INSPIRATION IS WHERE you find it. You can’t force it, and you can’t predict when and where it will come. I had nothing to do with the inspiration that made our great adventure possible. But the inspiration that made it practical came to me while I was walking with my friend Dak through a railroad freight yard in my hometown of Daytona.

Dak is a string bean, well over six feet, and could hide behind a flagpole. African-American, though he doesn’t use the term, and fairly dark. Dak is short for Daktari, which is Swahili for doctor, “A hell of a thing to wish on a newborn baby,” he once said. He’s my age, from the same graduating class but different high schools. We often took these long walks, often on the tracks. Here we sorted out the big questions of life. Is there a God? Are we alone in the universe? Is Britney Spears too old to stay on the Top Ten Babe of All Time list? Would Al Johnson switch to Team Chevy before the next 500?

“Does it look like rain?”

I looked around and sniffed the air.

“Sure does.” Thunderheads were towering in the east, and what else is new? This was Florida, it rained every day. Today the temperature was only about eighty, but the humidity was 210 percent.

[2] Two minutes later it started to pour.

We ran to a line of a dozen rusting black tank cars that had been parked on a siding for as long as I could remember, and ducked under one. No trains came through this part of the yard anymore, and the grass was thick where spilled oil hadn’t killed it. I wondered if the EPA had heard of this place. You probably should have had a hazmat suit and a gas mask to even come here.

There wasn’t enough room to stand under the tank car, so we sat on the gravel and listened to the rain pelting on it. I think rain is harder in Florida than anywhere else. I don’t mean it comes down harder, I mean the water is harder. We didn’t say anything for a while, just picked out suitable golfball-sized rocks and chunked them at a rusty old fifty-five-gallon drum about twenty yards away. My arm was better than Dak’s, I was getting two hits to his one.