Tag Archives: hurricane

Drive Away Cars from Florida: Levon’s Story (and mine)

Levon Helm’s autobio “This Wheel’s on Fire” sizzles.

I especially like this part:

“First I went to Mexico and lived on the beach until I’d spent all my money. Then I met up with Kirby Pennick, a musician friend from Arkansas, and together we discovered that Florida was a bad place to be broke. We were just bumming around. We got the paper, and there was a drive-away Lincoln going from Florida to New Orleans. We just said, “Let’s go.”

I especially like the above since there is a very similar trip/experience in my dossier… But arriving broke in Florida right after hurricane Andrew on a cheap flight from London after bumming around Europe (grapes, chestnuts, bad yodellers band, Gwar, Oktoberfest etc) > Getting a driveway car from dodgy goodfellas in Miami (after food at Hare Krishnas) splitting across dark sketchy Alligator Alley through bright morning New Orleans > to beers-in-car Texas, with several police pull overs along the way. Yikes.

Oddly foosball in Austin with good ole boys met in Vegas between Dead shows, a 9-11 disturbance, canyon hotspring flings, and a medieval wedding > anyhow and almost met our/my demise dropping the car off in Dallas to a large angry man who expected something very important and illegal in the trunk. Trevor Erikson and i found ourselves very out of place but adjusted rapidly and took control, even recouping deposit (in cash, not cheque) and a lift downtown.

Somehow finagled a Greyhound 2 for 1 ticket to from an even more angry tweaker who chased the bus like a rapid dachshund. Ate well in SLC on a dodgy credit card, zoom zoom ended up at Marble Arch then Tottori. This was 1993 i think or 92.

No photo evidence exists. Oh yeah: Dig Levon’s tome #theband

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Trevor adds: 

How to pack a large amount of non-ordinary lifestyle into a small amount of time, without a lot of money – or none really. True definition of adventure perhaps? Will love you forever brother Dave. Such memories create interesting and long lasting pathways within the soul. And, yes, it was 1992.

Forward Momentum to Florida – Postcard #76

Pod cover: postcards from Gravely Beach - forward momentum to florida

Puffing along a trail recounting leaving cold, miserable London en route to post-hurricane Florida with flashbacks to working in Rheinplatz grade fields, gathering chestnuts to sell for beer and bread money, strange encampments at Oktoberfest, and hitchhiking to Amsterdam with gaggle of pals. To London by ferry and rapid exit via cheap flight Florida, quickly interjecting in chaotic domestic situations, meals with surly Hare Krishnas, sleeping on unglamorous beaches, and avoiding looting commotion, while plotting forward momentum, which eventually came in form of a dubious drive-away car situation to Dallas… and beyond (in 1992).

Features music by: “Brave Captain” fIREHOSE (recorded live in Ancienne, Belgique, March 12, 1991 – via Archive.org), “Florida” by Blue Rodeo (recorded live in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan), and “Crazy Fingers” by Grateful Dead (recorded live in Phoenix, AZ, 1993 – via archive.org). 

Brace yourself for: Forward Momentum to Florida – Postcard #75
(20MB, 14:50, 192k mp3, stereo)

Continue reading Forward Momentum to Florida – Postcard #76