(That's me in the sunglasses in the back. :)
Florida Trip 03/20-22/98- Typhoon Lagoon and Stinky Kinard
03-25-98
This past weekend I went down to Florida, my home state, to go surfing and to see friends.  It all started on Friday, the 20th of March.  I woke up late, as usual, and started cleaning up the apartment, doing laundry, and packing for the weekend.  My dad got off work early and came home to finish up his packing.  After getting things reasonably situated (other than the loads of laundry we left going in the washer and dryer) we took off for the Greensboro airport.  Upon arrival, we parked the car a couple miles away from the main airport building (or so it seemed), and took the long hike to the ticket counter.  As we approached the ticket counter, I saw a group of kids wearing shirts with a familiar aqua blue color.  They were the same color as the T-shirts that all the Angry Psychos that went to Richmond and DC back in 97 received from Kristina.  I did a double take and figured out that they were not APs, but in truth a small Girl Scout troop.  Oh well.. *shrug*  Anyways, we waited in line to check in our bag and get boarding passes.  We overheard the guy in front of us complaining about a canceled flight, and I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.  But we were in luck!  Our flight wasn't canceled, just delayed... a lot... like 5 hours...  Apparently there were mechanical difficulties in one plane, and they had to wait on another plane or something.  I'm not exactly sure.  But me and dad had about 5 hours to kill.  So we hiked back out to our car and drove into Greensboro to see what we could do for the next few hours.  After spending some time in Best Buy and Circuit City, and buying a printer, as well as contemplating the significance of hair in society, we headed back to the airport to get ready to take off.  The plane was delayed a little bit more, but not too much, and we eventually got on and took off for Tampa, Florida.  It was a relatively short flight, and not too uncomfortable, but definitely not the way I like spending a Friday evening.  We arrived in Tampa, and got our rental car, a nice convertible sporty something or other.  My dad thought he was all smart, paying more to get a sports car to drive around sunny Florida with our hair blowing in the breeze.  But what he didn't realize was that, with the crazy winter this year, it was still relatively chilly in Florida.  So the top was up for awhile.  We drove into Orlando, deep into the heart of Disney's commercial joke, and found the fanciest Travelodge I've ever seen.  After a bit of a confusing check-in, we went upstairs and woke up the Christy and Jeff Montgomery (family friends) around 11pm.  After a quick catch up on the happenings in everyone's lives, we all headed off to our beds, after all, we were surfing tomorrow.  The next morning we all met downstairs for a quick breakfast and coffee, and then packed up everything into the cars and headed for Typhoon Lagoon, with the top down because it was bearable, and we needed to get into a surfing mood after all, right?  We parked in an empty parking lot right in front of the Typhoon Lagoon entrance.  We had rented out the park so that we would be the only ones surfing.  Boards were pulled out of cars like clowns out of those little clown cars.  We ended up with more boards than people I think.  It was in the parking lot where I also got my first good luck at Ken Block, the lead singer of Sister Hazel.  I was never formally introduced, but somehow he figured out I was Ed, and I of course knew who he was.  We met my cousin and uncle in the parking lot too.  They had driven from Daytona that morning to meet us for some surfing.  We all loaded up our arms with boards and rushed into the empty park heading straight for the wave pool.  Typhoon Lagoon is a cool place if you've never been there.  They have a beautiful blue wave pool that's rather large.  We got to our campsite for the next few hours and dumped our stuff.  After an informal briefing and setting up of who was going to go when, we were ready to go.  There was a large whooshing sound and the first wave was pumped out.  A nice size right-breaker that was instantly caught by Tom, one of Ken's friends.  The next few hours were spent either in the water riding, or in front of a large jet engine-like heater that took the chill out of the breeze better than vodka.  After a few rides, I looked down and noticed that the ball had fallen off of my nipple ring, but, not finding any duct tape, I figured it wouldn't cause any problems, so I continued surfing.  Well I'm not sure if you can call it surfing, but I was in the water with a surfboard, and there were waves.  Whether I caught them or not will not be discussed here.  But it was all a lot of fun hanging out with friends, both young and old.  A quick listing of the people present for this gathering:
Jeff, Christy, Meredith, and Chris Montgomery - Family friends for a loooong time
Ed Sr. and Ed Jr. - Me and my dad
Larry and Brent Hunsinger - My uncle and cousin, respectively
Ken Block and Tracy Montgomery- Ken from Sister Hazel and married to Tracy who is Jeff's niece.
John Wynne - a friend of Meredith
Tom and his wife - Friends of Ken and Tracy
Another Tom and his wife - Tom was a part of the big Costa Rica surf trip that we went on in 93 I think
Parker - the second Tom's nephew
Rick and Dennis Kinard - Family friends, and my best friend in Florida
I think that was it.  After we got done surfing our 125 waves that we had bought at $10 a wave split multiple ways, we decided it was time for some lunch, because it was still only 1:30 or so.  So it was down to some part of Disney next to Planet Hollywood for lunch at a place called Wolfgang's.  we all went in our separate cars, me and Dennis riding in the convertible.  After losing the people we had followed to the place we were eating, Dennis and I parked and began the search for the restaurant.  The problem with finding the restaurant, was the fact that the part of Disney it was in was still kind of big, and we got lost within seconds.  But we eventually stumbled upon it and our group, the only people brave enough to sit outside in the chilly wind.  After a decent lunch, a browse through the Virgin Megastore, and looking at expensive guitars, it was time to head out to Gainesville, my original hometown.  Dennis and I set out in the convertible with the top down but after awhile decided we needed it down or else we would be frozen by the time we got to Gainesville from Orlando.  But we couldn't quite put it up going 70 mph down the highway, could we?  So when we stopped at a toll booth, it was put up, slowly because it was electric, and almost not fast enough.  Another few seconds, and I would have been run off the road by a truck.  But anyways, we made it to Gainesville, spent some time at the Kinard's house and then Dennis and I went out to a mexican restaurant to meet some friends for dinner.  After a humorous dinner, we went over to another friend's house to pick up the band's equipment.  Dennis is in a band called Stinky Kinard.  It started out as a ska/punk band, but leans more towards punk now.  The other members are Andrew (vocals), Eric (bass), Dave (drums), and Dennis plays guitar.  We got all the equipment in three cars and went down to the CMC, a small little place where a couple bands were playing that night.  While we waited until the band went on, we went and checked out the only head shop I know that is opened 24 hours a day, a place called Smoke.  I bought a new nipple ring there for $20, one basically the same as my original, just a bit bigger.  The band finally got on stage after 11 and began playing.  The show didn't go to well, the band was playing well, but the crowd pissed off Eric and Andrew.  It was a very small crowd, half frat boy and half punk, which didn't really give the band all that enthusiastic of a reaction.  So Andrew spent the time in between the 6 songs they played insulting the crowd and commenting on how much he hated the show.  He finally decided that he'd had enough and ended their show rather abruptly saying he was going to go find something fun to do.  And so that was Stinky Kinard for the night.  We spent some time afterwards outside the CMC talking to people who were still hanging out.  But after awhile me and Dennis cut out for home cause it was time for some well needed sleep.  The next day I woke up late, and after a quick trip to Circuit City with Mrs. Montgomery, my dad and I headed back to the Tampa airport and back to Winston-Salem, and another week of "Spring Break as designated by Ed."

Pics: Click to Enlarge, use back to return to this page...
My Cousin, Brent, and Me  Me and Ken from Sister Hazel
Brent with his board  My Dad and I
My Dad and Christy Montgomery  Larry, Brent, Me, Dad
My Dad, Me, Dennis, and Rick Kinard  Uncle Larry and Brent
Jon, Meredith, Ken, Tracy, and me
 
 
 
 

Related Links
www.sisterhazel.com - A great, dedicated band that deserves attention
www.angry-psychos.com - The Psycho Ward (hey it was mentioned.. :)
 

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