Slice of Cuban Life

Saturday, I flew to North Carolina after work, and yesterday, Easter Sunday, I drove down from North Carolina. Of course, I did it straight because by the time you get tired, you're hitting Savannah, and you're not that far from the Florida border. Then when you hit Florida, who wants to stay in Jacksonville? Overnight joints should be alongside the road in desolate areas at a neon crossroads littered with motels and fast food stands, not in a city. As you approach Daytona, you know that the West Coast is just a hop, skip, and hundred twenty something miles away. So before you know it, you wind up not stopping, despite the septuagenarian in the passenger seat in high, holy dudgeon and the tempermental chihuaha you had foisted on you scampering in the back seat.

Alas, the plans of mice and recalcitrant daughters never did run smooth. Somewhere in the desolation between Jacksonville and Daytona, the entire 95 stopped. It took an hour of bumper to bumper traffic in the dark to get diverted off the highway. Now I'm in the pitch dark on a lonely street which fortunately boasts a truck stop. There are no directions, no police or signs telling you how to detour, so I along with seemingly every other motorist duck in. Now comes the problem. Do you just accost any stranger to find out what's going on? Let me tell you, some of those interstate travellers are pretty scary. I finally settle on the biker with the dirty bandanna on his head. He looks like a local. He tells me my best bet is to wait it out until the reopen the highway. That isn't gonna cut it. So I walk back to the car and the bushes, hoping that the offending canine will avail himself of the facilities and not water the car interior, when I hear it. Spanish: Cuban accents. An extended family is discussing our predicament and opening the trunk in which they seem to have a three course meal. So while Fefa is slicing some lechoncito, I not only get the full scoop, I get directions on how to get back to the 95. Leave it to the Cubiches.