Gulf Coast Tour - Alabama** Not sure about this

Leaving Florida found us roughly in the middle of Yee-Yee, Alabama. We drove through Abbeville on our way, which made me realize that Mayberry isn’t a dead concept in the Southeast. Mom-and-Pops, mostly boasting antiques, lined the street, all in the shadow of the County Courthouse. The locals congregated outside a diner, sitting on benches, apparently waiting for some event I would never see. After a quick stop, we drove on to Anthony Radetic’s house, not too far outside of town.  


When we arrived, Radetic was out in his workshop, working on the Sea-Doo he had raced the weekend prior. It had been having engine issues, the cause of which had so far evaded him. However, that wouldn’t dissuade him. He does almost all of the work on his watercraft himself, wanting his own hands maintaining his racing machines. 


By the next morning, his machine was ready to be called back to action. We loaded up two of his skis and took them down to Lake Eufala, an alligator refuge on the border of Alabama and Georgia, where his in-laws had rented a vacation home. Evan and I unloaded the skis into the water, carefully avoided the alligators near the shore, and dove headlong into our first opportunities to pilot these machines. 


I come from a world of human-powered sports and had always thought of motorsports as low-skill, low-difficulty events that rednecks congratulated each other as they zipped around dirt or water on something made by Yamaha. I saw it entirely as “pay more money, be better”, with not a single contrary notion. This was the mindset I had taken into this journey, and even though Anthony didn’t fit that stereotype, it took riding a Sea-Doo myself to change my mind. 


My first time getting into open water, I opened it straight up, hitting seventy miles-per-hour in no time. At the moment, the nerd inside me could only think of a Star Wars speeder, flying low across the surface of some distant moon. And just as I thought I might see Luke and Leia just on the horizon, the moment was over as I hit a wave and was thrown off at around fifty miles-per-hour. I realized in just a second that water is far, far less forgiving at speed.  van skipped like a stone when he unintentionally exited his craft pulling a turn at forty-five miles per hour. These two wipeouts were instant reminders, quick calls-to-attention for how much went into a sport of which I had thought nothing.  


Back on our Sea-Doos, we planned to make an open-water trip from Anthony’s house to his in-laws’, approximately twelve miles along the river. Even after I had my literal crash course, I blew off the distance despite Anthony’s wife repeatedly mentioning how long of a trip that was. 


The beginning was fine, in a small cove off of the lake, I put the skills I had taught myself to use. Then we hit the opening of the lake and I quickly learned the power of tides. Rather than the negligible bumps that had thrown me off and lost my sunglasses the day prior, these were real three-to-four foot waves. And I was piloting my own Sea-Doo, trying desperately to follow a man who raced them professionally in the ocean. Evan and I swapped on and off of the back of Anthony’s ski, a stressful experience at the speeds which we were riding.  


However, we all arrived in one piece, and Anthony once again set Evan and I loose on the lake with racing machines that are absolutely more valuable than the car we currently live out of. We learned techniques to keep us in the saddle at faster speeds over bigger waves and sharper turns. We learned to give a little bit more respect to things we don’t necessarily understand, even if we think we might.  


After a fantastic, better-than-I-thought-was-possible time in the state of Alabama, we shipped out towards Texas, toward our next destination, College Station, home of Texas A&M, and an assortment of hoodlums I call my friends. However, we had one desperately important stop to make in between.  


We hit Bourbon Street right at dinner time, and after learning that my favorite Po-Boy restaurant was closed, found another shop to satisfy the craving. Then we toured up and down the French Quarter, introducing Evan to classics like the Hand Grenade, the Hurricane, and the disgusting debauchery that for some mind-blowing reason parents bring their kids to. We ended our short night at Café du Monde, where I filled up on coffee before a night drive, and Evan filled up on sugar to wrap up a speedy NOLA drive-by.  


We had planned to stop in College Station for a quick night home, then to move on to Austin to climb. However, the weather kept us from climbing, so we spent an uneventful few days in College Station before shipping down to the border to meet up with Roqué Rodriguez in Rio Grande City. 


Our driving had become more regimented and scheduled and by the time we left College Station, we had begun to hit a stride that worked. We even learned a few things. Like, despite SOFLETE’s resident dietician Brooke West telling me it’s a horrible idea, you can eat egg-drop ramen for three meals in a day. And that even though driving at night is faster and with less traffic, it’s not worth falling asleep at the wheel or even driving while wiped out. I learned that I need to learn to keep my things tidy and Evan needs to learn that I’m not going to keep my things tidy and how it’s not as hard as you think to get a few thousand ants out of a Rav4. Gas stations and McDonald’s don’t care if you just walk in for ice, water, and WiFi, then leave. Who knew? Armed with this bucket of lessons, we moved towards our next meeting.



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