Woke up in Savannah and I could still smell the ocean all around me. I fought the urge to cancel the rest of the trip and just stay there by the inviting shore. The thing most attractive about Tybee Island is how empty it was. Later I will be in Virginia Beach, and I know that will just be mobbed with hormone-crazed college boys, harassed mothers and vapid girlies with poor bikini choices.
But I pressed on.
At this point, I was getting pretty damned tired of getting out of the car in various southern spots and trying not to scream “what is that SMELL?”. I am reminded that the eastern US is built on a green O-Cello sponge, warm and moist, without a winter to inhibit the growth of things that smell.
First stop in the morning (after coffee, which shouldn’t have to be mentioned, as it is as functional as washing my face), was the Savannah historical museum and visitors center. It smelled funny and there was a movie that I did not watch. I spent much time in the gift shop and purchased a book of pirate stickers that now adorn the postcards being sent. If you want a postcard, send me your address. If I get it while I am still on the road, I will send you one.
A walking tour of Savannah was next and we hit most of the major historical houses and squares. We drove by the Factor’s Walk on the river front, but the humidity had beaten us down sufficiently and we let it go.
Our next stop was Hilton Head. The place was mobbed, but we just drove through to get an idea of what it is like. Stopped at a deli on the mainland, Vino and Vitto, and picked up a sandwich as big as my forearm. Damned tasty sandwich. Hilton Head was not anything to write home about, so I didn’t.
We swung through Beaufort, SC, and took pictures of historical things and read about wars and defiance and pondered again the amazing smells borne of the unbelievable humidity.
We got lost trying to get out of Beaufort and ended up by Parris Island. We had been island-hopping all day, and decided to check this one out, too. We followed the signs to Parris Island and whipped off the highway and into a giant military base. Something in my head clicked and I sort of remembered something about military and Parris Island (or was it an insane asylum?), but I just couldn’t make the connection. Because of the holiday, all military bases were on Alert: Bravo. This meant that they checked all ID’s coming in and had absolutely no sense of humor about tourists accidentally showing up on base. Rodriguez was polite but humorless about the whole thing and directed me back to the highway.
Finally, we arrived in Charleston, exhausted and sweaty. Our hotel room smelled of urine and had a sticky quality hard to come by in your own home. We rested for a minute, gathered our thoughts and headed out downtown for a walking tour of the historic houses.The AAA guide for Charleston warned us against driving in this city because its roads are a clusterfuck maze of narrow one-way streets that inexplicably end in the middle of a block. You will find one direction repeated multiple times before you get a chance to go the other way. We got lost and cursed all who designed this city. Then we found parking and started our little tour. Each of the historic houses, though a private residence, is clearly labelled with the name of the house and the history attached to it. We walked down to the waterfront to watch seagulls and pelicans and the coast guard do their things. White Point Park was full of pigeons quietly waiting for me to feed them, but they never got the chance as a family erroneously decided the best activity for the evening was to run around with the pigeons and pretend to fly like them, scaring them half out of their wits. First it’s two pleasant Minnesotans crumbling Keebler Club Crackers on the ground, then a swarm of giant avi-humans swoop in with the sole purpose of making them go away. Pigeons have it tough.
Back to the car and off to dinner. Too tired and hungry to really try to think about dinner, we ended up at a chain rib place that fed us well and kept me supplied with beer.
Tomorrow Georgetown, SC, South of the Border and Morehead City.

If there are days better than today, I just don’t know if I can handle them. The morning started out with us driving around Atlanta. Sightseeing and basically taking advantage of our out-of-state plates and blocking traffic, stopping where we shouldn’t and being foolish. Atlanta is a beautiful city, so very mush to see. Nothing more exciting than the fight we saw between Wolf Blitzer and Larry King outside CNN this morning. Okay, we didn’t see the fight, but we saw CNN and it was pretty nifty.
Atlanta is a charming city with pleasant, accomodating people. However, I have one request: Atlanta needs to clearly label its streets so I don’t get so damned lost. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t have a map, but if I can’t match the picture to the streets, then the whole system falls apart.
After downtown Atlanta, we visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. It’s a very beautiful, peaceful place, and in visiting it you are reminded that there are so very few of us that actually do anything that makes a difference.
The next stop was Juliette, GA, home of the Whistle Stop Cafe, made famous by the movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes”. This town is pretty much one block and its entire industry is the tourists that stop by to see the cafe. I could sit for hours and listen to them talk and talk. A special thanks to the gentleman that offered to take our picture together.
Macon was much bigger than I remembered, and certainly less redneck. Lunch at Len Berg’s in the alley behind the courthouse. Highly recommended. The food was great, the service was a bit slow but charming and the whole place was just weird enough to a northerner like myself to keep me amused. Now I don’t mean that this is recommended in that sort of “I recommend pants with legs” sort of way, but in an “Oxygen is good for your brain” way. When you are in Macon, you will be tempted to stop at one of those crap-filled chain restaurants like Chili’s or Cracker Barrel, but don’t. Make a little effort, drive into town. You’ll find the courthouse, go down the back alley and there it is. Now don’t think “eeeuw, back alley”, think “distinctively charming”. This is one of the best places you will ever eat.
One point to keep in mind: I ordered iced tea and she asked me “Sweetened or unsweetened?” in her perfectly-timed drawl. I chose sweetened, thinking that it would save me the 32 seconds it takes to pour sugar in the glass, and assuming that sweetened meant that it was as sweet as iced tea purchased in a bottle at a humid gas station just off the interstate. One sip of the iced tea and I learned differently. This beverage pretty much peels the enamel off your teeth and makes a Caramello taste like vinegar. I had to squeeze many lemons into it to make it drinkable. After 3 glasses, though, I found it to be highly addictive and it’s really all I want now.
The meal itself came with the softest, sweetest biscuits and little deep-fried cornbread sticks. Heaven. The meals themselves were simple and tasty, without pretense.
Beyond Macon, down to Savannah, you drive down an incredibly lush, verdant corridor. Pretty much solid trees on both sides of the freeway, and the scent is intoxicating. Slowly, the land dipped lower and lower until we reached marshland and Savannah. The car gave us quite a scare by chugging and flipping on the ‘Check Engine’ light, but that was quickly resolved by getting some gas and caressing the hood slowly, telling her she was really a good car, the only car for us, yeah baby, none of the other cars got what you have…
Quickly check into the hotel and pop over to Tybee Island and the ocean. THE OCEAN! I live in Minnesota, we don’t have the ocean. It was warm and gentle and inviting and the first thing I did was call everyone on my cell phone to brag about my oceanic adventure. After 90 minutes of jumping around in the surf, I went and sat in the sand with the sun setting on my back and the ocean beating the beach in front of me. Dinner at a restaurant right on the beach. Jerk pork, too many beers and the salt drying on my face. Highway 80 back into Savannah with the sunroof open and the cool breeze on me.
More perfect than anything.
Tomorrow, Downtown Savannah, Hilton Head, Beaufort, and Charleston.

Wow, southern Illinois, what a stunning load of absolutely nothing. An entire state of nothing that has nothing and looks like nothing. The Department of Transportation really needs to look into this. If they want us to travel and spend money, then I need a reason. I mean it. Entertain me. Fix the geology, spruce things up a bit, add more wildlife (the living kind).
We managed to see a giant Superman. Not much about him that was exciting except that he was excessively large and he looked like Christopher Reeve (before the incident, not now). Stopped at the gas station near the massive man of steel and I was confronted by an uncomfortable discovery: While Chicago is very much part of the north, the rest of Illinois is firmly entrenched in the south. There was a ‘Meat Snack Center’ in the store selling me jerky, pemmican, chicken leg meat snack and slim jims. A grizzled man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth sat blankly in front of a slot machine by the door, hitting the button over and over again and never winning. A post-teen boy who can only be described as slack-jawed stood behind him and in my way, watching him lose. The act of me walking towards him confused him to the extent that he directed his blank stare at me, but found himself incapable of moving out of my way.
We had lunch in Nashville after taking pictures of the place where the original Grand Ole’ Opry performed. Jack’s BBQ was our well-picked lunch destination. Nashville residents charmed me and it was still early enough in the day to not be irritated with how damned slow everyone is.
Chattanooga was pointless and gave me a headache. Yeah, sure you can go up really high, but it takes a long time and frankly, this isn’t a city you really want to spend a lot of time staring at.
The night will be spent in Marietta, dinner at a Texas-style meat joint. The food was good, but once again… You guys need to hurry the hell up!!!
Tomorrow will be spent discovering Atlanta, Macon (mmmmmmmm, Macon), and Savannah.

Here I am in the appropriately named Effingham,IL. The entire industry of this town is based solely on the nexus of two major interstates, and the existence of a giant, water tower-sized cross.
With the exception of Chicago, Illinois is quite possible one of the most boring places on the planet. The highlight of my day was adding another coat of nail polish after dinner at Denny’s. Yes, Denny’s. I had the French Slam. Now, normally if you had asked me if you should eat a meal with ‘Slam’ in its name I would slap you and send you back to menu training. Bu the French Slam had 2 french toasts, 2 eggs, 2 bacons, 2 sausages and a soda. Unfortunately, I tasted the error of my ways too late. The bacon tasted of chicken, you should never bite into a piece of smoked, cured pork and think of the original white meat. Worse than the chickeny bacon was the sausage. One bite of the sausage and I was transported from the ‘Decadent Meat’ section of the food pyramid directly to the ‘Vegetables that grow Underground’ section. Eggs tasted of warm white pulp and the french toast had the texture of bath towels.
Lesson learned, in a big way.
Tomorrow, Nashville and Atlanta and better food. A word of warning to those of you down south, Minnesotans don’t like to chat with people they don’t know. We are pleasant, quiet, reserved Scandinavians; we aren’t trying to be rude, it’s just that our sense of personal space extends beyond the physical. I know I sound funny to you, but you sound just as funny to me and you don’t see me engaging you in an ongoing converstation just to hear you talk. In Minnesota, when we are asked ‘How are you?’ we lie and say, ‘Fine,’ and leave it at that. If you ask where we are from or where we are going or how long we are on vacation or what our DNA sequence preferences are, we will only be suspicious of you and edge away.
If necessary, I will get a little name tag that says “Hi, My name is Heather, I am from Minnesota” and that is all you will need to see.