"I don't know, I just want to be happy. I could be in a hole somewhere. Or I could completely lose it and be some hippy living in the woods with my dad." -Shia LaBeouf
On June 5, 2016 my friends and I decided to take a trip to the Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna, Florida. During our cave tour we crossed paths with another group adventuring through the cave. My best friend turns to me and says "That dude looks like Shia LaBeouf." Of course I automatically thought she was insane, but I looked anyways. Needless to say- I went into total fan girl mode when I realized it was Shia LaBeouf! My first thought was "What in the world is Shia LaBeouf doing in Marianna?"
After we left the cave, I started researching. I had come to find out, he was hitchhiking across the United States. As we were walking out to my car we heard someone saying he was in the parking lot. I took off running and sure enough there he was. As soon as I saw him taking photos with his fans I became star struck. I wanted to ask for a picture but couldn't get up the courage to do so. Finally, one of my friends asked for me, he took off running across the parking lot and told my friends to hurry so they could be in it. Of course they all came running.
After we snapped our pictures Shia had to run off, seems as if he was doing some type of filming down one of the trails at the caverns, so keep your eyes open for that to make a debut. My friends and I were still standing around the parking lot whenever he came back. We asked if we could get some better photos with him since he was in a rush before. He took my friend Heather's phone and started snapping pictures with all of us. He was very down to earth, very easy to talk to. My friend Matt even asked him, "Man, I gotta know. What was it like kissing Megan Fox?" LaBeouf shied away from this question. Heather and I joked about touching his butt, although neither one of us had the courage to do so.
I think the best part of this experience was Heather was on her first date with her newly found friend Collin. Collin responded to the incident by saying, "You do realize that after this I'm going to expect to meet someone famous every time we go out, right?"
After coming back home and showing off the pictures, I realized just how cruel people are. I've gotten many different opinions about Shia LaBeouf. Some people thought it was really cool that we met him, while others called him insane for having his photo taken with a paper bag over his head that said "I am not famous anymore."
LaBeouf once said, "I want my audience to know me for my work, not because of who I'm dating or what drugs I'm on or what club I went to."
Personally, I find this very admirable, along with his #TakeMeAnywhere hitchhiking excursion. Matter of fact, I would love to run into LaBeouf again. Thank you Shia for taking the time to reach out to your fans, including my friends and me! You're awesome! Follow him on Twitter, @thecampaignbook and maybe you too can have an encounter with Shia LaBeouf!
