Jiggity Jig

First off, big thanks to everyone who helped out with the voting for J.R. Salzman's video entry for the Vail, CO trip. I think we got them up to ninth place, which doesn't get them the trip, but it did get them a nice prize. Thanks again to everyone. It doesn't amaze me anymore when people do nice things, mostly because I kind of know you all now, in a way, and I know that you're all good--no, great folks. Thanks again for the help.

In other news, I'm home. I've been home since Friday afternoon. It was a whirlwind tour of the southeastern parts of the United States. As promised, I saw a lot of Interstate 40. My favorite part of it? Altus, Arkansas, but only because it's a Latin word meaning "high, deep" and also because I didn't go to Jenks, Oklahoma.

So, I flew out Wednesday night, and the flight from Raleigh-Durham to Atlanta was fine. I had my own bank of seats with no one pressing in around me. I was behind the stewardess' station in the back of the plane, so I didn't have to look down the cabin at anyone. I was basically alone in my own little world, reading my book and staring out the window.

The flight from Atlanta to Tulsa, however, was not as pleasant. The plane was full, and it was a smaller plane, to boot. When I was lining up for my tickets, the person in line behind me was one of those people who doesn't respect personal space. She was right on my shoulder and hip and I turned to stare her down and mentally tell her to back the fuck off. She couldn't understand my mental clues.

We boarded the plane, and as I made my way down the aisle to where my seat was, she was still clinging to my backside like a fungus. I went to stow my bag in the overhead, and she pushes past me...into the seat next to mine. "I have the window," she said, in slightly accented English. Fuck you and the window seat, I fired back at her, mentally.

She sat down and promptly dialed someone on her cell phone and yammered for thirty minutes about some guy who invited her to come to Colorado and how she slept on the plan from Moscow to New York and--SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY!!! Fortunately, she slept on the ride from Atlanta to Tulsa. Unfortunately, she farted the whole way there, too. I was calmly sitting in my seat, reading, when something would reach up and assault my olfactory sensors. Being that I wasn't tooting, I knew it had to be her. And then she would shift and her leg would be brushing up against mine and...well...if we were in a car, I would have reached over and opened the door and let her roll out. Unfortunately, we were in a plane, and I did not have the escape hatch seats.

I got to Tulsa with no problems, helped my mother-in-law with some stuff and talked with my wife's grandmother. Then it was to bed. The following morning, I got up and out the door and, after leaving my grandmother-in-law's house, I promptly got lost. I made the wrong turn--or didn't turn enough--or something and I was headed toward Joplin, MO instead of Meskogee, OK. I knew something was wrong because the sun wasn't in the position where I knew it should be if I was traveling south and east. I was able to cut back through some scenic Oklahoma countryside (read: flat, scrubby, brown) and find my way back to I-40. From there, it was simple: head east.

I'm terribly sorry that I didn't bring my camera with me, because I would have loved to have taken a picture of myself visiting Toad Suck Park in Arkansas. Alas, since I had no reason to, I didn't stop. I'm going to regret that for a long, long time I fear.

I was able to outrun the snowstorm that's now targeting the southeast and I was just ahead of another storm dropping from the north that hit Nashville shortly after I drove through it (no time to go to the Parthenon this time...). I made it to my wife's aunt and uncle's house and stayed the night there in Knoxville. They were calling for a good snow storm, too, so I got up early so I could find my way through the mountains (which was being forecasted to get 5 - 10 inches of snow overnight and into Friday) without incident.

And, it was largely without incident. I continued on my merry way, stopping for gas occasionally, but then I had to stop for a restroom break and I pulled off into Conover, North Carolina.

Never, ever stop in Conover, North Carolina, if you can manage it.

I swung into a BP station so that I could use the facilities. BP shit on the US last summer, so I thought I'd shit on them. Only thing was, I knew it was a mistake almost the minute I put the car into park. I went into the restroom and was surprised when vermin didn't flee before the light being turned on. I sat down, looking at a floor that I didn't want the bottom of my shoes touching, let alone my pants. I hurried along and left quickly, my entire being feeling touched by the uncleanliness of the establishment. I then caught the furious stares of some of Conover's finest citizens, envious of my upright posture, my full set of teeth, and...I don't know what else. I was just not very comfortable in that village.

After a twenty minute wait to pull back onto the road, I headed home. No further incident. I stopped off to see my wife at work and then home to see the children and try to work on cleaning up the house some more. So, I once again have wheels, which is a nice feeling, to be certain.

And, as usual, whenever I'm on long trips where I'm mostly just listening to the voices within my head, I generated another story that I want to write. I've gotten some notes written down at home that I came up with over the course of the trip and I've got a couple of lines of a prologue written. I basically started coming up with the idea on the flight from Raleigh to Atlanta and then further refined it on the flight from Atlanta to Tulsa. I had a few characters that that I had been kicking around in head for a while that fit into this story nicely.

Now I just need to finish what I'm working on now and then the three other stories that I want to refine and finish before I get to this new one. If only the house would clean itself...

Oklahoma Bound

I'm hell on wheels.

No, really. I'm hell. On wheels.

More specifically, cars. See, because they're on wheels and I'm hell on cars.

It seems that every car I've ever owned has tried to one-up the previous vehicle in terms of cataclysmic reasons for it no longer working.

My first car--which I loved, by the way--was a 1992 Pontiac Grand Prix that I got while in college. It was awesome. I used it to smuggle all the cheap beer I could from Illinois into Indiana when I was in college. My friend, Big Willy Style, nicknamed it "Smugglah", since I was all about going to Scotchman's East AND West in Watseka, Illinois. 32 ounces of Old Milwaukee never tasted as sweet as when they were delivered by the loving, cushy backseat of Smugglah.

Smugglah, unfortunately, died in a parking lot of a Ryan's in Mishawaka, IN while I was in grad school. I was able to get it to limp down the road to a dealership where I traded it for a lemon of a Ford Contour that was such a terrible car, it deserved no nicknames. That car got me to North Carolina where it decided that it would start eating timing belts. Smugglah liked to eat alternators, but those were $100 to fix and would last for about three years. Timing belts are five times as expensive and the Ford tore through those in about two weeks.

I finally traded the Ford in for a Saturn Vue a little over five years ago. About a year into owning it (and, naturally, after the warranty wore off) it developed a rattle in the engine. It was nothing big, but it was a touch annoying. I didn't think anything of it. I got it serviced, it ran, so I continued driving it.

Until last week. Last week, I got the car serviced. The rattle had become more pronounced so, in my blissful ignorance, I thought it just needed a service tune up. The day after I got it worked on, it died. Battery failure. Again, not a big issue, however I had to get it towed--almost literally around the block--for a little over $100 and then put $100 worth of battery and labor into it (I had them do a diagnostic on the electrical system, in case it wasn't just an old battery). I started the car up, it sounded great, and so I drove it.

And a week later, the rattling was far worse. It was accompanied by a popping sound, almost like when a soda bottle expands when its laying on the floor of your car under the heater. A lovely, reassuring sound when you're driving down the road, to be certain. Then a loud, screeching squeal would sound intermittently from the car. Unpleased, I took the car to the same place that had serviced it prior. I explained what was going on and they said they'd look at the catalytic converter, see if that was the issue or not.

Apparently, not would be the correct answer. The guy who looked at the car was nice enough to shoot straight with me. He told me I needed a new engine; something inside was broken and they couldn't fix it. He went on, blah blah, something something, get some quotes, blargh...but I didn't hear him. I was quietly weeping, wishing that just once in my life I could pay a car off before it decides to die on me.

If you're keeping score at home, thats a service, tune-up, tow, battery replacement and a diagnostic test--about $300 worth of work--for a car that is now all but undriveable. What a happy fucking New Year this is turning out to be.

Because I had to, I reclaimed the car, driving it home about as fast as I possibly could--which is to say "not very". The car runs, but loudly, and it doesn't like driving in first gear (you know, something that is kind of important in city driving) and doesn't like driving up hills (again, something important in North By God Carolina piedmont driving). The car now sits at the top of my yard, quietly watching the world go by. I dare not drive it very far, as I'm unsure of if or when it will die and not restart.

Which means, I'm without wheels for a while.

A short while, as it turns out. Shortly before Christmas, my wife's grandfather passed away. He was a man who had several cars, and my wife's grandmother, out of the kindness of her heart, is going to lend me a car for, essentially, as long as I need it. The trick is, I have to figure out a way to get it from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to North By God Carolina.

Which is why I'm Oklahoma-bound. I'm flying out either Wednesday or Thursday, taking care of what I need to out there, and then driving from Tulsa to my home here in North Carolina. The plan is to stop in Knoxville and bother my wife's uncle and aunt for a night's rest, and then the drive home after that. I'm going to see a lot of America. Specifically, I'm going to see a lot of I-40.

And unfortunately, I'm not going to be driving a big old pickup truck.

Driving Down Highway 40 In My Big Old Pickup Truck

Skyler | Myspace Video

I guess the good news is that I won't have Freddie Prinze, Jr. in the car with me.

Parenting Skillz, I Has Them

This is the third week of the first intersessionary period for my kids. We do the year-round thing because, oh my fucking God, if we didn't, there'd be troubles. As such, we get four of these "intersessions" throughout the year. It's nice, because they get three weeks off in the fall, winter and spring and six in the summer. It's also nice because, heh heh, you're getting on my nerves--oh look! It's time to go back to school! Huzzah!

As luck would have it, my mother-in-law just happened to be in the southeast last week and volunteered to take the little rapscallions with her for a week and a half. It's been nice, because I was able to fall asleep on the couch in front of the football game Saturday night watch the Notre Dame game on Saturday night uninterrupted.

See, when they're here, they tend to drive me a bit nuts. I'm not saying something that any other parent in the world hasn't thought at least once, maybe twice...an hour after procreating. Being that they're nine and six, there is a lot of arguing, nyah-nyahing and back-and-forth that causes that vein in my temple to throb and for me to seriously consider getting in the car, finding an abandoned mountainside, and setting up a shack. The only problem is, I'd have to polish up my moonshinin' and rough-talkin' skills in order to survive.

*brandishes a large stick* Git! Git! *practices conjugating 'tcheer'* I might just be able to do this!

No! No! Appalachia is not the answer!

Anyway, this weekend, I have to go and pick them up. The nice thing is, my mother-in-law meets me halfway (in this, at least. The kitchen floor that isn't quite messy enough to mop but still has some dirt on it? Notsomuch.) This means that I'll be spending twelve to fourteen hours in a car, but it will at least be a round-trip effort. We usually meet up in a little town called Marietta, Ohio, which sits right on the river. It's actually a nice little place. They have a brewpub that I visited once, in the time Before, when I could still imbibe of the beverages crafted from fermented grains.

While this seems like a sweet deal, the drive through West Effin' Virginia is not exactly trivial. For comparison, here is what my mother-in-law's drive looks like:



Oh, very nice, very nice indeed. Straight lines. One turn. Good roads the whole way. Not a bad day's worth of driving. Now, let's see what my drive looks like:



HOLY FUCKING HELL! Is that a trip itinerary, or did someone have a bad reaction to their drugs while holding a red crayon???

To say the roads are a bit windy in an understatement as I-77 snakes its way through the Appalachians while transversing that part of Virginia that did not wish to secede from the Union. And the roads cling to the side of the mountain with very little between you and a lifetime of snuggling down in the hairy, sweaty bosom of an Appalachian beauty (gender neutral), eating spam, swilling ditch water and serving as their personal sex dump. I run the risk of looking down to change the radio, sliding off the road, and suddenly finding myself squealing like a pig, Ned Beatty-style.

Is that banjo music I hear in the background, or am I just paranoid?

However, despite all this, I'm heading north this weekend, traveling through four states, to reclaim my wonderful lil punkins. Because, despite the fact that the house has remained clean, there's very little in the way of spillage on the floor in the kitchen, and football time is wonderfully--gloriously--quiet, I miss the little gits. I'm sure I'll be glad to have them home once more.

For about a week. And then I'll be rethinking my desire to go live in a shack on the side of the mountain. *tunes banjo*

Two Posts for the Price of One

So, I was going to put together a TMI Thursday post last night, but I was busy having sex.

Hmmm...I guess that itself is a TMI Thursday post...

Well, thanks for stopping by.

What? Three lines doesn't do it for you? Fine.

It was really good sex, too.

Still not sated? Okay, okay.

There won't be an official TMI Thursday post, nor will there be a Friday filled with dead language pick-up lines and insults. So, this post will have to fill in for tomorrow's, as well. If you're nice, I might be back on Saturday!

However, this is a grim day, my friends. You see, my carefree life of being a young, married man with no children has come to a screeching halt.

I have to go get my kids tonight. They've been visiting their grandparents (my wife's parents) for the past week and a half or so.

That means I'm making the roughly seven-hour drive to Knoxville tonight after work, power sleeping on a couch for a few hours, getting up at the ass crack of dawn and driving back home from Knoxville. Who needs sleep when you can be driving???

And, Sweet Baby Jesus, forgive me, but if I'm hauling my ass to and from Knoxville in a span of time less than what it takes the Earth to orbit the Daymoon sun, then I'm eating meat on Friday during Lent. And I'm going to enjoy the fuck out of it.

So, in case you were curious as to why or how I was eating my dinner in the buff the other night, that's why. It was just me and the wife.

And lots of sex with the bedroom door open.

Loud, raucous sex, without having to explain to anyone that we're just "exercising".

But all of that comes to an end tonight when I go to reclaim the kids from my mother- and father-in-law. Along with the kids, I have to collect their stuff, and then I have to bring back all the shit my parents have foisted off on us.

My mom and dad went to see my kids for the first time in...a year or so...last weekend. I don't know if I've told you this or not, but my mom refuses to visit because she's batshit crazy afraid that bears will attack the car as she's traveling through the Appalachians.

...

Just sit back and let that one sink in for a while.

Anyway, whenever my parents go to visit my kids while they're at my wife's parents' house, they always bring a carload of shit to pawn off on me and my wife. Once, we got a napkin ring. A single. Fucking. Napkin ring. I don't remember what else we've "inherited" over the past ten years or so, but the napkin ring was pretty fucking spectacular.

So, instead of spending time ignoring my son with their grandkids, my parents bring along my niece and allow her to run the show hand over stuff to my in-laws with order to pass that shit along to me. I then get a phone call a couple of hours later telling me about how the kids have grown--no shit, they do that when you see them only once a year--and just how much taller my daughter is than my niece...despite the fact that I'm taller than my brother (not to mention far more dashingly handsome) and my daughter is almost a full year older than my niece.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go to Sonic's website so that I can pinpoint the location of America's Drive-In that is approximately two-and-a-half to three-hours away.

So...Charleston

I had never been to Charleston, SC before this past weekend, but everyone who goes there raves about their experience. So, I was looking forward to seeing the city, mostly because it was before the summer, with the high humidity and the sticky heat. Though it wasn't going to be hot and humid, the weather was still going to be warm, sunny, and generally pleasant.

With that in mind, we got up Saturday morning and began the five-hour drive down to the city, a ride which was highlighted by a stop in Lumberton, NC to pee. Did you know that Lumberton, NC smells like shit? Neither did we. And that was before we went to the bathroom.

The second highlight of the trip was finding a Sonic in Manning, SC (which I referred to as "Peyton's Place", because I'm fucking clever). With the juicy deliciousness of a Super Sonic and tater tots in our bellies, we set out again on the road with Charleston in our sights.

Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the drive, however, were the groan-worthy road signs for this theme-park-ish place called "South of the Border", which is literally just south of the North Carolina border. The entire way down I-95, the route is littered with large, black billboards featuring this characture of a Mexican guy named "Pedro" and bad, bad, terrible puns. The place looked as corny and as bad as the billboards promised. Silently, I vowed to ruin a weekend in my children's future by taking them to Pedro's South of the Border.

Anyway, we get to the hotel, get checked in, take brief power naps, and then get dressed and ready to go. We have a rehearsal at four and the wedding is at six. So, we drive down into downtown Charleston where my wife's parents are staying. There, the kids change, I watch five minutes of basketball, and then we're heading down to the lobby and the bar area, where my wife's family is congregating before heading over to the church.

Now, my wife's family is very huggy. Time to greet one another? Hugs! Time to say good-bye? Hugs! You just ripped a big fart and a look of complete bliss is covering your features? HUGS!

With that in mind, as we're standing down in the lobby, I see my wife's aunt come wandering toward the bar area. I look and say to myself, "Oh, my wife's aunt got her hair done. How nice. Well, might as well get this over with." And, as she approaches, I throw my arm around her to give her a hug.

About halfway through the embrace, I suddenly realize, Oh fuck, this isn't my wife's aunt. Instead, I hugged my wife's aunt's sister, who was very confused and who shunned me for the rest of the weekend. I guess I shouldn't have grabbed some ass while in the hug.

Thankfully--blissfully--it was time to walk over to the church. "It's only a couple of blocks away!" I hear. This will become a theme. Apparently, in Charleston, "blocks" means "time zones", and the walk seems even longer when you have dress shoes on that don't really fit all that well.

So, after wandering to almost the Georgia border, we finally find the church, which is a lovely old complex--probably as old as, or as close to as old as, the city itself--where we have the rehearsal. The problem is, my son and I aren't in the rehearsal, and he's bored and, well, frankly, so was I. So we went for a walk and eventually found our way into an old graveyard. It was magnificent, looking at all those old graves, but I worry that Charleston might have a vampire problem, based on the number of broken graves I found.

Finally, it was time for the wedding, which was short and lovely...kinda like my wife. Hi-yo! Anyway, after pictures, it was time to--guess what!--walk to the reception. "It's just over a block and down three!" someone said. And so, away we went.

And went.

And went.

And went some more.

It seemed to take forever, but there we were, in the Exchange building, where there were seats and food and drinks. Except, the alcohol was beer and wine. That's cool and all, and the bar was an open bar, but I needed something to drink and with my inability to drink beer, that wasn't an option. Also, since my taste in wine tends toward the "alcoholic kool-aid" side of the spectrum, that was kind of out, too.

But, man, did I drink a lot of free Sprite.

The food was excellent. I went back twice for Shrimp 'n Grits alone, and the roast beef was melt-in-your-mouth tender and delicious. Yes, please, I'll have another. And, as the food line finally began dying down, the dancing revved up.

And the scene was stolen by my five-year-old son. He took to the dance floor like no one I've seen before...and the sad thing was, he danced really well. I guess that's what happens when you're completely uninhibited. He would dance, and then he would come and eat some pretzels and color, and then he would dance some more.

And, Gwen...he came up to me and said, "I want someone to show me how to do the Electric Slide." I think you owe him five bucks.

I mostly stayed around the fringes, reading some of the historical notes about the city and such and talking with family members. My wife's cousin, the one who got married? His new wife is an old family friend. Her father is the president of the University of Louisiana-Monroe. And, he's also, possibly, one of the nicest men I've ever met. Friendly, gregarious, tall and with a solid handshake, I took an instant liking to him. I liked him so much, I didn't even hit him with the "Why are you trying to ruin the NCAA tournament?"

He's on the board that is looking into expanding the tournament next season from 65 teams to 96. I have a bad feeling that, had I asked him about it, he would have convinced me that it's a really, really good thing. He seemed eloquently persuasive like that.

Finally, we were calling it a night. Tank had danced himself out and my feet hurt so badly I wanted to cry like there was a snake in my kitchen or something. So...we walked back to the hotel. Except...we didn't know where we were going, so we kind of went for a little ways and then turned and walked longer and longer and longer and, finally, we found Meeting street (one of the main thoroughfares) and worked our way back to the hotel from there. Fortunately, we didn't meet any sketchy characters (nor vampires), and we sat in the hotel bar for a while and had a generally nice time until the kids complained that they were "tired" and that "their feet hurt" and they wanted "to go to bed." So, we got in the car, drove back to our hotel, and crashed.

We were up again before the sun and made our way downtown again for brunch. Goddamn, I love grits. We then decided to wander the streets a little bit and explore the city and eventually we'd eat lunch, say our good-byes and drive home.

Now, this is where I truly saw Charleston, and the residential part of the city is as-advertised. The gardens probably weren't at their peak yet, but what I saw was certainly beautiful. I'm sure it's even more lovely with the leaves on the trees and such, but the buildings and the architecture and the gates and ironwork were magnificent. We walked down to the Battery, which overlooked part of the harbor and you could see Fort Sumter in the distance. We saw some dolphins, we saw big, replica cannon and statues of naked Greek soldiers (I don't know either).

And we saw rain. Falling on our heads as we made our way back to the market area for lunch. And we saw more rain. And, eventually, we saw a downpour as we were just a little bit away from our lunching destination, Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Having just tortured myself watched Forrest Gump a couple of weeks ago, this was kind of cool. I knew it was one of those over-priced chains established with the sole purpose of luring in tourists to part them with their money, but it was a place that was easily found and could seat a large group (I think there were fourteen of us). So, there you have it.

I opted for the shrimp 'n grits again, because it was affordable. It wasn't nearly as good as that offered at the reception the night before, but it was still acceptable (though the ham had been heat-lamped to a stringy, rubbery, inedible mass). We ate, walked back to the hotel, got in the car and took one last turn down by the water and the enormous cruise ship that was in port because it was afflicted with norovirus, and then we came home. Fortunately, Bubba Gump and brunch sated us enough that we didn't need to stop to eat on the way home and we all came in, fell into bed, and slept.

Except for one of us, who battled fever and the desire to puke and a lot of rumblies in his tummy. But that's a story for another day. That day being yesterday.

So...Orange

I got back from my Thanksgiving travels last night late. My feet hurt. My ass was kind of numb. And I was probably a bit punch drunk from being in the car for however many hours it took me to get from Knoxville to Durham, with detours through Morganton, NC and Hickory, NC. A fellow's got to eat, after all. Plus, his wife and kids, too, I suppose.

I must say, though, I really like Tennessee. This was my second real visit to the Volunteer State (I've driven through several times before). There's a different sort of atmosphere there. It might actually be a bit more friendly. I'm not sure.

One thing I do know, though: The price of premium grade gasoline in Tennessee was cheaper than the price of regular grade gasoline in North Carolina. And yet, they still talk about raising our gas taxes here in the Old North State, mostly to cover up the millions of dollars the last governor stole from the cookie jar while he was in office.

The other thing about Tennessee: There's a lot of orange. It's a combination thing, though. There's the clay-enriched soils of the southeast that are very, very orange. That, coupled with the University of Tennessee's home colors, orange and white, make for a state that's really, really effing orange. This is not to say that I dislike the University of Tennessee; I'm just not a fan of their colors is all. It's...so orange. While this wouldn't normally be an issue, orange is perhaps my least favorite color.

However, unlike North Carolina, there wasn't an abundance of cones and barrels left sitting alongside the roads as a testament to half-abandoned road work projects. Here in North Carolina, our road construction motto is "Yeah, we'll get to that later." Annoying.

I don't know if any of you live in Tennessee, but if you do, here's to kissing your state's ass. I love it. If the commute wasn't hell, I'd live there, but six hours is a little much to ask a fellow to drive, no matter how much he enjoys his job.

I just wish it wasn't so orange...

Pie

Chances are, as you're reading this (especially if you're reading this after 10:00 am), I'm on the road. That's right, my friends. As we speak (or whatever it is we do here), I am joining millions of other Americans by taking to the open road and driving to a far-off destination in order to eat myself into a stupor on Thursday afternoon. Hopefully, since I'm now in the land of the woebegone Panthers, Thanksgiving dinner won't cut into the Packers/Lions game too much. I would like to watch the one football team I pull for that has some semblance of a clue on the gridiron.

Anyway, I told you about how much I despise pumpkins. That big, evil fucker has scarred my childhood psyche beyond repair. Some of you assumed, then, that I dislike pumpkin pie. Really? Do I look like a guy who doesn't like pumpkin pie?

Of course I like pumpkin pie, you silly geese! Pumpkin pie is like the ultimate victory over those vile orange gourds! I mean, we've ripped them from their vines, cut them up, boiled them, mashed them into orange paste, sugared and spiced them, and then for good measure we baked their candied asses in a pastry shell. And if that wasn't enough injustice to crush their already fragile psyches, then we squirt whipped cream on top of the pie and devour it. And then, as one final insult, we turn them into poo. I'd say that we're the winners in that battle, my friends. Yes, I love pumpkin pie!

How do you eat your pie? Settle down, perverts. I know the answer to that already, which is why the Comely and Buxom Boudicca has that smile on her face all the time. Hmmm...perhaps I've said too much. Anyway, how do you eat your pie, perverts? I go crust first. The baked part of the crust is my least favorite part. It's dry and crumbly. I don't do dry and crumbly too well. Sorry, that's just me. So, I eat the crust first, usually cutting it off the slice of pie with my fork and sweeping it through either the pie filling or the whipped cream. After I've polished off that little appetizer, I go right for the wedge, eating from the smaller vertex of the wedge of pie first and working my way down the warm and delicious triangle. That's lip-licking good!

It's tough to pick a favorite kind of pie. Like I tell my kids, there's really only one flavor of pie: delicious! This isn't true, because some people frankly can't cook. Plus, I've only ever had mince meat pie once. I think I liked it but...*shrugs helplessly*

A few of my other favorite pies are blueberry, old-fashioned cream, and my wife makes this fabulous lemon chess pie. And, of course, there's the old stand-by and standard for delicious, apple pie. I love you, apple pie, and I love you, America.

My least favorite pie? Hands down, pecan pie. I hate the shit. Growing up, when Thanksgiving rolled around, I thought there were only two kinds of pie to eat: pumpkin and pecan pie. The pumpkin would get slopped down first, and then there'd be this brown gooey mass sitting there, unappetizing and foul. I'd sigh and go without any more pie. Damn, I hate pecan pie. My brother loves the shit, though. He can have my share, and often he does. According to some reports, he ate 4/5 of a pecan pie last year at Thanksgiving.

I also hate peach pie, but that's more because I hate peaches. Even cobbler can't save their squishy, fuzzy asses when it comes to dessert time. Again, I'll opt for the apple when it comes to cobbler time.

Anyway, chances are, if you're reading this between 10 am and 6 pm, I'll be on the road. Pieless. And heading to a place where the pie to person ratio is going to be woefully unbalanced in the direction of the person. Seriously. It's like five pies to 19 people. That's nearly a 1:4 ratio. And one of those pies is pecan. Plus, my in-laws, they enjoy their pie, too.

I have a bad feeling that I'm going to go for pie and discover one tiny wedge of disgusting pecan pie.

Damn.

Anyone know if they make a pumpkin-pie flavored rum?

Seven Hours? I Can Do It In Ten!

So, my wife made it to Atlanta safely on Sunday night to be with her family. Of course, she had to drive through pretty nasty conditions, with blowing snow and a lot of ice build up on the roads. She would call me with updates about the road conditions, her position, and what level of road rage she was experiencing. Most of the time, it was code red. You know, the "I'm going to get out and pummel the guy in front of me with my bare knuckles if he leaves 200 car lengths of space between him and the car in front of him one more time...and turn off your effing blinkers, Smackass!"

I doubt you've ever made the drive to Atlanta from the Raleigh-Durham area. It, in theory, is a nice little jaunt down I-85. Charlotte's a nice town to drive through, the Upstate of South Carolina is scenic-ish, there's lots of ads for topless truck stops. You know, standard interstate travel. It's also about a six hour drive, but since we're northeast of the city and my wife's family all live on the northwest side, it takes about seven because you have to drive down to nearly the heart of the city, catch 285 over to I-75, and then come back up. As Hap said, it's a spaghetti mess. In theory, it should be an easy commute, but it's not.

We've also never had any luck on the drive.

This past weekend, of course, my wife was driving through what constitutes a blizzard around these here parts. She was cruising along at a break-neck speed of 2.5 miles per hour. She knew this because she went from exit 300 to exit 302 in an hour. She sat and stared at the same Waffle House for that entire time, wondering if she'd run out of gas and have to hang out in it's smoke-filled walls until someone came and rescued her. In theory, Waffle Houses are awesome--it's a dive restaurant built around a breakfast menu. However, trying to cut through the grease-addled and smoke-filled air to find a table that is wiped clean with some spit and a dirty rag by a waitress who hit her prime thirty years ago and permanently has the stub of a lit cigarette dangling from her lower lip brings the notion of a dive restaurant to an all new low. This ain't Mel's diner, and if you don't think you can hide a lot of health code violations in the biscuits and gravy, you've got another thing coming to you. Fortunately, she was able to find a gas station and refuel so that she could avoid a greasy death at the hands of Bear the Trucker and his sidekick.

It took my wife just about three hours to get from the Georgia-South Carolina border to Gwinnett county, which is on the north east side of Atlanta. You might remember Gwinnett county as being the home of Laura Mallory, the harpy stay-at-home mom who sued the county to get the Harry Potter books out of the school libraries. If you need a refresher, here's some links to her sad tale. Anyway, in Gwinnett county, the interstate opens up from two lanes to six. Also, here is the point where the snow plows from Atlanta decided to stop working and turn around and go home. The road from the border to the widening of the interstate was a solid glare of ice that less resembled the aftermath of a storm and looked more like Lou the Zamboni Driver put in another job well done. At one point, the car beside her or in front of her or something parked, everyone got out and had a snowball fight, because the rest of the traffic wasn't moving. I think that's when the vein in her forehead began throbbing, and she called me up to tell me that she was "going to die or kill someone."

Also, she saw the true signs of a southern snow storm on her commute: snow plows in the ditch. I'm always amazed and amused any time we get a snow or ice event (they're not storms down here, they're events, truly) and the snow plows are stranded in the ditch because the drivers don't know to turn into the slide. Overall, it took her about ten hours to get there.

The summer when my son Tank was just about to turn 1, we went down to Atlanta to visit my wife's family. Again, what should have been a routine drive turned not-so-routine when we were stopped, once more, on the interstate just after crossing the Georgia border. We sat there for hours. Apparently, as we finally creeped around the scene, we saw guys in hazmat suits cleaning up a tanker spill of some kind. I never found out what it was, but it was a very unpleasant time sitting in the car with an 11-month old and a three year old for three hours and not moving. When we finally were able to pull off and get some gas and hopefully a little snack, I stopped at a Chick-Fil-A and ordered a milkshake, because Chick-Fil-A milkshakes are the milkshakes they serve in Heaven (probably has something to do with that not open on Sundays thing). Only problem is, much to my chagrin, the milkshakes were not national yet, and only select cities had them. Durham, North Carolina had them; Commerce, Georgia, didn't. Muttering curses about shrunken genitalia and the fleas of a thousand camels to infest their body hair, I returned to the car unsated, but with my blood-sugar and cholesterol levels remaining in the "safe" category.

However, neither of these times top the first trip we made to Atlanta where we had an unfortunate traffic tie-up. We had just gone past Greensboro, North Carolina and were sailing down the road when we were met with a wall of traffic. This was shortly after my son was born, so all four of us were in the car and sitting, dead still, in traffic. The area was being lashed by some terrific thunderstorms at the time, so we figured that was the cause for the delay. However, the storms moved off and the traffic remained. We finally were able to limp up exit 118 to get gas and for a bathroom break. Unfortunately, at this juncture, there was only one option: a lone BP standing atop the hill overlooking the interstate. This means that everyone who needed to piss and refuel got off here. I had to wait fifteen minutes to get to a gas pump. In the meantime, my wife and daughter got out and stood in line for 25 minutes to get to the bathroom...which had six inches of standing water on the floor. Cold, brown, fetid standing water. My daughter's shoes got soaked while she waded through the sludge to get to the potty, and we left the shoes there as a souvenir for the owners. Looking out over the interstate, we saw that the cars stretched to the horizon and beyond, so we decided to cut cross-country to I-77, where we would go south and hook back up with I-85 in Charlotte.

First, though, we came to Business I-85, and so my wife and I decided to risk it. We turned on it, and things were going splendidly until the business route merged back in with I-85. Here, the cars were still backed up and still not moving.

That's when I lost my shit.

Fuming, my wife tried to calm me with a snack. For some reason, we were trying to eat healthy or some shit, and so we had some celery in the car. She gave me a piece of celery, and I vented my frustrations on the celery, slamming it against the steering wheel, screaming, "I don't want a piece of celery, I want the fucking traffic to move. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck FUCK!!!" While I continued to weave a tapestry of expletives that flowed out over the hood of the car and onto the lanes of traffic around me, I took the tattered remains of the celery and hurled them out the window as hard as I could at the guard rail, where they met the metal with a dull thud, clung to it for a moment, and then tumbled to the ground. With the celery valiantly sacrificed and my enraged tirade over, I rolled the window back up and worked my way through the traffic.

Again, three hours later, we finally passed the source of the trouble. Apparently, a semi truck had decided to take the scenic route into a deep, kudzu-lined valley, and the authorities were trying to pull it out. Half the road was blocked off and, as the wenches and cranes strained to pull the shattered remains of a once-functioning semi cab and trailer from the ravine, they would have to close the other lane, as well, to ensure people's safety. Once we were allowed past it, we had no other issues for the remainder of the trip. However, that trip was the pinnacle of road rage frustrations on our trips to Atlanta, and has forever been dubbed "The Celery Event."

More Wandering: My Trip to the Volunteer State

Yeah, yeah, whatever. Like I haven't gone a week between posts before. Right.

Anyway, Thursday night we went to reclaim the children from my in-laws. We weren't supposed to meet them until Saturday, and so we decided we'd have ourselves a little mini-vacation filled with food that wasn't McDonalds and hotel sex--not necessarily in that order.

This notion was grievous to my in-laws. The couldn't figure out why we'd go to Nashville, TN two full days before we were supposed to meet them. My wife, being the golden-hearted woman that she is, simply didn't scream into the phone "We're going to fuck in a hotel room!" Notice how she has a much better relationship with her parents than I do with mine.

I digress. We drove out to Nashville, TN on Thursday night. I didn't realize that Nashville was that fucking far west in Tennessee. Holy dear Christ on a bobsled, that was a lot of I-40 to enjoy. We also discovered that every little shit town along I-40 in North Carolina has a Sonic drive-in...except ours, of course. If there's one here, it's hidden somewhere. We stopped in a place called Clyde by way of Canton, which is dominated by the largest damned papermill in the world, or so it seemed. It's like a town erupted around the foot of the papermill. The best part of Canton that didn't involve the papermill (directly), was the semi that decided to pull a U-turn in the middle of the two-lane road. Nice. Well-done. Fuck you and all 18 of your oversized wheels.

Also, seriously, Clyde has a Sonic, but Raleigh doesn't? Communists.

Anyway, the drive out to Nashville took so long, partly because Nashville is so far west, partly because we were backed up about 20 miles from the Tennessee border, with promises of heavy delays for the next six miles. Deciding we didn't want to do that, coupled with the fact that I had a quarter of a tank of gas, we decided to get off, find some gas, and then go exploring. After fueling up, we found one road that goes through the Smoky Mountain National Forest, and we took it.

You're greeted at the entrance to the park by a sign warning of elk crossing. I've seen what a deer can do to your car. I can only imagine the levels of effed-up an elk will leave your sweetass ride if you collide with one. Anyway, we follow this windy road up and through the park, which was an awesome ride, to be honest. I wish it wasn't so dark, so I could see more of the scenery, but it was still pretty cool. Especially when we came to the sign warning of a curve ahead, and then the arrow went in 360 degrees. Keen. A corkscrew road. If you ever get the chance to drive through the Smokies, do it. The road is awesome.

However, as we were coming off the mountain, I was glad it was night. Holy crap, we came down near Gatlinburg, and there was all sorts of lights piercing the sky and rows and rows and rows of lights and other things to ruin my senses. Oh, it was fabulous. And then we rolled through Pigeon Forge and Dollywood and...oh my God. Sensory overload. It was awesome. The wife and I were all fired up to come back on a vacation to just Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg or one of those places. Oh, it was gaudy and garish and oh so beautiful. We counted three different Flapjacks' Pancake Houses, and another place was offering 45 different types of breakfast. Forty-five! Be still my heart. No, seriously. I'm sure the cholesterol would force it to a standstill, because I wouldn't be happy until I made it through at least 25 of those.

After we found our way back to the interstate, it was more-or-less a straight shot to Nashville. We stopped west of Knoxville to refuel and pour gas station coffee down our throats, and the buxom and comely Boudicca took over captaining the S.S. Jenks Treader. I fell asleep, only to wake up two hours later and find myself just outside of Nashville. At 2 in the morning, local time, we checked into our hotel. And, let me just say, when you're that damned tired, you don't want to try and sleep on an uncomfortable bed. And LaQuinta in Franklin, TN has a very comfy bed. And the room was nice and cool. I give the big thumbs up to the LaQuinta in Franklin.

I'll spare you the rest of the gruesome details, but I will say that, of all the "vacations" we've been on over the past eight years or so, Nashville was the best. We'll definitely be heading back to Music City, USA. We're back, safely (or as safe as one can be) in Durham. Who knows, maybe I'll share some more tales of our wild adventure, maybe I'll talk of the return trip and how my four-year-old has become wildly appreciative of fart jokes. Maybe I'll tell you about my trip to ancient Greece. Maybe I'll tell you about run-in with four angry Australians. My lips are a tingle with excitement over the potentials. Travel blogs are fun to write.

Perhaps I'll even share pictures of the trip. Pictures? Yeah, that's right. I finally bought a memory chip for my digital camera, and we used it. This, of course, means that there'll be more pictures of my ass to pass around. Aren't you all thrilled?

My Wandering Adventures

This past weekend, I took the kids up to Marietta, OH, where I met up with my mother-in-law. She took the kids from there onto South Bend, IN, where they will stay for a week and then they'll stay another week at the beach in Alabama. Yeah, thrilling, I know.

I'm pretty familiar with this stretch of road, as I used to jet up and down I-77 while in grad school, either to take the wife down to see her family in Charlotte or to visit her while she lived with her parents and I was working in the lab, desperately trying to finish up my research for my thesis. There were two places along the way that were my favorite oases to stop and refuel: West Philadelphia, OH and Fancy Gap, VA.

Fast forward a few years, and now I no longer travel that far up in Ohio, so I don't stop at West Philadelphia anymore, but Fancy Gap is still one of my favorite places to stop and get gas. For one, gas is much cheaper in Virginia than it is in North Carolina (in fact, only the rest stations along the interstate in West Effin' Virginia offered more expensive gas than the stations in the greater Triangle area in North Carolina), and for two, there's a certain nostalgia that surrounds Fancy Gap.

Here's the thing, though: I've never actually been in Fancy Gap, VA. I've only stopped at the BP station there. Fancy Gap, itself, is a mile or two down the road, so while the exit might be the Fancy Gap exit, I had never actually visited this humble village.

So, on Saturday, after refueling my car and tossing a whizz in the rather...malodorous...rest room, I checked my map and saw that Route 52 went down through Fancy Gap and would ultimately take me to Winston-Salem, where I would be able to pick up and continue with my regular course home. Armed with this knowledge, I made the executive decision to take a little excursion through Fancy Gap and see a slice of America.

I would not be disappointed.

At this perfect little confluence of Rte 52, the Appalachian Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway, you are welcomed into town by a weather-faded sign loudly proclaiming that "This is Frank Beamer Country". "And don't you forget it, motherfucker," would have blended perfectly with the rest of the sign, yet sadly it was missing. I'm sure some adoring Va Tech fan (Joe, I'm looking at you) swiped it during the night. Anyway, in case you didn't know, Frank Beamer is the head coach of Virginia Tech's football team and grew up just north of Fancy Gap in Hillsville, Virginia. And don't you forget it, motherfucker.

Nestled snugly in the bosom of these picturesque mountains, Fancy Gap offered plenty of camping and cabin rentals, along with several hundred shops offering all manner of trinkets, daubles, doo-dads and shit all under the heading of "Antiques". It might serve Fancy Gap well to post a sign opposite Frank Beamer Country proclaiming "One man's garbage is another man's treasure...and don't you forget it, motherfucker!".

Within about five minutes, the banjo and jug music faded into the background and I came upon Cana, Virginia. Where Fancy Gap was replete with campgrounds and "antique" shops, Cana must be the world capital for concrete statuary for your front yard. I counted at least three places dealing said creations on my drive down the hillside, and yet only one house in town had decorated their yard with anything, and those were a collection of pink flamingos arranged lovingly around a dogwood tree in the front yard. The statuary, however, was truly epic, ranging from the typical statues of deer or lawn jockeys to almost life-size replicas of tigers and lions...which were painted! I think there was also an entire team of horses at one place. I guess when you live on the side of a mountain and procuring stone is not a problem, you can do all manner of artistic endeavors with it.

All too soon, I found myself on the south side of town and, bidding Cana and Fancy Gap a fond adieu, I began plunging headlong down a mountainside. What great fun it was, too, to simply let gravity accelerate me to the point where I'm not sure if I can make the impending hard left turn in time or not, and if not, which of the large oak boles will I find myself splattered upon for eternity. I did discover that, traveling at that speed, I could pull out in time. Sadly, the path down the side of the mountain was tree-lined enough that I could not catch much more than a few glimpses of the green valleys opening at the foot of the mountains. Aesthetically unpleased, I continued on my way toward the next town on my agenda, Mount Airy, NC.

I knew I had crossed into the North By God Carolina (say the "by God" part so that it sounds like James Brown screaming) when the road turned from beautifully-paved blacktop to a layer of gray shit that once resembled tarmac. Following this rough gray ribbon through the green hills, I came to the one small town in North Carolina that everybody knows, Mount Airy.

What? Oh, right, you might recognize it by it's other name: Mayberry.

That's right. I visited the birthplace and ancestral home of Andy Griffith, and the town on which the town of Mayberry was loosely based (none of the Andry Griffith show was ever filmed in Mount Airy). However, you wouldn't know that the cameras never rolled in this town as they have fully embraced their Mayberry heritage, at least from what I saw. There was the Mayberry Mall, the Mayberry Car Wash, the Mayberry Dry Cleaners, the Mayberry Brothel and the "Can I Put My Bullet In Now?" shooting range. As you roll through the city from the north side along Rte 52, it seems everything is named Mayberry something-or-other. I can imagine that there are some people who aren't happy with this whole connection to tv nostalgia, but while I was stuck at a light, I felt like rolling the window down and drinking in the entire Mayberry ambiance. As it was, I had that damned whistling theme song stuck in my head for the forty-five minute drive to Winston-Salem, so it's probably a good thing I didn't drink in the Mayberryosity of Mount Airy.

I had called my wife while south of Charleston, WV, and promised her I'd be home by 8:30, so I didn't take the more scenic route through downtown to try and find the Andy Griffith statue. However, as I rolled through some swampy looking lands around the Ararat river (the Mayberry Fens), I promised myself I'd be back. Despite my cheekiness, I really found the town to be rather agreeable (Jesus, do I sound British in this sentance), though I doubt I would be allowed to stay long. I saw a sign as I entered town proclaiming Mount Airy a "Fit Town". Clearly, I'm lucky to have been allowed to cross the border at all.

One quick side note about the history of Mount Airy. Eng and Chang Bunker, the world's most famous Siamese twins, lived in Mount Airy. In case you don't remember the whole story, they married sisters (not twins, that I could tell, but definitely not conjoined in any way) and then they went on to father between 20 and 23 children! Remember, these dudes were connected when that all went down. Apparently, some of their descendants still live in the Mount Airy area, but still.