Penn and the Chesapeake

We cruised down through New Jersey and through the fifteen million toll bridges on our way to Philadelphia and city number two. Ollie had a mate Phil in Philly and so we had texted him to see if he fancied joining us that night. Something weird was happening however. My phone credit just seemed to be constantly declining for no reason. Only after a while did we realise that you get charged to receive even domestic calls and texts in the United States and this was frankly daylight robbery. Fucking Yankee capitalists lol. We cruised into Philly and into the hostel for two nights. Or so we envisioned. We in fact ended up spending $18 a day to leave the car in a dodyg multistorey that we would have to trek back to and were told the hostel was full. We should have been booking in August really and we asked if there were any alternatives. They said no and then said "actually, there is one cheap place but its full of cockroaches etc". We thought, we'll take it lol.

Welcome to the almighty Parker Spruce hotel in downtown Philadelphia. Now this place looked like a shithole, but manageable. On the plus side the place next door does a mean Philly Cheesesteak and has a good happy hour. Philly was cheap to drrink in. This hotel had some dudes on the desk and apparently rented the rooms by the hour normally. It was evident when we eventually got into the room. They had mirrors on the ceiling, we had one queen size bed to share between us. The whole room was falling to pieces. There was no air conditioning and the window was propped open by a bog roll. The shower had a couple of inches of stagnant water in it because there was no drainage and when you turned the tap on, the first five seconds of water was blood red. We concluded it probably wasn't goo to drink the tap water here. Anyway we checked in at the desk and were handed a key to the room. We went up the lift and wandered around the corridors that looked like those from the Shining. You half expected to see some kid come round the corner on a tricycle but we did at least get a shooting on the second night that prompted Ollie to lock the door. We rocked up to the door and neither of us could open it. Feeling rather pathetic and after trying for about 15 minutes as its embarassing for two guys to say we can't open a door we gave up and went back to the desk. The dude handed us another key, up we went and again we couldn't open it. This was getting embarassing now. Back down we went. And the dwarf guy from out of a David Lynch film offered to try with the third key. The bossman at this point noticed that all three keys had different cuts, so I am not sure if they are incompetent, they have had a lot of locks broken, needed to change them for security or are just incompetent. I suspect the first or the last one :-) This third key did unlock it and we were introduced to our palace. On the way down I caught the door with my foot for someone and he then believed I was a martial artist and he'd once been to Copenhagen where all the drinks were free. This was going to be an interesting place.

We left the Spruce and headed out to the Liberty Bell, where there was surprisingly no queue and walked around the historic quarter. Ollie hadn't been here before, but it was another place I'd visited and I was treading water for the South. We managed to find a rock bar called the Khyber which had $1 beers. Thats a good enough reason to go there, but we had some interesting karaoke with some goth girls from a few streets south and some guy who was amazing. Me and Ollie poisoned the clienteles ears with our 'stay British' 'Another Brick in the Wall' and 'Paint it Black'. I then followed it up with a solo 'I'm on Fire' but everyone was too cained by then to notice. One of the girls had been to Burning Man and was trying to convince us to go. Ollie got steamed chatting with some random girl and I chatted with the boss of the Tattoo parlour and she was insisting we go down the dockfront to get some girls for the mirrors. Was a fun night all round. We trecked back, with Ollie insisting we just drive cross country for Burning Man. I meanwhile had more important matters to attend to. Food. I managed to find a tramp who informed us off a Dunkin Donut that was open. We went there. Ollie asked what was good and he said "nothing its all stale". So we had two donuts and passed out on the bed.

Day two in Philly involved a trek out to the Rocky Steps at Philly art gallery. Ollie did the run and pose with his bad knee while I took photos of him from 15 miles away that made him look like an ant. The art gallery still had that stupid painting with red and blue writing symbolising the hate of the Greeks and the love of the Trojans, but it also still had the awesome picture of a Moorish man. We found a bank that was also a coffee shop and internet provider. We would struggle to find internet cafes in the States as they seem to have been wiped out with the arrival of Wi-Fi. It was here that we met Ollie's mate Phil and he took us around some of the bars in downtown which were much classier than the bars in the old district (We had gone looking for clubs the night before, but upon asking what time the Brazilian place opened we were told friday. It seemed and so it would prove, that Yankeeland was not conducive to clubbing. Certainly not as we have come to know it in Europe and the UK). Now apparently I used to be part of chess club with Phil Cooper in junior school but I didn't really remember. I think I am turning into a senile old man. We drank there, then wandered back to the old district and our favourite pool hall/fussball place. Philly also managed to supply us with three Talking Heads songs in three bars and they would follow us everywhere including a DUI talking heads session with some random girls in Lafayette. We rocked back to the one and only Spruce to be eaten by insects and sleep shitly as we weren't quite drunk enough. We had managed a detour to our car at 2am and managed to survive so I was beginning to think these Yankee cities weren't as scary as their reputations.

In the morning we cruised into Wilmington, Delware and our fifth state on the trip. We got a good breakfast from a local dairy producer and sandwich place. Pleasant memories. Then we wandered out to the Amish lands and the town of Intercourse. These Amish would follow us everywhere in the back pages of the Sports section of USA Today where I was constnantly admonished to buy an Amish fireplace that can follow me around and wouldn't burn my house down. Always a bonus. Intercourse had the Amish or 'freaks' as Ollie calls them. We toured their small town, bought some class local hand made ice cream and looked at an Amish furniture place. Then we got bored. On to Gettysburg. We rocked up to the civil war battle site and got a good talk by an old war veteran who served over in Australia. This started because he thought I was an Aussie. Usual stuff. Nice guy. We then walked around the museum taking in the really good presentations. It was filling a void in my 19th century US history knowledge before drving round the battlefield on the longest drive in history. We read about some crap general who left an entire hill exposed and could have cast the States into slavery if some engineer had not spotted the gap in the line. We found the ridge where the confederates were mown down and after climbing several hills later in the trip we had a lot of sympathy for the soldier's impossible charge. On the way out we spotted an adventure golf course that was nearly impossible and easily the hardest one of these I had ever played. It started the two sport challenge throughout the holiday. I won all bar one golf course (and that was a fluke I will get to later), but Ollie had the slight edge on pool. I won more on the smaller tables (and apparently the wonky ones) while he won more of the Yankee style tables). Fussball was a whitewash for him, but then he was once ranked nationally. We sprinted down to Baltimore where we had decided to spend the night. It wasn't the original plan, but it was the only way were going to get any Baltimore crab cakes. Reading Lonely Planet on the way in, in the dark, through the rough neoghbourhoods, I was comforted to read that if Baltimore had the same number of people as London there would have been 1,000 dead bodies found in the harbour. Welcome to Baltimore.

Feeling comforted by the many police sirens, the Lonely Planets kind words and almost getting in a road rage dispute, we parked up outside the cathedral. Some random man said we didn't have to get a permit if we paid him $6. While neither of us believed him, the random number of 1000 prompted us to pay him anyway. The woman in the hostel confirmed that it was unlikely that our permit was actually valid and we could park the car out back for a fee. Baltimore hostel is really nice but has no internet access. Neither by the way does anywhere in the city bar the library. We didn't actually begin our free library internet access ways until later on in Columbia South Carolina. Being tipped off on a place by Mike when in Greenwich of a good place for cakes on the harbour we sheepishly made our way down there. The restaurant is called Phillips and its expensive but very good. The harbour is really pretty although there is an odd statue of a fat man with blocks chained to his arms, that you can move around. We walked the harbour ominously hearing music floating across from the other side. It felt like Sirens luring us to our watery grave courtesy of a quick knife. We did find out the next day that it was in fact Boston and Styx playing a joint gig and we caught the encore for free from the other side of the harbour. Its a beautiful and cheap way to watch a gig in Baltimore.

In the morning we negotiated Baltimore's Spaghettis Junction esque motorways and headed for Washington DC where we were going to meet a Russian girl for drinks. For some reason it fell through as the texting never got a reply and as Ollie hates DC and the hostels were full again we opted to push on through. I transferred some money and we walked down the Mall and around the Lincoln Memorial etc. I went in pursuit of a hairdressers as I looked like a shaggy mange, but the place they recommended was a posh boutique and out of my range. Disappointed we headed out of town. Ollie promptly swung the car out and started driving down the left hand side of the road. Old habits die hard I guess, but luckily the Yankees didn't hit us. We swung out around West Virginia to hit state number seven and its a beautiful little corner up there. First bit of jaw dropping scenery we saw on the trip. We swung onto the Skyline and we realised as the light fell that our aim to get to Asheville in one day was completely ridiculous. The skyline is a drive through Shenandoah National Park and it is jaw droppingly beautiful up there. We even managed to see a brown bear only ten minutes in (we figured this bear spotting was easy but we would not find another one for the whole trip). Ollie got six shots of the bear's arse before we eventually got the damn thing to turn around. There were loads of deer up there as well and I was feeding them bread before I discovered this was illegal. We saw Otters Creek travelling through and took a dusk walk down to a random waterfall which was cool but potentially stupid as Ollie's torch offered as much light as those girls had in the Descent. There was a hilarious sign of a man falling headfirst into the water, which would spark our love of stupid Yankee signs. I guess the threat of being sued means these things have to be added. Looking for a spot to camp we found that Ollie (who had been speeding with impunity so far) was being tailed by a Park Ranger who kept overtaking us and looping back. It was like something from an odd horror film. We eventually found a camp site and the facilities in the States are immense compared to the UK. Over here you receive your own personalised spot and while Ollie wanted a barbecue and everyone else had RVs and campfires, we had the almighty $15 Wallmart tent. My god was that not good enough in so many ways. Camping in the mountains was 'surprisingly' fucking freezing without a sleeping bag and we nearly died. Our resolve after a shit nights sleep was that we must get a sleeping bag and set out off the Skyline onto the Blue Ridge Highway with the aim of achieving this goal.

We were up and about by half six in the morning. Its amazing how freezing to death can motivate people. Must be what gym teachers were practicing with their winter morning sports and maybe companies should shut off heating with a promise that once productivity reaches a certain level we will be permitted some warmth. We found a Walmart and picked up a couple of sleeping bags in the morning before heading on down the Blue Ridge to Natural Bridge. Its a rock formation found and initialled by a young George Washington that is effectively an archway that they have built a road over the top of. Its moderately impressive but the waterfall was almost non-existant due to a lack of rainfall. So of course once us Brits showed up the heavens opened and we were duly thanked for our providence. We did also get a good presentation about Native Americans from a cute girl in a wigwam. We also went to a wax museum here that has an interesting last supper presentation, a few presentations and some freaky waxwork guests who freak you out when you try to work out why they are not moving. We also went to the Natural Bridge caverns which are apparently the deepest on the east coast according to our guide, but she was unable to answer any questions that involved diverting from the pre-planned script. We decided to do a random loop back on ourselves at this point as Ollie wanted to see Foamhenge, which is a foam replica of stone henge (We would sadly, with careful planned map reading by me, successfully avoid stone henge 2 in Texas). At foamhenge we got chatting with a Yankee couple who apparently are neighbours of the man who designed foamhenge (he also has a horror museum and a waxwork museum of dinosaurs attacking civil war troops). There is a weird foam Merlin and a sign that says if you scracth the models he will scratch your car. Warning duly noted we ended up covered in clay and got back in the Highlander. We next passed through the small Virginia town of Lexington. Still pursuing a hairdresser we treked into town. Stonewall Jacksons grave is here and so is Robert E Lees stuffed horse. I didn't realise this however until we got back to the car. A Mexican couple had asked me if it was in the graveyard and I'd told them they must mean Stonewall Jackson so they trooped off disappointed. Reading the Lonely Planet in the car I was suitably chastised. Lexington is a pretty little town and home of one of the oldest universities in the States (Jefferson was an alumni), but it is also home to the Marine academy. So when I found a hairdresser in her pyjamas watching Fox, I asked for my usual haircut and promptly received a marine haircut. Oh well at least it was short and neat lol. On the way back up the Blue Ridge Highway we were treated to a spectacular rolling fog that came in like a misty grave to make driving all but impossible. The speed it moved in was impressive and when it cleared we managed to get as far as Gallax. The Lonely Planet said the local radio station broadcast the local bluegrass shows from the theatre so we tuned in and the show was quite good so we decided to go. It was weird listening to the first half of a radio show and then rocking up in the town to enter the theatre for free and watch the second half of the show you had just been listening too. There were a lot of old people there so we looked out of place, but the quality of music was awesome in this old little theatre that looks like a 1920s odeon thats falling to pieces. It must be great having this kind of community venue. We finished up the show around 10pm and headed to a campsite to get the best nights sleep we had had yet with our new found sleeping bags. In the morning it was on to the Carolinas and the true south.