Batman has the Batmobile. Superman has a cape. Hammock Man has his hammock.
"Anywhere my backpack goes, my hammock goes with," Santa Fe College student Martin Kipp said.
Kipp, 19, bought his hammock at an art festival in downtown Gainesville last winter and started using it regularly in the warmer spring weather. He hangs it between the trees on the Santa Fe campus when he is waiting between classes.
"A hammock is portable, easy to set up and you're always in the shade," he said. "It conforms to your body, so it's the perfect mattress."
Kipp likes that he can either lie down in it or just have a seat.
"The only time it's uncomfortable is when it's cold and there's a really biting breeze," he said.
Where Kipp hangs his hammock depends on the time of day - he follows the shade.
"There's this one spot that in the mornings it's in full sunlight, but in the afternoon it's perfect because it's in complete shade," said Kipp, who plans to study landscape architecture at UF.
He said that he especially loves spending time in his hammock because he loves trees.
"I hate driving through this urban sprawl and seeing almost no trees," he said.
Although the UF campus is peppered with hammock-dwellers, Kipp appears to be the only one of his kind at Santa Fe.
John Zupantic, who went to high school with Kipp, said he was not surprised when Kipp started setting up his hammock on campus.
"He's not afraid to be different, and I think that's what people think when they walk by him," Zupantic said.
He said he's even thinking of getting a hammock for himself.
Kipp said that he is surprised that no one has ever has the idea to set up a hammock and relax between classes at Santa Fe before.
"They never had the imagination to actually act on that," he said.
Kipp said that he's sorry he didn't start this tradition earlier.
"I'm just surprised at myself that I didn't think of it sooner and start back in high school," he said.
