N'awlins

New Orleans, Louisiana.

Okay, a hilarious, fun city. Problem is, it's disgusting:

Go to Bourbon street and you'll see signs like “Huge Ass Beers To Go!” or “Beer, Sports, and Titties!” that draw crowds of tourists off Bourbon street to go spend way too much money on beer. I went into a bar that was one of like 5 different bar that claimed to have the most taps in New Orleans. Not to say that that's impossible (They could all have the same number of taps), just a gimmicky little thing that gets people (like me, evidently) off the street and into the bar. Another thing that they advertised that got me in there was “2 for 1 beers!” Bullshit. It's not “2 for 1” if the price of one is the price of two anywhere else. Fuck you.

I paid $10.50 for a beer that I got to refill. That's not 2 for 1, that's 2 for 2, or simplified, 1 for 1. Just like anywhere else. They had a lot of amazing beers, and about 400 bras hanging from the ceiling which were both pluses. Sadly, I think these bras were all from Mardis Gras. While I saw some beads being thrown off balconies at women on the street, I saw no public flashing. Bummer.

I did, however, have many slimey/swarthy (you know the type) bouncers try to get me into their strip clubs, and a few (more convincing) strippers on the street trying to get me into their strip club (strippers wearing nothing but a G-string and tassels shaking their asses and titties at the crowds of tourists walking by their strip club to try to make a dollar). All of these things, these bullshit sales tactics that I experienced, make me hate this city. It's like I'm in New York's slutty younger sister (that came out wrong...) The people on the street will literally grab your arm and start pulling you towards the establishment at which they work to try to move you towards going into their place of work, so you'll spend money. It's gross.

Although, this was night 1. Night 1 after a long, long, boring drive. Perhaps tonight I'll have a little more fun, but I'll certainly be avoiding Bourbon street. That place is a black hole for tourists' money, much as I had predicted.

Re-evaluation:

Okay, so the next morning, I walked around and did some things in New Orleans that WASN'T on Bourbon street. Here's the deal. Only go to Bourbon street if it's a bachelor party, or if you're blackout drunk and filthy, filthy rich. (Addendum: Dueling Pianos was kinda rad, but that's IT. And only kinda rad. And I said “rad” instead of less colloquial adjective on purpose.)

I went down Decatur street and checked out a brewery called Crescent City Brewery. Don't do that either. I drank the Red Stallion. It was pretty good. It was $7.50. You're a brewery. Have some respect for your advocates (not that I'm one of them...)

I also bought the “Gourmet Chicken Sandwich” for a “gourmet” price. It was just a fried chicken sandwich. It had two (very, very thin) slices of apple, and teeny tiny amount of cranberry coleslaw on it. It was pretty much untasteable. It was an average fried chicken sandwich for about $13. On top of this, despite my casual efforts, the bartender wanted nothing to do with anybody in the way of conversation. Guess what bartenders, that's like 80% of your job. Filling glasses is the easy part. Fail to respond to engagements in casual conversation with a guy who is at the bar by himself will earn you a shit review for your restaurant. Like I said, don't go here.

I walked around a bit, and found a place someone had told me to go called Cafe Du Monde. The service here was also horrible. This whole city is just a bunch of people trying to wring money out of your wallet. They don't care about your satisfaction. Maybe it has to do with Katrina? I don't know. That was too long ago for me to play along with the sympathy money card. Bullshit, shit reviews. Although, their Beignets were pretty tasty. I guess that's cool, but certainly not worth going to New Orleans over.

Now, as it turns out, the whole Bourbon street, French Quarter, touristy area blows. That's where to never go if you go to New Orleans (see aforementioned stipulations on necessary intoxication levels and monetary endowments for exceptions to this rule). My dad told me to go to a bar away from this area called Maple Leaf. It was pretty awesome. Kind of a divey neighborhood, but met some really cool people there. It wasn't overcrowded, people weren't slimeballs there. It was nice. The service however, was still absurdly terrible. I had about 4 beers in 5 hours. They were 12 oz plastic cups for pint glass prices. This amount of time had nothing to do with the rate at which I drank these tiny little fuckers, but the mind-curdling rate at which the bartender would get around to refilling them.

Dear bartenders everywhere: Talk to your patrons. Ask them if they need anything when they have nothing in front of them. Those are the ONLY two things you need to do to do your job right. Get a fucking clue.

Anyways, the crowd there was really cool. Ended up hanging out with a girl named Liz for awhile and then we went around the corner and got some pretty amazing Thai food. Nice call, Liz.

Miss Sippy.

 Hattiesburg, Mississippi

So the guy I talked to at the 3 crows bar in Nashville gave some stellar advice about Hattiesburg. He told me to go get Barbeque at a place called Leatha's Bar-B-Que Inn. Ohhhh man.

Okay, so Hattiesburg was a pretty bland area. Very flat, strip mall after strip mall of shit nobody needs, but people like to spend the money they earn. In places where there is nothing to do, excess strip malls exist for this purpose. They're money holes. There's nothing fun about them except for the spending of your money, which is gratifying in it's own way, but.... whatever. Not important.

The guy I talked to told me his family enters bbq competitions in the south regularly, and as such, he grew up to be a bit of a bbq snob. He told me that if I pass through Hattiesburg, amid all the bland corporate landscapes, I needed to find and try Leatha's Bar-B-Que. I took his advice quite willingly, as my drive from Nashville to New Orleans was proving to be long and boring. I grew hungry, I saw signs for Hattiesburg, seemed like a must-do. Was it ever...

I got in there and the women running the place were these heavy-set black women. An excellent start. When that's the first thing you see at a restaurant, you know you're in for some good cookin'

I sat down, and ordered a pulled pork sandwich. My waitress asked me if I had ever been there before. I told her I hadn't, and I explained the circumstances of my presence.

She told me that she was gonna get me the pork ribs instead, and if I wasn't sold on my first few bites, she'd get me my pulled pork sandwich. God damn was she right

uunnghhhh....

So, you know when people describe ribs, and they say that “the meat was falling off the bone,” and by that, in my experience, they really mean, “the meat comes off the bone with relative ease,” or something in that ballpark? Well, this meat was literally falling off the bone. I didn't use a knife, ever. I went to pick up the first rib and I pulled the bone straight out. No meat, no grizzle, not fat, nothing left on the bone. Slipped right out. I proceeded to grab my fork to separate (notice how I avoid the word “cut”) some of the meat. I spooned some of Leatha's BBQ sauce onto my chunk of meat and put it into my mouth for the most serious mouthgasm I've ever had.

Every bite was like this. Every bone in my half rack of ribs was like this. It was unreal. I also got 2 sides (comes with the meal), one of fried potatoes, and one of baked beans. The fried potatoes were okay, they were unseasoned, which I took care of with some pepper. The baked beans were amazing, I mixed Leatha's bbq sauce into them, and... wow. Best baked beans I ever ate. I know that sounds weird, but trust me.

I cleaned my whole plate, finished my drive to New Orleans, and was still ridiculously full. Worth every penny of the $18 bucks I left, tip included.

As that's literally the only thing I did in Mississippi aside from drive through ugly, barren swamplands, this will be the only thing for MS that I mention. Well done, Leatha.  

Tyennasaye! (Picture heavy. 56K = NO)

Tennessee

Chattanooga

Okay, here's the deal on Chattanooga. It's beautiful. There's an unbelievable amount of unbelievable outdoors stuff to do. From hang gliding to zip lining, kayaking, climbing, even spelunking caves hundreds of feet underground (One of which has an amazing waterfall. Underground.) Outdoors, yes, it was as amazing as it sounds.

I stayed at a campground on Raccoon Mountain. It was really sweet, but kinda lame and touristy at the same time. Sweet, because I stayed in a cabin for $35 bucks a night. Lame, because there was also an arcade and go karts on site. Raccoon Mountain has caves on the campsite. It's a guided tour, kinda touristy, but still pretty neat. Overall, their cave pales in comparison to the other cave I checked out (yeah, the one with the waterfall). It's called Ruby Falls. It has some amazing history to it, as I learned on my other touristy guided tour. Some guy found it about a hundred years ago, crawled through a ridiculously narrow crawlspace hundreds of feet underground just to explore (psycho), for 17 hours. In total darkness. Yeah, insane. What's crazier is that his efforts finally payed off when he found what would later be called Ruby Falls, a waterfall hundreds of feet underground. He went back and asked his girlfriend to go with him (She too, insane), and she actually did. She crawled with him in total darkness for 17 hours to find a waterfall. He married her and named the waterfall after her, her name was Ruby. How sweet. I got a lot of pictures of this place, here are some sweet ones for your viewing pleasure:

Okay, not a picture. But still. Best view of Ruby falls I could getchya'll. The pictures of it came outkinda shitty :/ Like I said, Caves are not very conducive to picture taking.

The other Pictures here are from Raccoon Mountain caves, Ruby Falls Caves, and Rock City, a beautiful toursity site (note, the lighting in caves is obviously horrible. They're caves) :

Raccoon Mtn caves:

 Ruby Falls Caves! (Way more sweet)

Looking up the falls area. Sweet lighting, huh?

Leo Lambert convinced his girlfriend to crawl through that space for 17 hours in total darkness to check out the waterfall which he named after her, seen in the video above.

Better idea of the size of the aforementioned crawl space. Ridiculous.

After Ruby Falls, I went up Hill City's hill a little further to another tourist attraction called Rock City. It was beautiful, but a bit too kitchy around some corners. Oh well, here are some sweet pictures of that place, including a badass waterfall I totally wanted to jump off. I'm pretty sure I'd get arrested or something though. :(

The Rest of these pics are of Rock City. Also a cool place to check out:

Guys, you have no idea how badly I wanted to jump. You really, really don't.

I don't know the story behind these, but they're neat sculptures!

The rest of Chattanooga? Skip it. Well, not really. Check out THE REST of the outdoors, but as for downtown? Fuck it. No singles scene, mostly college sweethearts who went to UTC (University of Tennessee in Chattanooga), settled down, and got married. I was there on the weekend, and this city that is considerably larger than Burlington had insurmountably less to do downtown. The bars were all pretty “meh.” Seriously. Saturday night I ended up at a hotel bar, because way more interesting people are at hotel bars in cities like these. Trust me. 

It's not to say I didn't meet anyone cool downtown, it was just so... lackluster. I went to a place that is apparently a Microbrewpub chain (as I visited one here in Nashville last night), called Big River. They had a solid IPA, and an Oktoberfest that the staff has clearly been paid to tell you that it's their bet beer. It's also a quarter more, but it also comes in a half liter mug. It was pretty “so-so” in the way of Oktoberfests. I got something off their menu, but I can't recall what. It was a sort of tuscan pasta dish with sausage and chicken. It was delicious. Friendly staff, good bartenders, and the best crowd I could find in Chattanooga aside from all the tow-truck convention guys who bought me beers (Thanks guys!), and the Milf and her Mother who left me their wine (thanks, ladies!). I feel it necessary to mention that these two women (mother and daughter) were kind of badasses. They tried to steal Champagne and Wine from a restaurant, still int he glass. A vigilante waitress chased them a couple of blocks down downtown Chattanooga to retrieve them. What a die-hard employee. Oh well, a couple of really cool ladies. Took a cab home that night. Sheesh.

I also went to one bar called The Hair of the Dog Pub. It was cool. Talked to some guy from Atlanta about baseball for awhile because he was a sox fan. I ordered a burger. If you find yourself there, do that. It didn't come out medium rare like I asked, but it was really, really well seasoned.

Nashville

Night one in Nashville was pretty wild. I started off trying to go to a microbrewery, as per my norm. I went to Yazoo first. People here love that beer. They were closed. Bummer. I will say that all the beers I've tried of theirs have been amazing. Especially the Dos Perros. It's very different. It's a mexican style beer, but it's also got a real roasted flavor to it. Very, very interesting. Definitely try this beer if you get the chance. (I'm drinking one from a bottle as I type this blog post out.)

I then tried another brewery around the corner. Also closed. Apparently brewers around here don't do Mondays. Oh well, neither would I. I don't remember the name of this place. Whatever.

I then went to the Blackstone pub and brewery. They had a fantastic brown stout, and... I forget what else. I didn't write it down, and their website is undergoing maintenance. Oh well, I'd recommend this place. I also got some weird sandwich I'd never heard of called a Mufaletta . It was some New Orleans invention. It was delicious. It had Salami and some kind of Olive relish on it. The bread was fantastic, it was covered in cheddar and swiss cheese. Oh, man, it was great. The bartender gave me a lot of good info on where to hit up. He even suggested a nude karaoke strip club, which sounded way too awesome to pass up as my first strip club. I went later in the night, it was called The Brass Stables, and it was pretty hilarious and awesome. I'd say it was a good first strip club, it was expensive, though :\ I suppose that's the way those places are... Oh well.

I went to a karaoke bar where they have a designated singer singing when no one else wants to. It was called Lonnie's. I got there when they opened, and the girl singing at the beginning of the day stole my heart faster than anyone ever has. Here's hoping you're reading this, Logan! She had a beautiful voice, and was very sweet.

The sweet thing about Nashville downtown is that there is music in literally 90% of bars at ALL times. A lot of them were country, and a lot of them were boring to me, but that doesn't detract from the fact that that is an amazing feat for a city to accomplish. I was really wowed by that.

I went to another Big River Brewery in Nashville, same deal. Friendly staff, great crowd of people. Kinda slow, as I went around closing time on a Monday night (10ish). Whatever, great food, I got Reuben Spring rolls, they were fantastic.

I then headed back to my hotel area to write up the Nashville post, and got distracted by a bar called Music City Bar and Grill. I ended up staying there till closing. Really, really friendly people. Talked to them about all sorts of music. Unfortunately some people around here think that Nickelback is a great band, alongside Creed and Evanessence. Gross. It's okay, though, they were a wonderful crowd of people. The bartender there was kind of the man, too. I'll probably be back there before I leave.

I took Tuesday off from doing things because I was

1. exhausted from this trip so far
2. Hungover, and
3. it was raining out all day.

Today is wednesday, and as per Ms. Stearns's advice, I went to an area of Nashville called 5 points. It was a small little area with a couple cool bars. I stopped in at Beyond the Edge. Kind of bro-y bar with an adult crowd. It was sort of lame, but it was about 2 p.m. On a wednesday, so I'll let it slide. The bartender, J.D., was a really nice lady. She was fun to talk to, she was very Irish and full of energy. I also talked to some guy who took an interest in my endeavor to find a new place to live. He recommended the south over the north for income tax reasons. He had lived all over this side of the country, so I will certainly take his advice into consideration. Thanks, stranger.

After a drink, I asked J.D. What other bars in the area Alyssa had recommended to me were worth while. She told me to go down the street to the 3 crows bar. I went there and had a great time. Even at 3 p.m. On a Wednesday!

I got talking about beer to a man and woman next to me, who were both from Mississippi. They gave me some places to check out in both Mississippi and Louisiana. Should I take them up on their recommendations, I will certainly be blogging about them.

I then got talking to a guy who owns a restaurant around here in Nashville. He had a pretty cool story. He had been a musician in Germany when he was younger, and for that reason, knew his beer damn well. He is a blogger of religious topics, and a very, very smart guy. It's awesome to hear a guy who blogs about religion in Tennessee say “If someone put a gun to my head and said pick one religion, I'd probably say Taoism.” Much respect. He was a well-spoken, opinionated guy, much like myself. We agree on how much we love to argue, not for the sake of “being right,” like many misunderstand us to be, but truly for the sake of gaining perspective on what the other humans on this planet actually hold emotionally true and dear to themselves, and why. Here's his blog in hopes that he links mine someplace that'll help get me hits! http://docdowns.com/blog He mostly blogs about "religious stuff, and that bullshit." (his words. awesome dude)

The Bartender at the 3 crows bar was also a sweet young woman named Amy, (I hope I remembered that right since she said she'd be reading the blog...) Here's a little shout out just for you, thanks for your company. :)

I've got a little time left in what I've heard called Nash Vegas, but I don't think there's much else for me to check out here. I'll probably go make some second appearances at some bars downtown. I'll update if necessary.

Next stop is New Orleans. I'm very excited. I'm hoping to not spend a lot of money, but I have a feeling I will. Oh well. Here's hoping.

See you on the road.

-Skwar

Georgia!

Georgia

Savannah

First thing's first. In Savannah, you can have open containers in the street. You can get beers to go. Okay, that awesome perk being established, let's talk about Savannah:

So I took coastal rte 17 from Charleston to Savannah. Very pretty road, although for being along a coastline, I didn't see THAT much coast. Oh well, it was pretty.

Pulled into Savannah after sunset. Failed to nail down a campsite that night, so the evening was pretty planless aside from Moon River pub and brewery. It was pretty awesome, but for shame guys, $5.50 for your own beers at your own restaurant? F that. I tried a few beers there, and the only one worth mentioning is the Rosemary IPA. It was unique, and delicious. Not an overpowering rosemary, really complimented the hop character. Their food, I was told, is amazing. I got 3 chicken fingers and fries for $6 and was more impressed with their honey mustard than I was with the chicken or the fries. Oh well. Georgia has a law against breweries selling direct to their customers, but it's A-Okay if they also serve food. Stupid. More on this later.

After Moon River, I went down to River street, where all the touristy things happen, and where musicians play for passer-bys like myself. Pretty neat. Stumbled into a bar called the cotton exchange and met a dude named Mark, he was a real nice guy, talked to him about the area for awhile. He offered a place to stay up by Atlanta, which I never ended up hitting him up for. Whatever, real nice guy.

After the cotton exchange (last call 10:30, bartender liked us, drank till about 11:15) we went to a place called the Bar Bar. The Bar Bar was cool because it wasn't crowded. Seemed like a douchey spot when it's happening, though. Free pool tables are a plus,and cheap domestic drafts (PBR $1.50). After getting a decent look of the city, I went and found a rest area nearby to sleep.

The next day I went to set up camp at Skidaway National Park. It was fantastic. Water, electricity, showers, playgrounds, hiking (if you can call any trail in southern Georgia “hiking”) trails, bike rentals. This place had it all. I should have taken more pictures, but here's our spot:

We set up the tent, napped for a bit, and then hit Savannah for another night on the town. This time, we went to a place called Shipwreck on Broughton street. This street had a lot going on. This bar was pretty cool, and the bartender was really nice. She recommended we go to Congress street to bar hop. There was The Rail, and Irish Pub, and this place called The Social.

We went to the rail. Really friendly bartender again, and the guy next to us sent us his Guinness because he had somewhere to be. He talked to us for a little bit, he was a psychologist paid by the government. He gave us some ideas of cool stuff to do in Savannah that we did none of. If you're ever in Savannah, though, “Don't go to Paula Dean's restaurant. It's way too expensive. You can get a 5 course meal at a place called the Sapphire Grill (look for the blue sign), for about $60 bucks a head.” I wanted to do it, but I didn't. I should have. Oh well. We went outside to drink more and met a tattoo artist from Wisconsin named Marshall (he actually gave the bartended from shipwreck one of her awesome tattoos. Marshall's tattoo shop also shares a wall the rail. Got to talking to him and his girlfriend for a while about the area, they gave us some more good ideas we didn't take up, like the Hearse tours. Take a tour in a converted Hearse. Apparently, the test to become a Hearse tour driver is one of the hardest history tests in the country. They all give different tours, and there are a lot of different drivers, so it's something you can do every time you visit and get something new every time.

After The Rail, we, per the Tattoo artist's recommendation, went to a pizza place called Vinnie Van Go-gos. Amazing, amazing, amazing pizza. Huge, not too much money. Definitely check this place out.

After Pizza we hit the road back to camp.

The next day, we went back to Savannah again. I sat at a starbucks near the college campus and discovered that many attractive women about my age live in the area. Always a plus. I was there to charge my cell phone and use wifi, because I had no 3G service because my smartphone was being a dumbphone. Once I got the phone and deal situation situated, met up with Nick and got some burgers at B&D's burgers. Holy hell hot owner. Anyways, she was married, but damn. They had an impressive burger list and a lack luster beer list. I got their version of a rodeo cheeseburger, half pound, cooked to perfection. Very impressed.

After the burgers, we went to the social and hung out for a bit. Not many people there, but a friendly crowd. The bartender was from Montpelier, so we had a bunch to talk about. After a few drinks there I went back to the shipwreck, then back to the cotton exchange. I hung around the city for awhile and went into a bar that looked metal as fuck but was some shitty club-scene bar. I don't remember the name, but if you're in Savannah and think you found a bar that looks metal as fuck, it's probably not. It was on broughton street, I think. Oh well.

I went back to the campground, slept, and then took off the next morning for the terrapin brewery in Athens.

Athens

The drive from Savannah to Athens blows. It's all roads like this:

I was on an interstate for all of 40 miles before take roads like that for about 30 miles. Just... nothingness. On the east coast! Who knew? I had to take about 40 different highways (severe exaggeration alert), it just seemed very convoluted. I asked around Athens, and evidently, it's just they way it is. Oh well.

Like I said earlier, Georgia has laws against brewers selling directly to their customers unless they also make food. Terrapin's brewery sucked for this reason. You can get samples at the designated sample hours (530 – 830), but it's just pretty dumb. The master brewer there's wife is trying to open her own pub and brewery (separate from terrapin) and the georgia laws won't let her. She'd have to get a “divorce,” because she shares her last name with the master brewer of a brewery. Bulllllshit. So I asked the staff where I can get their beers and they're not allowed to tell, because that's favoritisim. Very nice staff being held down by supid age-old laws. Man, I can't wait until my generation is in power.

Anyways, I headed to college st in Athens and went to Trapeze. It was a bar and grill that had some awesome beers. The beer guy there brews a couple of his own. I forget what it's called, but it was a strong belgian styled golden ale. Fan-fucking-tastic. I also tried Terrapin's rye pale ale, which was also excellent. The bartended there was the man. He was a fan of Opeth, BTBAM, number 12, so many other sweet bands. Talked to him for a while about music and beer, had a great time. After that, I walked back to feed the meter for my car and passed a place called Copper Creek Pub and Brewery. Reminded me a hell of a lot of Otter Creek, because their flagship beer is their Copper ale. I went in and got two beers, the Belgain red which was a little spicy, pretty thick entering the palette, and smooth as silk on the way down. Great beer. The next beer I got was called the Steam. It was a lighter golden with a crisp hoppy finish that I never saw coming from the moment it hit my mouth. Really took a minute for the bitter kick to occur. I liked it. Copper Creek was clutch, I met a dude there named Tynan who had gone across the country 16 times. I talked to him for about an hour about places all over the country I need to go. Thanks dude, hope you're reading this! Good luck and such.

Atlanta

So I pulled into Atlanta after trying a Kickin' Chicken at a Zaxby's per Cleve's orders. Guys, if you've never heard of a Zaxby's, go to one the next time you see one. Best fast food chicken I ever ate. Two strips of fried chicken, smothered in Zax sauce (Ketchup, Mayo, and Franks, probably) in between two slices of texas toast. Fantastic.

I got to my Uncle Louie's place in Vinings, just outside Atlanta proper. He's in a really sweet gated community that is way, way, way nicer than it's surroundings. Sweet deal.

The next day I went to check out Atlanta Institute of Music, where Tosin Abasi “studied briefly,” I was unimpressed upon entering, and massivle impressed upon leaving. It had all the charms of an ITT-tech on the outside, but the inside was loaded, loaded, loaded with state-of-the-art equipment. Cheap school, huge names come through to give speeches (Guthrie Govan is gonna be there next week). I talked to a couple recent guitar grads and they were into a lot of the same stuff I was, which is certainly encouraging. They had heard of Candyrat records, they obviously knew who Tosin was, they were even privy to the term Djent. Badass.

After that I went to a Bahama Breeze, a chain restaurant down south. Pretty good, honestly. They have an amazing appetizer that's beef, vegetables, and spices in a deep fried pastry. So good. I also got a Terrapin and a Sweetwater 420 pale ale (which is named 420 for no other reason than the brewers being huge pot heads). They came in 20 oz glasses. $4.29 each. Dope. The bartender there knew the area, talked to him for a bit, he told me to hit up Vortex and Little 5 corners. So far, I've hit up Vortex. I'll edit in Little 5 corners later if I end up going before I leave Atlanta, but I'm starting to doubt I will.

On my way to vortex, I hit traffic. I saw a guitar center and stopped for some shredz. Two people asked for my information, one dude named Vaughn who is in some band on tour, and one dude that worked there. I was pumped that a guitar center employee, who probably sees 100 douchebags like myself per day come in and lay down some dope licks and riffs, actually wanted to know who I was, what I was up to musically, etc. Really cool.

Vortex, oh my god. Inside vortex exists a comedy club called the laughing skull. Every bartender there was a total badass. If they weren't intimidating, they were just doing bar tricks like they were nothing, keeping track of everyone's shit with no tabs. Kind of crazy.

I was sent here to get a burger. They have crazy burgers, including the triple coronary bypass, which was featured on man vs. food. It is: two half pound sirloin patties stacked inside 3 grilled cheese sandwiches, topped with two fried eggs, 8 pieces of american cheese, 10 strips of bacon. It comes with fries and tater tots drenched in cheese.

Here's the whole menu. It's funny. It's awesome. http://www.thevortexbarandgrill.com/menus/WebMenu.pdf

There was the “hot bitch of the day” behind the bar, which was a pinup from a porno. Funny.

They played amazing music. Here's the songs I remember: Sweet Charity, Air conditioned Nightmar, Goodbye Sober Day – all by Mr. Bungle, Bleak – by Opeth, Swim to the Moon – BTBAM, among other awesome songs I recognized. So awesome.

I sat next to a wonderful woman named Katie (hope you're reading this Katie!) she told me a lot about the area, and a lot about Vortex. She's a regular. We ended up getting a couple burgers together and talked the night away. The atmosphere at this bar made it really easy to joke endlessly about anything, from the hot bitch of the day to the hilarious menu.

This place also does 20 oz glasses instead of pints (so awesome). They also brew there. They make a red brick porter, which was all gone :(, and they make The Laughing Skull amber, which I had 60 ounces of. It was a pretty plain amber. Kinda perfect for the atmosphere I was in.

Lastly about Vortex, and Atlanta in general, you can smoke in bars. I hate that laws prevent this. It's not fair to bar proprietors. That perk attracts a certain crowd, and the risk of second hand smoke issues with the amount of ventilation that exists in bars like this is so minimal. It should be up to the owner, not the law. Something in this country that is highly, highly unamerican.

Take care friends and followers. I'll see you on the road! Next stop is Chattanooga, I'll be camping at Raccoon Mountain. There's caves! I can go mining for gems, too! Hopefully I come out rich, and with many souvenirs for any jewelery loving friends of mine. Here's hoping!

South Carolina Connings

South Carolina

Ohh boy. South Carlonia was buckets of fun. Me and Nick got into some mischief, the early stages of becoming dignified con-men, really. Okay, so it started like this: We start driving south from VA with noplace in mind. We're hungover, terribly unwell rested, and ready to seek adventure. We realized that there wasn't much between Staunton and South Carolina so we pulled off in Charlotte, NC, and grabbed some beers at The Flying Saucer. Here's my advice to you: do that. Place is dope. Tons of high quality draught beers, reasonable prices, and pretty much everything to do in a bar ever (pool, darts, chess, checkers, sports, food, beer...). If you become a member there, they keep track of all of the beers you try. Should you be one of less than 1000 people so far to try over 200 different beers, they give you a gold plate with your name, number person you are to accomplish this feat, and a little quote from you. Then they hang it on the wall, hence the name “The flying saucer.” We had a few drinks, sat around and sobered up for a few hours, grabbed food, and continued southbound. That's literally all we did in NC. That's why it doesn't get it's own blog post! Ha! Honestly though, we were in the area surrounding UNC, and it seemed pretty bland.

Anyways, we headed south through South Carolina for some time, and decided to start figuring out a sleeping situation. We went to Andrew Jackson National Park, hoping to camp. It was closed. (Bullshit. Andrew Jackson would have let us in! Poorly titled park. I don't care what history has to do with it, for shame.)

So, in a pinch, we called 411 and asked if there were any campgrounds that were open and nearby. The guy told us that Ridge view park was open. So to Ridge view park we went. It wasn't nearly as close as the guy said (5 vs 35 miles... Thanks, info dude). We passed several campsite signs on our way, but decided to trust this guy. Turns out that was dumb. It didn't look like anyone had camped at this “campground” in decades. It was a “campground” behind and AM PM that was closed at 11 pm. What the hell AM PM? I thought you guys were open 24 hours, I thought that was your THING. Oh well, you're supposed to register to camp at the closed AM PM, for the campsite that barely exists. It was eerie, there was one car present at the alleged campsite. It had an AC in the back window. It had a CRT TV, 32” (maybe bigger) on the hood. Whoever was there, they weren't leaving for awhile. I don't know. A lot about that place screamed bloody murder. We were in the sticks of SC, at a faux-campsite behind a gas station. I made the executive decision to, instead, investigate one of many parks we had passed in between our two failed attempts at somewhere to sleep.

So a little north we went. We went looking for the Waterlee campsite. It, too, was in the middle of nowhere, but that's okay. We were struggling to find the actual campsite entrance within the Park, but when we did... oh boy. Jackpot.

We went through an open gate that says “Gate closed 10 pm – 6 am” at about 2 am. We drove around the mostly empty campgrounds. There were a few RVs, not many tenters. We pulled up to one of the spots, effectively poaching a campsite for free as our arrival was anything but legitimate (and thus we did not pay). We set our alarms for 5 am, so we could get up and leave through the “closed gate” and not have to pay.

This campsite was beautiful. It was right on a lake, very quite, very cool. I would totally go back to legitimately camp sometime. But anyways, we left, scott-free, and began an amazing day of con-men shit in South Carolina. We drove south towards Charleston. We saw a sign for lodging off an exit – Hampton Inn. You guys know what Hampton Inn's have every morning? Both my father and Nick's step-mother told us before we left: continental breakfast. We decided on rolling in like we run the place, taking some free breakfast, and getting back on the road. We were prepared to do exactly that, until one of the women running the continental breakfast asked us outright - “Ya'll want breakfast?” “Hah, yeah!” no sleuthing necessary :coolface:. We loaded up on food, and set south for Charleston again.

Finally, we get to Charleston at about 9:30 a.m. What a city. Incredible, blown away. I walked into a hotel to snag some free wifi and figure out what the hell was going on. I rendezvoused with Nick once the deal had been discovered. We walked around looking for two places people had told us to go. Neither were open. But right near failed attempt #1 was a brewery called South End Brewery and Smokehouse. Awesome. But closed until 11:30, so we meandered.

Charleston is right on the water, there's no beach though. It's really pretty, lots of expensive estates by the water that were totally breathtaking. Uptown from there you get to college-kids-ville. There's a main road that's full of your typical city clothing stores, and a bunch of little odd places that are totally worth walking into, mainly because everyone is so damn nice there. Some woman literally yelled to Nick and I from her store, out to the street, to get us in for free fudge. Awesome, and delicious.

We walked through the college area, I think, it must have been. High volume of very attractive women. And found ourselves over by Market street. Market street is awesome. It's like 3 – 5 blocks of people in the area's craftworks. For sale. Handwoven baskets are big here, but there are all sorts of trinkets and knick knacks for anyone. It was really cool, gave me a sense of community for the area, reminded me of Burlington in that way.

After meandering, we went back to the South End Brewery Smokehouse and had a few drinks. Excellent beers, and really good pulled pork sandwich.

Once we felt we had seen the city of Charleston, we decided to head to Hilton Head island, South Carolina, to do more conning.

My family vacations here every year, so I'm familiar with the area. We parked at the Westin, because there's no gate guy there. We walked right through the hotel like we were guests, and out onto the pool area. We went onto the beach, where Nick stayed. I went over to the Barony Beach club and took a nap under the sun. They literally have beds out in the “lay in the sun” areas there now. That was new to me, and quite a delight. Wasn't expecting a nap on a queen sized bed that afternoon, especially not out in the sun.

After my nap, I went for a dip in the hot tub. I relaxed for a bit, and then decided to cool off by swimming in the pool. After my swim, I decided to go into the Barony beach club and use their showers. Once cleaned, I headed back to find Nick. He was back over at the Westin, lounging in the sun. We decided to get on our way to Savannah, but before we did, we filled up 3 large gatorade bottles with Limeade the Westin had made for their guests and put in the lobby. Filled up on that shit. Delicious.

After our day of 5-star living for $0, we went to McDonalds to use free Wifi and figure out what to do next. I found out that Hilton Head Island, SC, had a brewery. I asked Nick how he felt about it, and a man who had previously been puking in the bathroom walked by and suggested we don't go there; that their beers are shitty. We asked him if he knew of any Breweries in the Savannah area. He told us to go to Moon River brewery, and that's exactly what we did. More on that next post! Georgia!

See you on the road.

Viriginia!

Virginia

Nick lives in a reasonably sizeable town in the middle of nowhere in western Virginia. I arrived late due to horrible traffic out of the D.C. Area caused by floods. It was a pretty big bummer. Oh well.

Once I hit I-81 South toward Staunton, VA, I noticed 70 MPH speed limits. It was awesome, never felt so okay about going 80 before. It was sweet, everyone's going 80. Even truckers. It opens up driving in a sweet way. It's new to VA, though. As I moved farther south into NC where they've had such speed limits for awhile, it was evident that these drivers in VA were “new to this.” Oh well.

I got to Nick's house and crashed. It was late.

The next day, we went to Kathy's (I think, some diner in Staunton that starts with a K and is a female's name) for breakfast. Good country breakfast cookin'. Nick and I got essentially the same thing, just arranged differently. It was delicious.

After we ate, we drove around a bit. We went down to the Blue Ridge Parkway, dubbed the most beautiful road in America. Probably so, it was beautiful. That's why I recorded the first shred vid in awhile here. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Driving across many mountains over 3000 ft high, not quite “used” to that, you know?

After the ridge, we went back to Staunton, grabbed some BBQ at Peck's for not very many dollars. It was pretty great. The french fries were excellent.

After having most of the tour of Nick's home area, we went off to meet up with Nick's Dad, Sister, and Brother-in-law at the South Street Brewery in Charlottesville, VA, where UVA is. Charlottesville was pretty happening. It seemed like a lot of fun, but it was way too hip and way too southern at the same time. Culture clash. Strange. The South Street Brewery was amazing though. They had a pretty delicious mead, and they had a few other beers that I tried and was impressed by.

I must say, it is really annoying to go get good food and drink in college towns though. College towns usually hire college kids to do their bidding, and in the way of service this was a nightmare. A table of 5 should never have hot food and zero beers. This happened, and persisted for the duration of the hot food. Beerless. I don't know; that, to me, is piss poor service. And even when we left the brewery to tie one on at a place downtown, we ordered our drinks and an appetizer. We got our appetizer before our drinks. That, too, is ridiculous, especially when you're trying to maintain buzz. Can't win 'em all.

The next day Nick and I went to costco to get some supplies for the trip. On our way back, Nick opted for us to take a less direct route home, so we did. We got a little lost and ended up in the George Washington National Forest. It was sweet, there are little campsites off of all the roads in this place. Really cool, really free. Nick wanted us to find an old campsite he and his friends used to camp at regularly. He failed pretty miserably, but when we found someone and asked for directions, we did get to meet the biggest hillbilly yokel I ever did see. I can't quite explain the way that he talked via text, but suffice to say he had a golfball sized dip packed in his cheek, and the word “Maryland” (three syllables,) came out simply as “Merhl” (a mere 1 syllable!) It was as though he would pre-load each word into the loose cannon that was his mouth. He would let the canons blaze, let as much of the word out as could be ordained by the cannon's “blast,” (a pathetic blast, really), and simply let his dip-spit-dripping lips flutter about as the word came to an anything but succinct and distinct finish. “Merhl.”

After that amazing encounter that did eventually set us back on track, we went back to Nick's for one more night. Nick invited a few friends over, and we got really, really drunk all night. It was pretty awesome. Porch drinking a la Pando's house. Great times.

After a solid 2 – 3 hours of sleep, Nick, myself, and others, woke up and began our days. This day, for Nick and I, was the beginning of the accompanied road trip.

Wild West Virginia

Western Maryland/West Virginia

In the interim between “outside Baltimore,” and “outside D.C.,” I drove west to see a friend in West Virginia. He's something of a badass, which I knew already, but really came to light when I met with him in his neck of the woods.

First of all, driving through Maryland, East to West or West to East is beautiful. As soon as you escape the suburban sprawl, things really get interesting. There were lots of rolling little mountains that I drove though on I-68. The ridgeley mountain gap is beautiful. There's a rest area at the peak on both sides of the highway, and they're connected by a pedestrian overpass. I stopped on my way back to take some pictures:

I was really impressed with Western Maryland; no one ever told me that shit was gonna be so scenic.

As the road went on, found myself going though a city call Cumberland. It was really neat because it's... pretty much abandoned. Still some things going on in this small city, but for the most part, it was the most of a ghost town I've ever experienced.

Keeping on west past Cumberland, you'll eventually reach Wild West Virginia. I, per my buddy's request, got off the first exit in WV, for Hazelton. I followed his directions, because my GPS was not aware that this place even existed. As far as it was concerned, I was driving around in the woods.

I eventually roll up to my friend Cleve feeding deer bits of Apple by hand. Kind of sweet, right? Here's what's awesome, these Deer are ALWAYS around Cleve's house (because he feeds them and you can do that legally in WV). There were like 10 deer that frequent his driveway. Cleve also leaves out cornmeal for them. They just come right up and hang out. So cool.

So, I was totally impressed from the start, but had high hopes. Cleve has always talked about how sweet his living situation is and my expectations were exceeded. He lives in a house he and his Dad built a few years ago. Cleve lives there and commutes to school from there. He's a naturalist, and thus knows everything about every little living thing on his 14 acre plot. He did not cease to explain most of them to me, as he said “there's literally nothing else to do out here. It's awesome.”

He went to class and I did laundry for the first time on the trip (for free, score). I went outside to play guitar for a bit and realized that I was playing an acoustic set for about 5 deer. They seemed pretty into it. One of them darted off in the middle of it and scared the shit out of me. I would have filmed this, but the sun had already set.

When Cleve returned, he cooked some amazing Italian food that cost him like $0 to buy because the Meninite food store in town is so cheap. Canned tomato sauce runs him like 30¢. We drank a Flying Dog sampler, which are bountiful in those parts. Flying dog opened a second brewery in Frederick, MD (not far from WV). Once drunk, Cleve decided to show me how he summons owls to his property in the dead of night. I guess for some company? I don't know, totally badass though. Had a great time hanging out in nowheresville, WV

I then left WV, headed to hang in MD for a little longer (which I included in the last post), then headed down to VA to pick up Nick.

...just continuing this flood of posts here. I've got most of Viriginia written out. Need to edit and add a shred vid. Need to add pics. Then I'll have a real short NC post that I might just combine with SC, and a sizeable GA post. I'm in Atlanta now, probably for another night, then I'm off to Nashville, I think... Or is it Chattanooga first? Who knows, certainly not me. See you out there somewhere.

-Skwar

Merryland

Maryland

I left Philly early and headed to Maryland, anticipating approximately 10 hours of downtime. I hiked South Mountain. It was a pretty easy hike, good time killer. Nothing new as far as hiking terrain goes, same old stuff I'm used to, for the most part.

After South Mountain, I drove a bit farther south towards Towson. I found myself at Loch Raven Watershed. It was a beautiful place to drive though. It appeared as though there were some hiking trails, but I didn't get to check them out. It was getting dark by the time I had gotten there and I had already hiked that day, so I passed.

In Towson, the landscape is a mix between corporate and suburban sprawl. It's pretty busy, almost city-burb-ish. There's a couple colleges there, and from what I understand, most of the people there are not attending their first choice school. Lots and lots of beautiful, unintelligent women. Is what it is.

So, Towson is pretty lame, but not far from Towson is the city of Baltimore. I had some fun here. My buddy from College whom I stayed with took me to two breweries in Baltimore. The first one was called Brewer's Art. It was a cool little basement nook bar. All their beer was served in stemmed goblets, like a huge sawed off wine glass. I had their Saison and their IPA. Both delicious, very cool little brewery. It was annoyingly dark though, which might say something about the normal patrons...

Not far from Brewer's Art was another brewery called Brew Dog. It was next door to a really small music venue I was told is pretty tight. Bonus. At Brew Dog, all the bartenders are really attractive women who drink with you. It was really sweet. They gave out a round of shots to everyone at the bar, including the staff, at 6:00. They serve all their beers as two separate ¾ sized pints. This is ideal when sampling beers with a friend. You both order different brews and swap one of your two with one another, and get through the beer list far more cost effectively

After Towson and Baltimore, I went to West Virginia, which will be my next post. After West Virginia, I came back to Rockville Maryland and hung out with a friend for a little while.

The city of Rockville Maryland kind of reminded me of home. Well, not my town in particular, but a lot of the suburbs that surround I-95 around the perimeter of Boston. It was full of neighborhoods, while also full of little strip plaza's where people come from their neighborhoods to spend money while avoiding going the 10 miles and 40 minutes through traffic to the larger metropolitan area. There was a lot of woods present, while still having echoes of an urbanized feel about it. I suppose this is just what it's like 10-30 minutes outside any major metropolitan area. It was nice, but I didn't do anything there that you couldn't do somewhere else, except hang out with quality humans, which is not to be written off. Shoutin' out to Lydy and friends!

Sorry followers, it's been a delayed bit for this post. I've been G-less. No Gs. Not 3Gs, not 1 G, not even an E! My smartphone isn't all that smart. I fixed it, got my Gs back. I'm about to flood with like 3 posts or so, and then I'll be back on track, so yeah. I guess I'll see you on the road, but I'm in Georgia now, not just about to leave Maryland, that was last week. Oh well.

See you... somewhere. Sometime.

Illadelphia!

Alright. After New York I drove down a little west of Philly to a town called Spring City where I know a guy (Shout out to Nick!)
The first day I was there, we drove into Philly and met up with a friend of his who has lived in Philly for a while. He lived next door to a deli where I got a legit 6" hoagie for just $3.75! So cheap, so dank. After cramming that hoagie into my face we started walking across town, right by the Sugar House, a casino opened by America's wonderfully poor government in South Philly, even though Gambling is illegal there. Nice, guys. Way to be. At least our money being on fire hasn't made us do anything that makes us look desperate... Anyways, we were walking to go see a show on Penn's Landing. Apparently they don't do shows there much, but they should. It was a really sweet riverfront location. Free show (Dr. Dog, get jealous Burlington hippie dog fans. I don't even like them! Ha!) It was still sweet, though, I'm always down for a free show with any musicians that are at least... well... that are at least musicians.
On the long walk from South Philly to Penn's Landing, we passed a brewery called Yard's. Pretty interesting brewery, and a pretty well known microbrew in the area. They were hosting some kind of event after the free Dr. Dog show, so it was $5 to get in (wtf? A brewery cover charge? That's a first.) Good thing the kid we were with knew somegirl that worked there, got us all in for free and gave us a few drinks on the house. Dope.
Anyways, Yard's had some great beers. The one to be noted would have to be "Poor Richard's Tavern Spruce Ale," which comes from an original recipe from Ben Franklin (!). It does not have any Hops at all, they are replaced with spruce. It called for a very, very interesting experience. Not bad interesting, awesome interesting. Really enjoyed that beer. It was also kind of cool (not for me) that one of their flagship beers was a stout made with oysters (because I'm allergic to shellfish. Womp.)
Perhaps it was because of the special event (god I hope so) but they served their beers to us in plastic cups. Yard's cups. Plastic. Hey, brewers, plastic has a flavor, it's plastic. It's not tasty. Don't desecrate your craft brews by putting them in it. If I were a master brewer and I found out that was happening at my brewery, I'd break a full keg over the bartenders arms so he could never serve my beer again.

After Yard's, we walked back to South Philly. The kid from Philly showed us a super secret spot that I will choose not to disclose publicly on the internet, but if you really wanna find it, e-mail me. I'll give you the coordinates.
He took us to this abandoned pier. It was huge. We had to climb up a metal pipe to get on top of the concrete structure that probably stood about 70 feet tall at the end where the bridge was out. We hung out there and drank some yard craft brews until about 3 a.m. It was pretty cool. TONS of great graffiti. Very secluded. There were no signs indicating that we couldn't be there, so everything about it was pretty awesome and legit.

The next day, my buddy Nick and I hit up the Victory Brewery. Victory is an amazing brew company. Their brewery reflected that pretty brilliantly. They had excellent food (I got a buff chick personal pizza. Pretty big. I didn't finish it. 8 bucks. Good deal). I also got their french onion soup, which I get at any restaurant that makes it for a decent price. Their's was fantastic. They also have really, really cool growlers that have hilariously expensive deposits on them. Oh well, got one anyways. Worth it: 
The beer, if you don't already know, is amazing. This is one of the best breweries I've ever been to. Still though, Bobcat in Bristol VT is number 1 in my heart.

After the Victory Brewery, we hung around until some local bar in the middle of nowhere near Spring City PA (maybe in spring city? no idea, really) called the railroad bar and grill, or something. I don't quite remember because they had 25¢ beers for an hour. In case you're unaware, 25¢ beers is literaly cheaper than beer. You cannot buy a beer that inexpensively since like.. 1979. Except here.
This bar had an AMAZING selection of beer (Chimay, Hennepin, Dogfishead, Lagunitas, to name a few). They also had their shitty beers, which as I said, cost 1 quarter from 8:30 to 9:30 on Sundays. My buddy and I got quite loaded during this period of time, so I don't recall much of the experience. I DO, however, recall the FREE BUFFET that comes out as soon as the cheap beer deal ends. So, you get real drunk and hungry, and then eat free cheesesteaks until you think you might puke. So, so awesome. Can't quite beat that, it certainly holds a candle to the 3 needs deal mentioned in the VT post, although these are cheap shitty beers, not cheap craft beers. The free cheesesteak helps tip the scale quite a bit.

Here's $3.50 worth of beer: Yeah, you should be jealous of this deal.

Unfortunately, no shred vid here either. I slacked on NY, and the weather hasn't been very permitting since NY, so... hopefully some shred vids to come.
Check back, and I'll see you on the road!

New York, New York

Alright, so I'm from Boston. Natural animosity towards New York. Take that into account:

I drove out from Connecticut up and over to Hyde Park, New York, which is pretty much as far north as the Metro North train line goes from New York City. There was a cool little park near where I was where FDR's house was. There were some historical sites and some nifty little trails that went by the Hudson (which is brown and red in color, if you didn't know). So, pretty, yeah, but beautiful, no. It was a very suburby neighborhood that you could say exceeded my expectations.

I took the Metro North down into NYC and stayed in Bushwick, which is in Brooklyn. The rent there was pretty cheap, and the food and beer was, too. For New York, anyways. A bar in Bushwick to check out is The Gotham City Lounge. This bar pretty much looks like the bedroom of some nerdy comic book reading, sci-fi enthusiast. It was decked out with all kinds of action figures, models (toys, not babes), posters from superhero movies, etc., except it's also a bar. They also had a Marvel vs Capcom arcade game. This bar was awesome. The guy running it, Jeff, was a really cool guy. He let my buddy and I hang out and drink until 5 a.m. (bars close at 4 a.m. in New York). It being the case that a shot and a pbr can run you $3, us being there until 5 a.m. spelled out hangover pretty boldly for the next day.

Not far by train from Bushwick is a place called Dumbo. If you find yourself at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, look for a restaurant/bar called Superfine. Really cool staff, fair prices on good beers ($5 for a Coney Island Lager, $3.50 during happy hour), free pool table. Kind of a weird variety for a crowd there, but that shouldn't stop you.

Williamsburg, hipsterville capital of Brooklyn. Had a lot of fun here. There's a few places that need to be checked out:

The Alligator Lounge - I didn't get to go here, but I don't care. They serve 8" pizzas with every single beer you order for free. Well, the beers are $4, but that's an amazing deal. Take it.

Barcade - Oh my god. If I were 5 years older this place would be some kind of haven. It's a bar packed with arcade games from the 80s. I'm sure they'll rotate their game selection as the generations pass through. Would have been sweet to be playing Mortal Kombat and Area 51 and stuff. Guess I'm just not hip enough yet. This is a bar that had like 20 craft bres on tap, all for $6 each (except really heavy beers >10%abv, They're $7, oh well. Still worth it). Their selection was amazing. They had a McNeil's brew on tap, which is from VT. Hat's off. 

And the place to go if you're trying to bro out and pick up chicks - Union pool. Pretty sweet, they had a taco truck out back outside. Good looks. There was also a sign by the bathrooms that read "Due to debauchery, one person per bathroom." Nice. But be wary here, like most places to pick up or be picked up, there's a high volume of douchebaggery. 

There was one other bar called The Turkey's Nest, I think. It was a sweet hole-in-the-wall dive bar in hipsterville, which was kind of neat. There was a guy passed out on the bar, bartender didn't care. My friend ordered a whiskey gingerale that was more like a whiskey on the rocks with a splash of gingerale. I got a Brooklyn Lager for $4. Not bad. Terrible music though, it eventually lead to us leaving. 

Aside from Brooklyn, I went to one bar in Manhattan. Here's my advice - don't do that. Ever. We looked around for places that had something not hilariously expensive and failed for quite some time. We eventually found a bar called Twin's. We got a couple beers for like $5 a piece, and then ordered a round of shots of Jameson. That bottle of Jameson... I don't know guys. I'm pretty sure there was apple juice in it. My two friends and I all immediately noticed that our shots were way too delicious and tolerable. Not cool. Don't even bother drinking in manhattan unless you're some business executive with a silly salary. 

I know New Yorker's say their trains aren't confusing, but that's a damn lie. The streets make perfect sense, and walking around manhattan was a breeze, but once I was out of manhattan and in Brooklyn, getting around was as effortless as building a working automobile out of nothing but toothpicks. It's pretty retarded, I'm sure it gets easier with time, but it's certainly not for me.

Now, as you can see, I had a lot of fun in NYC. And I'll bet you will too. Here's the thing: NYC is literally cancer. It is a tumor on the earth with it's routes stuck firmly into the ground. People traverse beneath the earth's surface here through the roots that glue that goddamn tumor to the surface. It's sickening, really. There's so man goddamn people, too. It's a fun place, but it's a terrible, terrible place.

But again, don't get me all wrong here, it's totally worth visiting. I mean, if you're an adult you probably know at least 100 people that live in that city, somewhere. They're there somewhere. Great place for reconnecting with old friends -- Excellent seeing you Jess, Dyl, Jamie, Dana and Chris! Meeting up with wonderful people is always a wonderful time, even if it's in America's favorite tumor. 

No shred-vid for this post, or the next one. Didn't have the time. I'll update in Philly pretty soon.