My initial thoughts on what I was told by Nicole had me want to drive down to Miami and leave him in a pool of blood. Ken was always sort of a deviant. When I lived in Miami we would go out to bars out in rural Dade County and he wanted to pick up women as a married man. He was obsessed with their ******* and sitting in the backseat I was sort of a prisoner to this occurrence. I never said anything to his wife, even when she came onto me while he was in the Keys and I was in town. Maybe he just didn't care, maybe he thought I didn't care. I didn't want to level myself into thinking too much into it. In a week I was essentially over it, and Nicole didn't even seem bothered. I was pissed as hell about the money though. That garden was one of a kind, Michael had been a friend of mine for 12 years at the time. It was the equivalent of managing an exotic car dealership, someone comes in to buy the McLaren F1 and pockets the commission.
I soon established a relationship with Mr. T where I could find him plants and he would pay me the same as the deal he had with Ken. I knew what he had and what he didn't, and there was millions in plants to be collected. By a stroke of luck, an old customer and long-time friend from Louisiana told me he had some plants he didn't have room for in the greenhouse. I kept Ken completely out of the loop and hired Nicole to help me pick these up instead. It wasn't a large deal, but half the value was picking up an RV I had bought in Mississippi at the time. Mr. T covered all expenses, including a fully loaded Yukon XL as a one way rental there. I had never experienced ventilated seats before and it's possibly the greatest invention of all time.
In the meantime, I was in complete denial of the fact I was essentially a vagrant. Having left Nicole's house, I could choose between staying with my sister at her house, my mom at her apartment, or getting my own place. After staying on an air mattress for a few months, I started to research stealth camping and had found the perfect candidate (There are pictures from posts in 2017 of this thing). I had planned to park it at my sister's as a room for my personal space, and when I traveled, I could just pack it up and get paid to stay on farms outside Miami for work. I had bought it sight unseen from a small dealership in the middle of nowhere in Mississippi. I had planned to hook it up on my way back from Louisiana and bring everything back in one run.
If there's two things I hate about driving, it's small tunnels and tall bridges. I hate the Skyway and I hate the Mobile Bay tunnel on I-10. It's not even that long, but it just really creeps me out. It's irrational, but I guess I got it from my dad. I let Nicole switch over driving near Alabama so she could enjoy the whole tunnel situation. We eventually get to our Airbnb North of New Orleans and the next day I met my friend out in Tangipahoa Parish. This guy was born and raised on the streets of New Orleans, and moved out there when he got older. I had only met him once in 2011 during the Texas trip I had made with Ken, and that was at 430am at a truck stop off I-12. He's completely sane and 100 percent honest, something you rarely find in this business. He was telling me stories about how the area was basically lawless until the late 20th century, and even now it's very clannish. Everyone knew each other, and a Uhaul truck meant an outsider. The second day I had to turn in the Yukon for the box truck, and once I stepped into that thing I just wanted to get home. No cruise control, barely went 65mph, and no room for very much in the cab. I go to pick up the plants for Mr. T and I hadn't tried to physically lift any of these plants, which I had realized were in solid rock. Thankfully my friend had a front loader, we would load the plants together in pots on a pallet and he would forklift them into the rear cab. Even pushing these things into the back was brutal, as the Summer Louisiana heat and humidity was exacerbated by the metal floor of the cab, turning it into a sauna. I barely made it through the loading after drinking two gallons of water and sweating through two shirts. I said goodbye to my friend and paid him and we were ready to go.
"Let me know when you want to sell the rest, you have yourself a buyer!" I had told him as a way of getting a right of first refusal for the rest of his collection. It was truly one of a kind, with some stuff collected 200 years ago in places that are now unknown had haven't been found again in Central America. He laughed and assured me I would be the first to know.
"Can we go to New Orleans now?" Nicole had been pressing this issue because she equated the city with tons of fun on Bourbon Street. It is an amazing city, but not with a box truck loaded down and nowhere to park it. I had to head Northeast to pick up the RV anyway, and I had an 18 hour drive on a good day to Miami. I told her "next time", and she insisted there would be no next time. I drop the loading door, lock it, and head to Picayune, Mississippi on some backroads.
About an hour later we get there, and the salesman who I had done the transaction with over the phone looked exactly as I had expected. Dressed in nice pants and a button up shirt, drenched in sweat, and oozing of sleaziness. It didn't matter, the deal was done, it was a steal, and I went to check out the RV before signing the papers. It was definitely smaller than I had thought, but it was my new home. I hooked it up, found my way back to I-10 eventually, and tried to keep the truck above 60 as it was struggling on the flat roads. I had a plan to bypass the tunnel altogether, as Nicole had no experience driving anything other than a sedan and certainly not towing. I-65 headed north out of Mobile and I could catch a sideroad to connect back to I-10 in Crestview - problem solved. I remember rounding that corner and seeing the huge structure in the distance, instantly giving me white knuckles. Sure enough, there was some massive bridge over the Mobile River about 20 miles north of town. I woke up Nicole and told her to distract me, my heart was racing and she was just mumbling. **** it, I needed some speed anyway so my foot was on the floor and approaching the crest of the first bridge, I saw this was a triple entendre. Two more spans like this and I had aged a full year in the course of 5 minutes. I don't know what it is about bridges, but it still gets me to this day.
You see a plan on paper and you think it sounds like a great idea, but things just went downhill from here. It took forever to get back into Florida via Flomaton, Alabama. Wow, what a **** hole. By the time I had reached I-10 again near Crestview I was feeling my leg cramp up from the lack of cruise control. I had to pull over, regroup my mental state, and out of all things, Hungry Howie's pizza suddenly gave me the energy to roll eastbound down I-10 again. If anyone has driven I-10 between Pensacola and Tallahassee, you know how boring those winding hills are. They can put you to sleep. We finally get to the exit that cuts through the armpit of Florida, going down some backroads and dropping you off on I-75 an hour north of Tampa. It's one of those times where it's too late to get a hotel, and you just want to get to some place you consider home. Nicole was sleeping after dinner, and watching someone sleep while you drive makes you want to sleep too. Good thing I had an RV attached to the truck, as I just parked it at a hotel in Crystal River and climbed in. All the plastic was still on the seats and it had no power, so I just slept sitting up on the ground. It was a little stuffy out, but who cares when you are that tired.
I hadn't checked my phone since we left Mississippi, and one in particular stood out. It was from my Louisiana friend earlier that evening.
"Everything is for sale! Give me a price when you get home. Drive safe."
......
