Tales From I-75

Let's try a little experiment.

I want you to clear your head for a minute. Go into your happy place. That moment of clarity just before you drift off to sleep- complete emptiness. Nothing but the back of your eyelids. Now, I want to know the first thing that comes to mind when the word

FLORIDA

pops into your focus.

People back in South Dakota and Iowa are no doubt thinking Alligators! Swamps! Airboats! at this moment.

If you live where I do, you're thinking Beach! Palm trees! Paradise! as Naples is the most beautiful place in the state (I may be a little biased... but it has to be pretty damn close).

However, if you live just two hours North or East, the adjectives to describe your little piece of the Florida shoreline are completely different. Though they're just a short drive on I-75 in either direction, St. Petersburg/Tampa and Miami are a world away from the Paradise Coast.

Stay Classy, St. Pete
My dear friend Nicole, bless her heart, lives in downtown St. Pete. Her apartment is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen-- especially considering her surroundings. Now, I would never say that she lives in the ghetto... her neighborhood is just... what's the word... Quirky? Kitchy? Sketchy...? (jk love you Nic!)

We visited a few weeks ago and during a walk to a nearby establishment were greeted by a shaking, screaming bush (or a homeless man making a bed for himself amongst the rocks and fireants). The sad thing is, he had more class than most people in the bar we were about to enter.

One thing I can't stand is a man in a tank top. It's one thing to cut the sleeves off of an old t-shirt to shoot hoops on the weekends or change the oil in... it's something completely different to walk around in public displaying your 'muscles' and barbed-wire tattoo proudly for the world to see. Apparently, the menswear stores in St. Pete only carry tank tops. The bars were full of them... most accompanied by too much hair gel and orange skin. I felt like I was on the Jersey Shore... stalking my whole life down on the boardwalk.

It's not just the guys. The women there are gems, too. Nic has her competition worked out for her. We spotted this girl digging for... something... as she waited for her drink. A picture is worth 1,000 words.



The good thing about St. Pete is that the bars stay open until 3:00 am! So by the time you're ready to go home, if you *want* to take someone with you, they at least look better through your beer goggles and dim lighting (but I'd hate to see them when you wake up... Yikes!).

Hot Mess Miami
His Highness LeBron James invited me to his South Beach cabana party after signing with the Miami Heat earlier this month. I thought, why not? and hit the road.

Ok, so that's not entirely how it went down. Nicole needed a weekend out of St. Pete (and now you can see why) and Kayla and I are always up for a road trip, so we packed up the Corolla with our most Kardashian-esque outfits and cruised Alligator Alley straight to the East coast.

The Friday we went just happened to be the day after King James made his announcement on ESPN, shattering the hearts and dreams of the entire state of Ohio and simultaneously prompting a week-long party in Miami. We'd lucked out and gotten a room in central South Beach for just $90 per night... just steps from Dash and within blocks of all the shopping, dining, and drinking we could handle.

By lucked out, I mean we were lucky to even get a room. James' announcement quickly filled up area hotels (ours even overbooked) to the point that we couldn't even get an air mattress sent up to our room.

Why an air mattress, you ask?



Again, a picture speaks 1,000 words. One bed, three girls... 'nuff said. The 3.5-star hotel room I thought I'd booked with *two* beds came with just one... which made for one uncomfortable night of passing out before I gave in and made a nice bed of sheets on the floor.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Determined to have a good time, we drank ourselves into an abyss on Friday night. Despite promises on every marquee, flyer, and handout we collected between clubs, we saw no LeBron, Dwyane, Bosh, or any other celebrity while we racked up a $300 collective bar tab.

As a self-proclaimed party animal, I don't typically leave the bar until the lights are being turned on and chairs are being flipped onto tables. Miami clubs don't provide these social cues that it's time to go home. Miami clubs are dark and they don't close. We weren't in bed before 4 either night.

Saturday we spent the day recovering, and caught a second wind long enough to go find beer at a pharmacy to pregame (in hopes of spending less than $300 on a night of drinks).

That's when the real stress of Miami got to me.

While trying to parallel park my car into a spot the size of a matchbox on a one-way street with traffic flying toward me, I nearly killed a pedestrian. Thank God for Kayla yelling "YELLOW LADY" to the woman resembling Big Bird and the concierge running out to my rescue to park my car safely until the valet came back.

"Life is hard," I said to him.
"At least you weren't born ugly," he said back. Thanks, sir.

En route to our luxury room, my worst nightmare came true. I have a weird thing about elevators-- it's not bad to the point where I can't use them, but I don't love them. The feeling that the ground isn't solid below you as you go up and down gets me lightheaded and slightly claustrophobic. So when the elevator STOPPED mid-ride and the door wouldn't open, I came as close to having a panic attack as I ever have. Kayla immediately started saying Hail Mary... I dropped to the ground and cracked one of our freshly-purchased beers.

It was the worst two minutes of my life.

Then my hair started giving me trouble. Nicole and Kayla had it with waiting for me, so they went to the hotel bar for free-drink happy hour without me... I said I'd be right down. Of course, when it came time to go to the bar, the elevator was 'Out of Order'... so I proceeded to take what I thought were the stairs.

Wrong.

I found myself, instead, in a service stairwell for employees only. You know, the kind that you need an employee key to get out of.
Kayla was not being particularly helpful at this point. This is how our conversation went:

"Kayla, I need you to go to the front desk and have someone let me in."
(screaming) "Karla, your hair is fine!!! We have a drink waiting for you, hurry up!"
"No, listen, you don't understand... I'm stuck in a stairwell!!"
"We met French guys... They want to meet you! See you soon!!!" Click.

I sent her this.



She got the hint.

The most stressful hour of my life was not going to ruin my night-- we must have been looking better than the night before because we didn't pay any covers and I barely remember paying for drinks.

I crawled into my makeshift-bed on the floor around 4:30 and was more than ready to go back to the slow, elderly, leisurely city of Naples the next morning. Nothing like a two-hour drive to another city to make you appreciate what you have in your backyard.