I’m off to the bar, bitches. I did not drive 6 fucking hours and spend all this money to listen to a bunch of kids fucking scream. I HATE that shit.
Good thing there’s a bar right next door.
Oh, real quick: When I got back and asked for SOAP, thankyouverymuch, I asked the guy at the counter if he had ever done the ghost tour. He said he hadn’t but his girlfriend had. He said it’s an hour and a half long and they gave her a camera to shoot orbs, (please, I don’t buy that “orb” shit...it’s dust particles), she kept the camera and they also gave her EVP (or whatever) readings to take home. He said his girlfriend said it was good.
We shall see now won’t we? Get ready ghosts.
Oh God, stop screaming! Beer time.
