August 13, 2000 -- 10:38 PM EST

It's a good thing we both have a sense of humor. We started out well -- got up at a decent hour, racked up the bikes, temps looked awesome for FL summers -- 86 deg! Yay! Then it just sort of....got weird.

I can't even begin to explain everything that happened to us today in the kind of way that would serve it justice. It was weird. It was like the sky was too bright a blue, like in the movie Toys. And the groves and groves of citrus were too citrus smelling. Rain clouds kept gathering but always passing us by... pushed away in the direction we were NOT going no matter how many times we turned or veered off on another road in another direction.

We felt either charmed or cursed. We can't tell yet which it was.

I can tell you part of the drive was like going down Route 66 and seeing bizarre little roadside attractions -- "Drink fresh juice!" signs stretching for miles before you get to the dinky little juice/fruit stand, The House of Presidents featuring a humongous Statute of Liberty replica and mugs of the presidents, an old fashioned gas pump painted brightly red and blue standing inexplicably in the middle of a green grassy field in a Pink Floyd album cover sort of way, this totem-poled....THING pointing in all directions telling us how many miles it was from that pole to major cities...

Paul told me he expected to drive by The World's Largest Ball of Yarn or The Biggest Frying Pan On the Planet any minute...

I regret not stopping the car to take photos. Nobody will believe us otherwise. It's a side of Florida we don't see very often in our Suburbia Generica existence. Especially around Orlando where everything is themed around Disney or something. Themed entertainment, themed restaurants, theme parks...

So when in the middle of nowhere we came upon a sign for "Outdoor World" with an arrow it busted us up. We'd seen Fruit World hawking Indian River fruit, Bargain World hawking... assumed "bargains" of some kind, Antique World hawking rusting ancient tin Coca-Cola signs and creaking weather vanes, and many other "Worlds" by this point during the road trip.

me: LOOK! Outdoor World! Let's go there! Maybe we can bike in that!

him: OUTDOOR World?! I can see fruit in Fruit World but what's in Outdoor World? The outdoors?

me: Yes! We'll drive through the gate and see signs that read "Outdoor World! Featuring air, rocks, and trees!"

him: Dirt!

me: Rivers!

him: Bugs!

Ok, so we were a little loopy by this point. You would be too after lugging your bikes, car and selves across two hours of driving looking for the bloody park you wanted to be in. Then we were there... sorta.

him: We are here... I see a Park sign coming...

me: This is not Withlacoochee. This is Lake Louisa.

him: But the directions say here.

me: But this is not the right park.

him: Could they have renamed it?

me: No, this is a totally separate park.

him: But the directions bring us here.

me: Maybe it's like Wetlands and Ft. Xmas. Two parks right next to each other?

So we drive up the road some more, find nothing, and then turn around and go back. There is no visitor's booth with a ranger or anything. We pay the parking fee into the little collection box stuck to a post saying that the park has won awards of some kind and drive through the entrance and through some hilly meadows. We come to a nice lake and picnic area. We get to a parking lot and I put my shoes back on while Paul scampers off to look at the big wooden park relief map set up on large log posts. I join him a few minutes later. He is standing there with his hands on his hips all but scratching his head.

him: I know we are here.

me: I know we are here too, but we are NOT here.

We stare at the map that reads in big letters "Lake Louisa Park."

him: [stabbing a red dot that had the words "You are here" on it] See? We are here.

me: I know. But I am telling you, honest, this is NOT Withlacoochee. This is Lake Louisa.

him: [studying the map] Look, this is the lake and picnic stuff and this is the rest branching out. They have some nice stuff planned but it doesn't look like they've finished the bike or equestrian trails. [We look to the right where the road dead ends before our eyes.] Did you want to hang around here?

me: Not really. Other than the lake area there's nothing to bike! I want to go to where we are supposed to go. This park doesn't look finished yet.

him: Alrighty. Let's go then.

So we trudge back to the car and we get in and drive back out.

me: This is turning out to be a very surreal morning. We've seen all this... stuff but there's nothing for Withlacoochee, a very large, major state park. No road signs or anything. I feel odd.

him: Yeah. Me too. Don't you feel silly paying a parking fee when we were in there for two seconds? (as we drive out the entrance again.)

me: No. I wasn't the one hanging out the window arguing with what is effectively a tin can nailed to a post because it wouldn't take the dollar bills you were trying to squish wadded up through that narrow slot. That's silly. Especially with a big stack of deposit envelopes in the dispenser right next to it that say "Please Take One."

him: Be quiet.

me: Hey, Paul?

him: What?

me: Did you notice the sign under the tin can that said the park had won awards?

him: Mm-hmm.

me: Since there's no park in that park... what do you think they got the award for? Just... having a very nice map?

him: [snicker] Be quiet.

me: [giggling] Hey, Paul? Think that was Outdoor World?

him:[giggling] I don't know. Were we outdoors?

me:[snickering] I don't know. We were here though.

him: But the map brought us here! [trying to look indignant while laughing through his nose]

me: I know but I think the map had the right directions to Withlacoochee on it and as soon as you touched them they dissolved into the wrong directions and sent us to Lake Louisa.

him: ME?! I think you wrote them down wrong.

me: I'm positive I copied them down right when I printed a map from mapquest... maybe they were wrong in the book? Besides, look! (jabbing map) Even on this map it says "Lake Louisa" right next to the star where we are supposed to go to. So I'm not the one with a map that's correct for "Lake Louisa," surrounded by more signs saying "Lake Louisa" and yet another map in the Lake Louisa park with a "you are here" thingie still wondering where the hell he is.

him: Thhhhhhhpppppt!

me: [laughing] Who is also driving by not one (pointing gleefully out the window) but TWO gas stations where we could get a county map to see if we can find Withlacoochee...

him: Thpppppptttt! [while turning around]

me: [giggling still] Is that all you are going to do? "Thppt!" at me?

him:[trying not to laugh] Thhhhhhhppppt! This is my indignant noise. Thpppppttt!

We got to the gas station got a map and found Withlacoochee State Forest. He couldn't fold the map back up to buy it so I made him go buy a different copy while I refolded the map properly. More time on the road driving forever. I even started to fall asleep from the monotony of the long straight roads when we started passing park service roads.

him: Ok, there's a Withlacoochee type road.

me: [waking up] Are we here?! Are we here?!

him: Yeah, but these are service roads that are blocked off. Where's real entrances for the regular people?

me: The new map won't say. Argh! I knew I shouldn't have left the trail maps at home. Maybe they would have had a county map too. I'm smart enough to write ahead for them but then like a dummy I leave them at home.

him: Thhhhhpppppt! There goes another service road that's gated.

me: [giggling again]: This is like the airport.

him: This is NOT like the airport! (Every time he's ever had to drive me to the airport he's gotten lost and we could SEE the airport, but not actually GET to the airport.)

me: Yup -- now that I don't travel as much any more and I don't need to go to the airport, instead you are going to try to drive me to parks and we'll SEE the parks, but never get there... It will be like, "Here's a very nice park, honey. Look at it. Nonono! We're not stopping to get out and be in it, we're just looking at it!" and over the years you will start to get more and more like your fa-...

him: My Dad does that! Argh! Used to drive us crazy!

me: Case in point.

him: But we're here! This is Withlacoochee!

me: Yeah, and I can look at it. Thhhhhpppppt!

him: That's my line!

me: Thhhhppppt! Watch -- we are going to drive all the way down this road past this huuuuge hunk of Withlacoochee State Forest without being able to actually get in it. [to the forest out the window] Let me in! Let me in!

him: All I know is... if we keep going we'll hit SR 33 and then I am going to give up looking for the way to get in and just take you to Alderman's Ford. At least I know where the entrance to that is!

me: [snicker] And then we'll be here over there!

Together in unison: Thpppppppt!

You know that's where we ended up at. We biked there and had a nice time at a nice little family park. It wasn't the trail riding we were wanting to do at Croom, but it was nice anyway -- relaxing, calm, we took a walk on the boardwalk trails, biked a little bit on the paved loops, watched families picnic and kids bike, took pictures by the river, and Paul told me all his boyhood memories of the park while we traipsed around.

When we got home I looked up Withlacoochee and Louisa and it turned out that whoever edited the book didn't catch the glaring error of Withlacoochee having Lake Louisa's address instead of it's own. So it was an error in a guidebook that sent us off on a misadventure through most of Central Florida for several hours this morning. Would you believe that? I have to call the Dept. of Environmental Protection and tell them to check their guidebooks.

I feel like I've lived through a Laurel and Hardy episode. But it still doesn't change my mind about this secret desire to do a road trip some day just to collect photos of roadside Americana. I really do want to drive through old Route 66 -- what's left of it that's driveable. And I really do want to see Dixie Before Disney.

I want to see the yarn! I want to see the yarn!

~Astrophe