Just as I was about to get my lawn chair and buy 100 helium-filled balloons to float across Tampa Bay for my next Urban Explorer column, some gas station attendant in Oregon beat me to it.
Last weekend, 47-year-old Kent Couch traveled nearly 200 miles on his favorite lawn chair, eating snacks and staring at clouds for nine hours before touching down just short of Idaho.
(This idea of lawnchair-flying has also floated the balloons of a musical-theater composer.)
Couch’s ascent into fame has me almost as disappointed as I was in 2003, when I found out a Texas man had stolen my idea of mailing myself to a destination to avoid airfare. (As it turns out, I’m glad he chose to do it — police arrested him moments after arriving in a freight box on his parent’s doorstep.)
Until I can figure out an even better stunt, check out my column this week on hanging with the drunks at a DUI checkpoint.
This article appears in Jul 11-17, 2007.