Change: The Only Thing That Never Changes

My husband owns a 1972 Cutlass convertible which is one of the joys of his heart in the way that only an old car can be to a man who loves cars. It used to run and we've had some fine adventures in that car and once, he even let me and a girlfriend drive it to St. Pete where we drove around with the top down, feeling as young and glamorous and happy as two women with eight children between them can, and looking back, we were young and happy, and even a little glamorous, if only because we were in that car, wearing sunglasses with our hair blowing in the breeze.
But the car, until recently, has been parked for years in one garage or another, undriveable due to a cracked block. I think it's a cracked block but I'm not sure because every time my husband starts to talk to me about anything having to do with car engines all I hear is "waa-waa-waa" like what Charlie Brown hears when an adult is talking to him, and all the waa-waas go in one ear and and out the other, although I do perk up when he begins to talk about the further adventures we'll have when the car is restored.
And the car is in that process of restoration now and it's been down in New Port Richie getting a new engine. On Saturday, the new engine firmly bolted in and connected, we drove down with a trailer to pick it up, me and the husband.
Now as we all know, Ms. Moon rarely gets out of Lloyd, which suits Ms. Moon just fine, but it was with a merry spirit I got in the car to leave on Saturday morning with my stuff all crammed in around my feet, the way I like it. We had decided that we might make an overnight of it and so we had a few clothes packed and I was wearing mascara and my silver charm bracelet and thus, was ready to hit the road. Even with the constant, niggling anxiety about the price of gas, there's nothing quite like starting out a road trip with a not-quite-decided on itinerary, two to-go containers of coffee at the ready and a good book to read out loud.
We drove down Highway 19 which used to be one of the main arteries in Florida before the Rat Ate My State and they cut down the orange groves and the tourists quit visiting all the wonderful old attractions like Homosassa Springs and Weeki Wachee and McKee Jungle Gardens and just went directly via the interstate to Orlando to dump their bucks, stopping only to pee and buy another Big Gulp and eat some sort of horrid fast food. There aren't a lot of the old attractions left but there's still plenty to see. Bait shops, funky bars, swap meets, family restaurants where the waitresses still wear white uniforms and call you "honey" when they serve you your fried green tomatoes, and a few cement dinosaurs, one of which has a car repair shop inside of it.
So Highway 19 is a a lovely drive, relatively quiet, and when we passed a turtle trying to cross the road, my husband stopped the car, walked all the way back to where the poor critter was and carried it to the other side because if you just put it back on the side it started from it will only try to cross again, and he didn't get run over and I was so proud of being married to a man who would do that.
We stopped for lunch and for gas and more coffee and we were amazed, as always, when we crossed the thankfully never completed Cross Florida Barge Canal which has to be one of the most wrong-headed projects ever to come from the Army Corp of Engineers. Of course, right after you cross over the barge canal, you look up to see the Crystal River Nuclear Power Facility, it's giant reactors belching steam into the clear, Florida sky and although I love my electricity as much as anyone, I have to wonder at the strategy of using nuclear materials to boil water for it, but hey! what do I know?
We also passed Weeki Wachee and I flung a HOWDY! at it out the window of the car. I was proud to see the parking lot almost full and it gave me a sense of optimism that that many people are adventuresome enough to go see real, live mermaids dancing in the crystal waters of a real, live spring.
As we approached New Port Richie, my husband kept warning me that when the car cranked, it was going to be REALLY loud because it doesn't have a muffler yet, but it seemed to me that he was looking forward to how loud it was going to be with great anticipation. And it did make him happy to hear that engine roar into life when the key was turned and there was a great deal of back-slapping and congratulations between him and the guys who'd done the engine transplant there at the Action Auto Salvage in New Port Richie. The bill was paid, the car put on the trailer and the old engine put in the back of the vehicle we were driving and off we went, only to discover at the first red light that the engine in the back of the car was not secured properly because it tumped over and started gurgling out the most foul brown, rusty water with green puddles of antifreeze in it you'd ever want to see. Thank God for the catch-pan and also for convenience stores that sell paper towels and although my husband was pretty upset, I was fine with the whole thing and didn't mind the smell too much and after he cleaned it all up and found another strap and secured the engine again, we were back on the road.
By this time it was getting late and the place we'd thought maybe we'd stay on the Homossasa River was packed with fishermen and drunks and families and general merry-makers and so we headed back down Highway 19, not in the mood to stay at a Days Inn or a EconoLodge and were about to decide to just get on home when we saw, in Inglis, Florida, a tiny sign for a Bed and Breakfast called the Pine Lodge. We found the place and it was charming and clean as a bean and so we got a room there for the night, despite the fact that really, I am not fond of B&B's in general. There's something that goes against my grain about spending the night in home not my own but which is, somehow, a home, with a charming host and hostess, (British, in this case), many rules, and a time set for breakfast which is not served by an impersonal waitress but by the very charming host and hostess. But it seemed a far better option than the Withlacoochie Motel on the highway and in fact, the setting reminded me somewhat of Lloyd so I felt right at home.
It had been a long day so after we found some supper we went to bed with the host's reminder that breakfast would be served at eight-thirty a.m., sharp, ringing in our ears and of course, we didn't wake up until eight twenty-nine which meant I had exactly one moment to shower, dress, and try to iron the creases out of my face before we had to dine with strangers.
It took a little bit longer than a moment and by the time we got to the dining room, our dining companions were waiting, having finished their seasonal berries, fresh, hot muffins and hand-squeezed juices and were waiting on us to arrive to get the rest of the ten thousand calories to be ingested in the form of eggs, bacon (and you know I loved that), and pancakes. We apologized profusely to them and the host and hostess, then sat down to try and eat up all this unaccustomed morning goodness and make polite conversation (so where are YOU from?) and not spill anything on the table cloth, all under the fifty-thousand watts of light emanating from the chandelier above the table (thank-you, Crystal River Power Plant!) and we mostly succeeded, although my husband told me later that I was a bit strident about certain things and I had to point out that I don't even like to talk to family members or my very own dogs in the morning, much less a couple from Atlanta, one of whom was wearing a t-shirt that said Queen of Everything in sparkley letters and one of whom may or may not have been wearing a hair-piece so really, I did as best I could.
After breakfast we packed up and headed down to the Withlacoochie River to explore a little and there we discovered the absolute most beautiful part of Florida I've ever personally seen. Estuaries and jungle with palms and cedars and you could imagine beautiful red-skinned people coming out of the shadows in silent canoes or the camps of the cracker whites who'd settled despite the mosquitoes and heat to live off the mullet and mangrove snapper they caught in the rivers and the sweet potatoes and corn they'd grown on the land. In fact, my husband and I were having a deep, shared fantasy of buying some land and doing the same when we looked to the east and there, belching smoke from its reactors was the Crystal River Nuclear Power Facility, only from the other side, and we sighed and groaned and turned around, our fantasy as dead as spent rods of Plutonium.
Why, why, why I have to ask, did they put a nuclear reactor THERE in the middle of the most beautiful, untouched, unspoiled piece of Florida nature I've ever seen? Why didn't they put where it wouldn't be as jarring- like, maybe Disney World?
I don't know.
But that's Florida, land of contradictions and contrasts. A British couple buys and operates a bed and breakfast right across the street from a home where they fly the Confederate flag and have a sign in their yard that says "A black leader for America? Think of Africa and Haiti!" and yet, somehow I guess it works.
I love this state. It has never ceased to amuse, nurture, infuriate, and surprise me in the forty-eight years I've lived here. And this weekend's little road trip reminded me of that fact.
Perhaps Florida suits me so well because I, too, am full of contradictions and contrasts, as are most of us if we admit it.
And now we're back in Lloyd and the Cutlass is off the trailer and my husband goes out and starts it every now and then, just to hear that powerful, LOUD engine and I hope that by the time it gets restored we'll have the money to drive farther than the nearest gas station because gas will probably cost fifteen dollars a gallon but we'll have a great time, driving with the top down, wearing sunglasses with our hair blowing in the wind to the truck stop to fill 'er up, this great beast of a car that was manufactured in the days when it didn't matter how many miles to the gallon you got because gas was as cheap as, well, I was going to say water, but that's getting pretty pricey too.
Life, like Florida, is constantly changing but it's mighty fine to occasionally find something that hasn't and driving down Highway 19 with a beautiful blue car on a trailer behind you that everyone wants to look at and talk about is a reminder that a lot of people still like the old things, and so is a full parking lot at Weeki Wachee springs.
God give us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, as they say, and bless our hearts, I say, as we drive down the highway, looking for the things that haven't changed, and let us be grateful and enjoy them while they're still here, even if they do have a nuclear power plant right in the damn middle of them.
And no, that is not THE Cutlass convertible in the picture above, but it sure looks a lot like it.