It Ends Tonight

December 9th

I woke up this morning in my bed, in my room, in my house, surrounded by familiar walls, familiar pictures and the familiar clock radio resting beside me. Over the past several days I had grown used to waking to Justin's soft coos to rise out of bed from his place at the sink where he was lathering his chest for his daily shave. I was saddened.
But like all good things, this, too, had to end.
The drive back from Pittburgh was long. We had agreed to use this time as private ipod listening time. I had uploaded the latest episodes of "Radiolab," "This Amerian Life" and "Speaking of Faith" onto my ipod, so I was eagerly nodding my head to the thought provoking tenor voice of Jad Abumrad, the nerdy speech of Ira Glass, and the soft reassuring voice of Krista Tippet (yes, in that order).
However, as the weather grew colder and we approached the familiar signs of the New Jersey Turnpike, I had begun to realize that we were, in fact, returning to New York and to the life that we had briefly escaped from for one full week.
I spent most of today browsing through pictures I took throughout our trip. I watched so many small memories, so much emotion enclosed in two megabyte pixels that were slowly uploading onto my computer. The beautiful turquoise of the North Carolina Tarheels, the common columns adorning the homes in Charleston, the large shipping boats at the Savannah port, the small little hipster heaven in Little Five Points Atlanta, the voice of MLK echoing throughout the broken down city of Montgomery, the bellow of the guitarist at the restaurant in Jackson, the vast fields of cotton in the Delta, the soul of the 14 year old blues player in Memphis, the sweet little Pie lady outside of Nashville reminding us to vote for her pie next time, the chili waitress in Cincinnati, the soft dirt track of Churchill Downs, the construction workers in Pittsburgh who ended up being one of the friendliest people despite his "My Name is Earl" facial hair and southern swagger. All these memories ricocheted between my ears like lottery numbers. So many years of history crammed into one week.
And as I entered my car, a Dodge, not the Pontiac we had lovingly named "Betsy Sue," I felt strangely free. No electronic wires form laptops, ipods, cell phones, and power generators restricted me. No GPS woman repeatedly urging me to "BEAR LEFT AHEAD"- "AHEAD" in fact meaning "in 2 miles" - No assortment of Cheez-its, Granola Bars, Chex Mix, or Red Bulls stashed in the back seat beneath blankets and water bottles. There was no jewish man sitting beside me singing "Sweet Home Alabama" at the top of his lungs and then asking to stop at the next rest area so he can dispense urine into sanitation receptacles.
I woke up this morning, not on a road trip at all but instead more stationary than ever before. We drove 3000 miles in one week and landed right where we started. Ain't that life?

For a full album of our trip I invite you to the following link:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/569143891LggCGW?vhost=good-times

God Bless.

FUN Awards

This is Part 2 of the Awards. Check out Part 1 for the more serious awards. These are more fun.

BEST MEAL AT A NON-CHAIN RESTAURANT: Que Sera Sera in Jackson, Miss.
Runner-Up: Harold's BBQ in Atlanta

Surprisingly Jackson gave us the best meal. This place had the best waiter, as he refilled my sweat tea 3,000 times and would never let my glass get less than 3/4s full. We also had interesting Fried Green Tomatoes (taste like fried zucchini sort of) and I had a delicious bowl of Gumbo soup. Great meal.

Runner-up was the BBQ joint in Atlanta. It was definitely the most authentic feeling meal we had, served at a place with an old lunch counter, dingy tables and a sheriff behind the counter (I guess he is a regular). Also looked like the sort of place you could get killed at if you said the wrong thing, but that just added to the appeal. The staff was nothing but friendly and the BBQ was really tasty.

BEST MEAL AT A CHAIN RESTAURANT: Jack-In-The-Box in Nashville, TN.
Runner-Up: Sonic outside of Savannah, GA.

Maybe it was because I was so hungry I had the shakes, but my chicken fajita pita sandwich and curly fries at Jack In The Box were amazing. Plus the place was so clean. I hadn't had Jack In The Box since I was in California like 10 years ago, and it seems like the food has really improved. I didn't even realize they had any restaurants in the East, and I think Nashville is the only city that had them.

Sonic gets #2 because I had always wanted to eat there and it had good food plus a unique concept. It is an authentic drive-in where every car has a speaker and you order through the speaker and they bring the food out to your car. You can either eat the food right there in your car (there are different spots and speakers for each car) or take it to go. They have a big menu and some healthy options too, unlike some of the other places we tried.

BEST SONG OF THE TRIP: "Love Story" by Taylor Swift
Runner-up: "Human" by The Killers

Yes, it is gay that both OJ and I fell silent every time this came on the radio or started playing from our iPods. But whatever, we both really like the song and even after hearing it like 10 times it never lost its charm.

"Human" is great too and it was hard to decide which one we liked more.

SONG THAT DROVE US NUTS ON THE TRIP: "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz
Runner-up: "Womanizer" by Britney Spears

I used to love this Jason Mraz song. Now it will haunt my dreams. Seriously. It played like 400 times in the span of 3 days and it was banned from iPod play. Unfortunately it then started to play on the radio. We immediately switched stations every time. It was impossible to escape from it.

OJ loves the Britney Spears song. I hate it. The chorus makes me want to stab my eyes out with an ice pick. So I guess it didn't annoy US, just ME.

FRIENDLIEST PERSON OF THE TRIP: Woman from the Pie Folks Cafe (forgot her name)

We didn't talk to nearly as many locals as we would have liked on the trip, mainly because the GPS and the internet did all the work in terms of navigation, but this woman was just delightful. She owned and operated this place called Pie Folks right outside of Memphis. We stopped there for a slice of pie and got the whole story on how her "Slap Yo Mama" pie was nominated by Good Morning America as best pie in the country. She'd get my vote any day.

BIGGEST TOURIST TRAP: Beale Street in Memphis, Tenn.

This almost won as the most disappointing place on the trip, but I held out because I still had a good time there. Beale Street has a big row of clubs that have live music in Memphis. Unfortunately, the drinks are expensive, there are covers for every place and the music was not so good. Definitely a tourist trap. Everyone there was like twice our age.

FAVORITE LINE OF THE TRIP: "We're just a couple of Oil Barons on our way to Battttoooonnnn Rougeeeee by way of Coosawatchie, South Carolina" (said in a VERY heavy Southern accent)

I can't explain this, you just had to be there.

FAVORITE NAME OF CITY/COUNTY THAT WE SAW ON THE TRIP: Licking County right outside of Columbus, Ohio
Runner-up: Chocoloco, Alabama

FAVORITE CHURCH/RELIGION RELATED MESSAGE WE SAW ON THE TRIP: On a church sign advertising Sunday service --> "Heaven: Don't Miss It For The World"

That's all folks. I had an AMAZING TIME ON THIS TRIP. OJ was the best travel companion ever as we didn't get into one fight. He was able to deal with my mood swings and extreme neurosis :-) My next road trip will be to the great American plains in a few years I think. As for my impressions of the South, I'll leave you with this quote from a book I read:

"Kid, once you leave New York City, EVERY city you go to is Bridgeport"

Peace ya'll

J$

Trip-End Awards

After a brief stop in Pittsburgh PA OJ and I are on our way back to Brooklyn. By the way, Pittsburgh is surprisingly a nice little city. The downtown area reminds me a lot of Manhattan with big buildings and narrow streets and lots of activity. Too bad we didn't have more time to explore it. We checked out the two sports stadiums, picked up some uber-greasy sandwiches and bolted to avoid any bad weather. We will probably be home in about 4 hours.

Since OJ is driving this leg, I figured I'd do my awards for the trip. I know you have been waiting all day for them :-) I will be doing winners for every categories and runner-ups where appropriate.

BEST CITY WE VISITED: Nashville, Tennessee
Runner-Up: Charleston, South Carolina

I had to give this one to Nashville because, well, it was the most active and civilized city we visited. If we did this trip during the summer, I suspect Charleston may have won, because it is a beach town and it looks like it would be amazing in warm weather. Tommy, if you're reading this, I'm coming there to visit your ass in June :-)

MOST SURPRISING CITY WE VISITED IN A GOOD WAY: Jackson, Mississippi
Runner-Up: Pittsburgh, PA

We expected Jackson to completely suck, given it is smaller than Montgomery in size and population. We were pleasantly susprised with the downtown area and the cleanliness of the city. There wasn't much to do, but it was nice and I would definitely go back again. For the reasons mentioned above, Pittsburgh gets the honorable mention.

WORST CITY WE VISITED: Montgomery, Alabama

No surprise here. Montgomery was a complete dump. Granted we did not spend much time there, but what we saw bordered on being sad. It looked dirty, dingy, dangerous and depressing. We did have a good southern comfort style meal there and the Civil Rights Center is awesome, but it doesn't change the fact that the city was repulsive :-)

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Atlanta, Georgia
Runner-up: Savannah, Georgia

I guess the state of Georgiaitself was a disappointment. We spent a day and a half in Atlanta and we didn't find anything enthralling about the city. I mean, it is called the CAPITOL OF THE SOUTH for God's sake, and none of the bars were crowded except one, and that was because they were doing some weird trivia night thing for locals. The downtown area was empty and lacked energy. For two nights and a pretty expensive motel price, it was a big letdown.

Savannah gets honorable mention here because we weren't very impressed with what we saw, but we didn't stay long enough to really see what it was like at night. What we saw looked touristy and fairly uninteresting. Like Charleston, it seems to be more of a summer destination, but it didn't have Charleston's charm.

SCARIEST PLACE WE VISITED: North Farish Street and the surrounding area in Jackson, Mississippi
Runner-Up: Montgomery, Alabama in general

North Farish Street was at one time the center of the African-American community in Jackson and supposedly had streets teeming with people in a carnival-like atmosphere. Now it is a bunch of boarded up buildings, with one or two open stores, shady characters on the streets corners and houses that literally have trees and bushes growing in the center of them. Oh, and stray dogs running around the streets. Driving around there at night was probably a bad idea, but it was an experience to see it and to recognize how great it used to be.

Montgomery was scary because, well, it is hard to imagine people live in the city. Everything looked awful and run-down, and there weren't even any fast food restaurants to eat in. Every sign on every store looked like it was 100 years old.

MOST HISTORICALLY INTERESTING EXPERIENCE: Driving along the Mississippi Delta on our way to Memphis and stopping in Clarksdale, Mississippi for tamales
Runner-Up: Tie between MLK Jr. Center in Atlanta and Civil Rights Center in Montgomery

The Mississippi delta region starts at Jackson, Miss. and supposedly ends in the lobbyy of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tenn. The area is fascinating because, to be blunt, it was the center of cotton production in the South during the pre-Civil War area, and it is where a great majority of the slaves toiled on the land. Moreover, it was the site of some of the most avid and violent racism during the Civil Rights Movement. Ok, I didn't say it was a GOOD history, but still, driving through the sprawling cotton fields along the Delta gave me a sense of the enormity of what went on during this period in history, and the struggle that developed as a result of it. It is something that needs to be seen and experienced if you are any fan of Civil War history or American history in general.

The two Civil Rights centers win runner-up for obvious reasons. Both are beautifully done and really moving to see. The movie that they show in the Center in Montgomery is something very special, and it almost brought me to tears.

More FUN awards to come after a short recess....

J$

I'm so freakin fat right now

December 7th

I feel like such a fatass. Holy shit. I think my back pain stems from the unusual amount of weight I'm beginning to carry in my abdomen.
Pretty soon I may have to ask some of the ladies reading this to borrow a bra. I'll take used ones. Hell throw in some panties too. I'm sure I can make use of those too.

Status: Bloated
On the TV: Old School
Weather: Snow on the ground!

High in Ohio (I Wish...)

Just got to Cincinnati, Ohio and checked into...yup, you guessed it...Motel 6. OJ and I are now official experts on the layout of every possible Motel 6 room. We can judge the square footage and make instant comparisons with other Motel 6s across the Eastern half of the country. Who said this trip wouldn't be a learning experience?

Cincy is a decent city by all accounts but I doubt we are going to do anything too intense tonight. Probably grab some food, drive around the city a bit and then call it a night. We have an 11 hour drive tomorrow back to NYC, so I'm going to work on stocking the iPod up. Personally, I wanted to just do the drive tonight and sleep in the car, but OJ was too much of a pussy for that. Probably would have been a bad idea given it is 23 degrees out and there is snow on the ground.

The TV here works like shit. Fabulous.

Ohhhhh tomorrow I will be doing a "best of/worst of" award review of the trip. Stay tuned folks.

J$

Louisville

December 7th

Had a hefty buffet meal at Shoney's. I had fried chicken in Kentucky. :-)

We're leaving Churchill Downs now. This place is pretty incredible. 134 consecutive years of operation. The city itself looks kinda dingy, i guess cuz all the gambling. We're passing Louisville University now. Cool baseball stadium, shitty campus. Looks like we're gonna head out to Cincinnati for the night. It's freakin' freezing down here.

Status: Amazed at the history behind Churchill Downs
On the Radio:
Weather: Cold as balls

Nashville Is Money But We Are Spent

As expected from our tour during the day, Nashville is a great city. It's clean, safe and full of cool things to do. Makes me kind of regretful I didn't check out Vanderbilt as a potential college or law school.

It's reached that point in the trip, however, where me and OJ are knocked out. The driving 200-300 miles a day, plus the extra driving we've done in each of the cities, plus the unbalanced diet and lack of good sleep has reached us it seems.

Last night we went to THREE places trying to get dinner and everything went wrong at each of them. The first place had a kitchen that was closed at 8 PM on a Saturday night (OK, so maybe they are still hicks out here), the second place had a two hour wait for food and the third place didn't seem to exist. Actually, as far as the third place goes, we walked into this weird biker bar thinking it was the restaurant and it was like a scene from a movie where the music stops and everyone turns around and stares at the weirdos who just walked in. We booked it out of there before Zed tried to give us a ride on his Harley.

We finally ate at a really good chain restaurant called Logan's Roadhouse. I ate there once in Virginia and it is money. The meal was good. We then went to watch a belly dancer and smoke hookah at a place near the Vanderbilt campus. This was fun and relaxing and a nice change of pace.

The tiredness really hit us when we left the hookah place. We cruised around the Vanderbilt campus looking for parties, but everything seemed dead. We decided to check out the bars on the main drag, Broadway downtown. These places were PACKED and traffic was INSANE. There were lines out the door. Keep in mind that it is like -200 degrees outside and we had already been freezing the entire night. OJ and I looked at each other and both nodded that we should just go back to the hotel. It was already 1 AM and we were pretty sure we would have gone into a coma waiting on line to get in to any of these places.

So we didn't take advantage of the nightlife in Nashville after complaining all week that the nightlife everywhere else sucked. Oh well. We are from NY and we are allowed to bitch and complain. I really wish we had hit Nashville earlier in the trip, at this point we are just running on fumes.

Sad to say that the trip is almost over. We've decided not to stay another night in Nashville and to start our trip again up north. We are probably going to stop is Louisville and Pittsburgh on the way back, but we haven't decided whether we will stay overnight. We may just drive straight through (like 12 hours) and get back to NY sometime early tomorrow morning. That will involve SLEEPING IN THE CAR which is something I think is necessary to do at least once on a road trip. We made a pact that if one of us freezes to death in the car the other has permission to eat the remains. It only seems fair.

J$