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$