Chickening Out?

It is almost noon Friday.

I am ready to go take my clothes off of the bushes where they have been drying all morning, change into some of them and put the rest in my pack.

Then I need to walk down to the rail yard, with less than 5 bucks on me, and try to ask a conductor which train is headed towards Jacksonville. Doing this in broad daylight might attract unwanted attention.

Then there is the matter of keeping track of distances by using the sun as a guide as well as estimating the speed of the train and factoring in stops, so that I don't get off outside of Tallahassee, thinking that I am outside of Jacksonville.

A State Fair In Pensacola

Then there is the matter of finding out if there is a city bus to take me from Baldwin, Florida (outside Jacksonville) into town, where the party will already be in full swing on the eve of the big game, and how late into the night the bus runs.

There is also the matter of the amount of time that it will take the train to get to Jacksonville. The distance is similar to that of New Orleans, but, who knows how ling it may sit in some yard in Panama City or Pensacola or some other Florida city that begins with "P."

I have packed enough food for a day; but I could potentially miss the Friday night festivities due to train delays.

There IS State Fair going on in Pensacola, should I be kicked off the train there, though, as a sort of consolation prize.

Then, there is the matter of my piddly warrants out of neighboring St. John's County which could potentially have me sitting another 45, 60, 90, 120 (how high can his Honor go??) days in jail.

I'm sure that in the fervor of the big game, the cops will be too busy to bother with one busker, but, given by propensity for lingering in places past my welcome, that presents the further problem of...

How easy is it to hop a train OUT of Jacksonville and back this way. that occasion may present the biggest danger of landing in jail. The game will be over; things will be back to "normal" (it is normal for Duval County cops to arrest as many people as they can get away with) and my pockets could be full of money that the County would be more than happy to take from me at the jail for "administrative surcharges" ($20 each time you are arrested; with your "account" debited for each time you were arrested in the past and didn't have the $20 on you -let's just estimate that I "owe" them about $220, or about the exact amount that I hope to have on me after the dust settles from the weekend...).

Then, there is the fact that it will still be the weekend here in Mobile, and there are Halloween related events planned (there are crews setting up for something large looking at the Saenger Theater as I type this) and a decent weekend in Mobile, where at least I know that busking is tolerated -who knows what kind of new laws are on the books in Jacksonville -can be almost as good as a disastrous outing on the east coast.

So, at this point, given all of the above, I am seriously considering staying in Mobile and going after the sure thing rather than risking any one of ten things going wrong with a train hop to Jacksonville on such short notice; I would have to have reasonable expectations of making so much money that I would be able to take a Greyhound out of there with a new guitar in my hand in order to roll the dice with any confidence.

I just see myself in Baldwin, Florida in a hailstorm in the middle of the night, huddled underneath a flimsy overhang, waiting for the storm to end so I can embark on a ten mile walk into the city, hoping to get there at least in time for the kick-off of the game...every step of the way, thinking about why I am carrying 2 laptops and enough condiments to make my own salad dressing in my backpack.

Unless...

Of course, all this could change if I find a friendly enough conductor who informs me that a certain train is going straight into Jacksonville non-stop and will go right to the downtown rail yard, from which the stadium is visible and will be there  by sundown tonight.

But, barring that stroke of luck, it looks like I will be chickening out this time.