Your Innards Never Lie

huhuhuh...nards.

Day 9, Travel day 4

The flexibility of my itinerary is proving to be beneficial to experience. I got a much better sense of the size and scope of Asheville by getting lost in the car trying to go see Fantastic Mr. Fox. I was twenty minutes late and so I thought I'd just keep driving around. Beyond the small downtown area, it's not very impressive, but the people ooze friendliness, in that good kind of oozing way. People offer seats, help carrying that, and are genuinely concerned if you stumble. They are also too polite to bluntly exit a conversation. They'd rather just move and hope you don't notice. People are really cool though, it's very hippie-ish. Kinda like Allston with less terrible tattoos, stopped being dicks, and drink are cheeap. It's nothing like Allston. Except that one place I went Broadway's. Because of their weird alcohol laws, I had to be signed in as a guest of this girl Beth who I made friends with at some new beer brewery bar downtown. She said we should go over there, so I did, but they only let you in if you have a membership (which costs $5 for your lifetime membership) or pay the $3 cover....unless you are a guest. Smoke filled bar with $1.50 PBRs, and they weren't even the cheapest thing in the bar. See later list.

Going off on this trip like this...I realized I'm technically homeless. Ha!

Descending from the Blue Mountains was really beautiful. I was going too fast to take a picture, not a safe thing to do when tere are runaway truck ramps every few miles. If there are runaway truck ramps, there must be runaway trucks. I left Asheville, and had to decide on the drive whether I was going to Charleston or Savannah, . I decided to try and take Charleston in real quick, grab a new battery for my laptop, have a quick bite, and get to Savannah to make a bar scene and get just a little closer to manageable driving distance to Ft. Lauderdale. Charleston seems pretty great. I ran into a pedicabber hanging out outside the Apple store. I wanted to talk to him soo badly, find out what the deal was-His buddy was standing there and said there was a job opening, he just got fired. Of course if some guy like me wanted to talk to me in Boston while I was trying to get rides, I'd probably tell him to go fuck himself, I'm trying to get rides here, not talk about them and ride away. And I'd get really confused because I was trying to talk to myself about rides and getting into an altercation about it. If Ft. Lauderdale doesn't work out, I could totally see myself working in Charleston for a while.

A lot of my driving has happened at night. I feel like I'm missing out on some of the scenery, but I suppose it is more about experiencing the cities. In South Carolina...and probably here in Georgia too, you can be heavily fined and thrown in jail for littering or speeding. Last night on my way from Charleston to Savannah, I saw a car with NJ plates pulled over. Cops down here love bustin Yanks. I saw the trooper walking to the car with a ticket in hand, and something inside of me said I should pull off the road and get a soda, use the restroom. I just didnt want him catching up to me, seeing my plates and arbitrarily pulling me over. After mounting 95 again, I saw him tucked in, nestled into a highway nook waiting for speeders. Not me, not in this car, tricky, tricky. Keeping it 5mph under the limit, just in case, anticipating all the speed traps.

Savannah is charming! The bartender at this dive I discovered resembles Robbie Reckless if he grew his hair out and widened his goatee towards his jawbones a little, and did maybe just a little more heroin. This guy chatted me up and even recommended me to other bars, quite polite.

Quoth Wes, the bartender, "Your innards will tell you, they never lie," and "If there's an umbrella in my drink, it better be raining."

My two favorite texts recently have been "Locked out! Have Bacon!" And, "Oh my god, I am not the master of this key, please let me in..."

Day 7 Kirsten and friends, and Beth, who was also alone in the Lexington Avenue Brewery to check it out in its first week

#40 Lexington Ave Brewery (LAB) IPA @LAB
#41 LAB American Pale Ale
#42 shot of Grand Marnier (Thanks Beth!)
#43 Lexington Ave Marzner
#44 LAB IPA
#45 LAB Pilsner
#46 Miller high life bottle @Broadway's
#47 Grand Marnier shot (Thanks Beth!)
#48 Miller Lite bottle (Thanks Beth!) This is where she drove home..yeah, I know..faaaahck. And she got home safe. (applause)
#49 Lower Lexington Delight

Day 8 Charleston, Savannah, alone

#50 Corona for $1.50 @Jim&Nick's BBQ
#51 Coast Hop Art @Gene's Haufbrau (Charlseton local IPA, fan-f'n-tastic!)
#52 24 oz PBR @Hang Fire
#53 Sweetwater 420 Pale Ale
#54 24 oz PBR
#55 PBR pitcher@The Rail Pub
#56 24 oz PBR @Hang Fire

Statistics

417 miles, 6+ hours of driving time.
$26 fill outside of Charleston
60-40 women to men ratio in Asheville
1st time I've ever found Yelp! to be actually useful.
$20 saved by booking hotel over Hotwire
5 minutes between booking hotel and arriving to hotel.
60% is the percentage of footage I saw from the movie "The Watchmen"
2 beers I took to go, and transferred between bars with them-legal here.
55 degrees is the high today

Chillin here one more night here, just got my bike reinflated...staying in Miami tomorrow.