The South (Part One)

We got up and cruised down the rest of the 450 mile Blue Ridge Parkway on its windey 45 mile an hour roads. We stopped at Mount Mitchell which at just over 2000m is the highest point east of the Mississippi. You can drive right up to the top, which kind of feels like cheating, but as I hadn't crapped myself with Vertigo and Ollie had not suffered from altitude sickness we were doing well we felt. The road was closed from this point on so we took the motorway into Asheville, North Carolina.

We booked ourself in to the Bon Paul and Sharkey hostel, which is cool little place with a hot tub in the back garden. We had also passed a weird house full of stuffed pandas on the way in, but enough on that. The hostel was cheap enough and the owner told us of a hippy commune south of Savannah where they use an ecological system, cook communally, sleep in tree houses and swim in the lakes. We figured this sounded like a good idea for when we got down there. Logging online I found a message from Jill (a couchsurfer) that we could stay with her so we texted her to make sure we had somewhere for the sunday night when we came back from Dollywood and Ollie would get his first couchsurfing experience. In the hostel we met a guy named Brian from New Jersey who had cycled across the States the previous year and was in Asheville because his girlfriend was on a stag do. He joined us for some Irish drinks and then we decided (I decided) we should walk 4.5 miles into town and catch some liver music. Asheville is a cool little town at the foot of the Appalachians renowned for music and bums. We managed to see a local band who were famed because their 85 year old dad was returning that night after damaging his back falling off a ladder. Brian taught us a couple of new darts games that we would use later on in Savannah and again in Memphis. Jill invited us to a house party but Ollie had drank so he could not use the car and Brian got a text from his girlfriend so we joined the random hen night. One of the brides was confused as to where the random English guys had come from, but she was good fun and was complaining she hadn't met us a few years earlier lol. It turned out three of them were sisters and they taught Irish dancing so we had fun arsing around with that on the dancefloor. The girls disappeared off to a gay club, but we stayed as Brian was not keen to go. Then they all came back because it was shit. One barmaid was hovering for tips and another gave me free drink because she got the wrong beer. The third was mental and joined us for some drinks. She told me she was from California, had spent time in prison for drugs offences someone else did, used to live in a hippy van where she smuggled her dog in a locker into festivals and now loves war films. Completely insane and subsequently such good fun. After some more dancing we headed back to the hostel to play poker and the girls gave us a lift back. One of them asked how we got in and I said we walked. She refused to believe me and thought I was joking for ages. These damn Yankees don't walk anywhere lol. The hostel owner was a little surprised when we rocked up in a van full of girls on a hen do, but it had been a good night.

The next day we got up and headed over to Dollywood. On the way we found Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. These two towns are like some garish theme park in the middle of nowhere. Imagine towns that look and behave like the funland place in Pinocchio, only these guys weren't donkeys (they were firmly in the Republican camp. One for the politicos there). They had some crappy crazy golf courses but we played a few of them anyway which were themed on pirates. We were charged to park the car in Dollywood which felt like a rip off and apparently we only just missed seeing Dolly herself, which I think was more of a loss for Ollie. The rides all look innocuous in Dollywood, but most are good fun. They all get you wet though which is odd. Every single one of them. There was one that lifted you at ninety degrees into a blast furnace, a wooden rollercoaster (that tests your dental work) and two rides that look crap but are actually fun. One fire fighter ride that meanders around like those rides for kids that do nothing and just as I was saying how boolocks it was, it pitched down into the dark and nearly eviscerated me. Good suspense. The other was the water battle ride that looks cack, but it actually fun. While I tried to fire two guns some little kid absolutely battered both of us. On the way back from the park we headed through Great Smokey Mountain National Park, but we had a problem with fuel. Our car did around 370-400 miles to the tank. Now we had done 360 and it was 30 odd miles to the Cherokee reservation. So we had to switch off the air conditioning and allow the car to roll down the hills in neutral to save fuel. We weren't even sure if the Cherokee would have fuel, but luckily it just about held on and they did. The area also had only one radio station, that played crap country. On the way back to Asheville we would also get pulled over for the first time for doing 72 in a 45. Now Ollie had assured me he would get a few minor speeding fines, but it turns out that the minimum fine is 140 dollars and if you are over 25 over the limit you have to appear in court. Never mind that Agent Smith in his unmarked car put Ollie's name as Fenton Russell and his drivers licence as his post code. They still had our number plate and I'd heard a horror story about a German guy who did not pay his fine. He came back to the US and they let him know he still owed money at the border. He just said how much did he owe and they replied that they would let him off the fine but he could turn around and leave as he was barred from the US. So the moral of the story is to use your cruise control and don't speed. And for our moral outcome we were heading back to US court in Waynesville North Carolina in ten days to find out our fate.

We got to Jills a little late due to our rendezvous with Agent Smith and informed her that her new couchsurfers had had a brush with the law. One of her friends put us in touch with a lawyer named Emmitt who told us Ollie was likely to lose his licence for a year. That left a huge sword of Damacles hanging over us for ten days as I can't drive and the road trip could be over before it began. We grabbed some drinks from the local off licence who refused to serve Ollie because in North Carolina foreign drivers licences don't count as ID. So I grabbed the drinks and then the owner told us about the strip clubs in Savannah which he'd just been to on a stag do. Very random. Jill is a harmonica player from New York who moved down to Asheville and who's house is now a random base for musicians in the local area. We met a number of her musician friends in a cool house party with copious vegetarian food (Possibly the first vegetables we had eaten on the trip). We had a couple of air beds up in the loft and we asked Jill if we could return for our court date which she said was fine. One of her friends had just come back from climbing Cotopaxi which was cool and another agreed to take us shotgun shooting and white water rafting the week after (We had many invites to shoot stuff but sadly they all kept falling through).

In the morning we grabbed breakfast with Jill in the local bakery and it became apparent that she knew the whole town. It appears noone in Asheville has any money so they trade skills. She had been teaching harmonica to the woman in the bakery in return for cooking lessons and we met a lot of locals before we headed off to Charleston.

We stopped in Columbia South Carolina on the way down to use the public library for the first time. Seemed like a nice enough town. We also went driving for ages into the middle of nowhere in pursuit of a place to kayak in the swamps but we never found it. We did however discover a radio station for Satans church that only got reception on one junction of the motorway while we did a U turn. We arrived in Charleston and grabbed our first Taco Bell (I rank it just behind Wendys in fast food chains). Then we drove into the centre and Charleston is a really pretty old colonial town with very ornate architecture. We saw dolphins out in the harbour and found a cool little coffee shop where the owner talked to us about his former work in the music industry. Southerners were starting to live up to their reputation as being incredibly hospitable. We then set off into North Charleston to find our hosts. We asked for directions and spoke to Melissa but ended up going round and round in circles and past where we supposed to three times before we eventually arrived. Melissa, her boyfriend Drew and Kerrenna (a really nice girl from Alabama. We met two people from Alabama on this trip and its a shame we missed the state as they seem to be the nicest people in the world) had a really good place and had cooked us some vegetarian food. Couchsurfing would be our way to get our greens. They also had a pig in the back garden that woul attack you unless you used a tennis racket to protect yourself. As Drew was a marine biologist they also had an impressive fish tank. The five of us chatted till late and then bedded down as Melissa had classes in the morning. Apparently there was an argument in the morning, but like the dead log I am, I slept right through it.

The next morning we joined Kerrena and her friend Alexa for a picnic out in the park. We headed over to Alexas and she offered us a bong (which we passed on), while we played with her mental kitten. It loved attacking a cuddly rooster. The picnic was really nice and Kerrena then had to go and babysit some French kids so me and Ollie went out to Fort Sumter. Its a picturesque little boat ride out into the harbour and we had an interesting talk from a ranger about the history. A few other random southerners had a few chats with us and then when we were walking around the fort we both started laughing. There was a big burley 'Englishman' speaking in the most ridiculously stereotypical English accent. Now we figured he must be taking the piss but he continued with his ridiculous voice. I presume he must be from Surrey to sound like that, although it did occur to me that we had been away for some time and that maybe I'd just forgotten what the English sound like. On the plus side he had a serious 'Canada' for a daughter and that made the trip a pleasure. When we came back from the Fort we wandered around town some more soaking up how pretty it was before we met Kerrenna and her sister in a random bar and headed to the customs house where we would meet Melissa's friend Stephanie who was going to take us on a ghost tour for free. Perks of 'surfing' lol. The tour was really good and we learnt a lot about the city before the others headed off and me and Ollie joined Kerrenna and Stephanie for drinks in AC's Dive Bar.

The next day we did our washing, which was exciting as always and then found out we could not head out to Biedler Forest as the rangers only work on saturdays. So we gave Stephaine a ring and she agreed to take us on a history tour of the city before she had to head off somewhere. We got our second free tour and learnt about 'green' paint, houses and chiggers (which are apparently little red insects that fall out of trees, burrow into your skin and die but stay there). I did wonder if that meant you were technically breaching the customs laws that say you can't bring foreign fauna abroad if you've been chiggered. We then headed out to Folly Beach before joining the girls again that night to see Vicky, Christina Barcelona. I really loved this film and Penelope Cruz is too hot. We also met another girl who had dated a guy from Suffolk/Essex (a bad combo) and had once passed out in an English clubs toilets. Made for good night out stories anyway before we made our way onwards and southwards. Oh we had also found a coffee shop called Kudu earlier ehich made the best coffee and got chatting with a girl whose boyfriend now lives in an apartment near Buckingham Palace. Alright for some lol.

Having left Charleston we decided it would be a good idea to camp out on one of the islands. I was buzzing at this point because the trip was class and so the stupidity of driving over a bridge onto a low lying island while Tropical Storm Fay was making its way up the coast had been lost on me. We realised we were in a swamp and to avoid being bitten we decided to stay in the car with the engine off so no air conditioning. Twenty very sweaty and uncomfortable minutes later we abandoned that concept because we were dying in our own sweat. So having nearly sweated to death we exited the car and were bitten to death while we set up the tent. Once we crawled inside I proceeded to panic because I believed the wind was picking up and the storm may flatten us with a tree or drown us. So after Ollie initially dismissed my stupid fears, I spooked him enough to get up and drive on through the night down to Savannah. The only sleep he got was one hour in a carpark of Wendys after eating something from Waffle House and we were awoken by an employee who clearly believed that we must be two guys cruising in his carpark. And to top it off Wendys wasn't even open so what was he doing there. We drove down to the beach as the winds picked up and all the cars were coming the other way. We arrived at the beach where they had a swing chair and sand was gusting down the coast so we didn't stay too long. We headed back in to town and checked into the Thunderbird Inn. Welcome to Savannah.

Having slept through the whole afternoon we woke up and limped around town. This place is immensely pretty with drooping weeping willows cascading down promenades, cobbled streets that plunge between buildings to the waterfront and a plethora of small squares with erratically organised plants. Picturesque does not do this city justice. We eventually found some bars and a dive place to play pool (where I promptly left my card, but luckily got it back later). We got free pool while drinking which would become a staple of the south and found a really cheap pizza place. There were not too many people around though due to the storm and we had an early night.

The next day we wandered around again, but this time in the daylight. While being a beautiful city there is not a lot to do in Savannah in the day though we did find some nice gardens in one of the parks. We went drinking again down the docks this time and found an Irish pub dedicated to the marines. Some pub landlady started chatting to us about how crap the lapdance was that one of the soldiers she was drinking with the night before had got over the river in South Carolina. We ended up drinking some very strong Scottish drink and promising to come back for the gig that evening. There were a lot of people drinking along the waterfront and we found a Wet Willies (slush puppy with alochol. Ollie had found one in Key West and hated it). We ended up chatting with a girl who had cut herself on some rocks surfing and finally we made it to the gig venue which we stayed in partly because it was good and partly because the strom broke over the city. That night we were constantly interrupted by the TV beeping with storm and flood warnings. This was no use for us, because I have no idea where any of the counties are. Obama also picked Biden as his VP which looks like a safe choice, but interesting he should pick a man who said it was nice to see a black man who was 'articulate and clean'.

Our final day in Savannah went like most of the others. We wandered around the pretty town and then went to a Pirate Bar with a man dressed like Jonny Depp who took offence at Ollie's upturned collar and proceeded to lower it. We went through some Scottish, Irish and Welsh bars, meeting the most miserable girl I have ever met. She hated everywhere she had lived so that made for thrilling conversation. Then I got chatting with some soldiers at the last bar who seemed cool, but we just played darts and left. This was probably the only day of slack we had on the trip and two nights probably would have been enough. Though we did get to see a bust up between a couple of soldier boys.

The next day we moved north while we waited for a response from Kerrenna about whether those guys were going to join us camping. We had abandoned the idea of the hippy commune as the weather did not lend itself to staying in treehouses. So much for the hot Yankee summer. We did not hear anything so headed into Augusta. Its a nothing much town with a pretty neighbourhood around the gold course. We had read a good analogy in the toilets of Savannah. It had said in Atlanta the first question people ask is 'What do you do?', in Augusta its 'Whats your grandparents name?' and in Savannah its 'What you drinking?' and it holds true on the whole. Ah local Georgia humour lol. We ate in the Boll Weevil there which was not a bad place. We walked along the riverside walk, which has some toilet sinks that sound like machine guns underneath it and witnessed the Sheriff patrolling the walkway in his dinky golf cart car. Don't fancy its prospects in a police chase. We opted to camp up in Lake Strom Thurmond and reckon we may be the only English people to have gone through there. Though they did have an odd Dutch couple. Again the people were fantastic in the South and so much better than on either of the coasts. We began to suspect that Europeans don't visit the best parts of the US (this would be absolutely conformed by the end of the trip). It appears that the coasts and the middle just don't understand one another. Because everyone is miserable on the coasts they see Southern friendliness as fake. And Southerners see coastal indifference as hostility when its clear to anyone who lives there that strangers just don't talk to one another. We found the radio station 97.1 the River which was awesome and in the morning we swam in the the lake out to an island, which was cool and refreshing. Too cold to attempt that in the UK. We upped sticks and headed onwards to Athens.

Athens is a small college town where students make up one quarter of the population and we figured it would be a good base to explore Atlanta from. We arrived in town and went to a Hookah Bar in the centre of town that had a chess board. Me and Ollie started playing when a couple of girls joined us because they had never smoked Sheesha before. We joined them for a few drinks. Ashleigh was a Bostonian who had come down here, was living off family money and had earned the nickname Smashleigh for her drunk driving. Katie was a local who seemed to love pur accents. They were fun company though a little simple at times. Still they invited us to come fire some guns and go kayaking with beer strapped to the boat. It sounded cool but we were late in meeting our host so agreed to sort it out for later in the week. We rocked up to Stephanie's house and met her housemates Megan, Sara, Jill and Jessica (an artist we would not see that much of). Steph took us out with her mate Josh to play some pool, before we headed off to a bar that had a frat party on and then a city bar with some random guy who paid for all the drinks. Was a good night.

In the morning Ollie and me headed out to Atlanta for the day. We went to the largest aquarium in the world, where they had a few Whale Sharks in a monstrous tank and some Beluga Whales. It was good and came with a joint ticket for the World of Coke. Ollie had been excited about heading here because they had apparently invented Santa Claus when they took St Nicholas and his traditional green, before rebranding him in coke colours. Its an interesting museum and we got chatting with a guy who worked there and this Aussie before sampling 60 coke products and coming out cracked off my nut on sugar and caffeine. We tried to find a rooftop bar in town but it didn't open till five so we wandered around the downtown and monuments to the Olympic games of 1996. Then we decided to head north west in pursuit of the Big Chicken. Apparently according to Lonely Planet it was a statue of a chicken that towered like a Godzilla. Ollie fresh off his love of Foamhenge couldn't wait. We crawled for 2 hours through Atlanta rush hour traffic, past about five accidents (this and the radio station proudly annoucing there had been no crashes either way on the freeway made me believe that Atlanta has a lot of traffic accidents) and found the chicken. It was two storeys high (hardly Godzilla) and had a moving eye and beak. It was pathetically shit and the biggest waste of two hours of my life so far though I am sure I can probably top it on this trip maybe. Having killed our time we dashed east to Stone Mountain (otherwise known as Confederate Mount Rushmore). Due to the rain (yes we'd brought it again) they cancelled the fireworks, but we still got to climb it in the dusk. Now climbing steep granite rock faces that are wet in the dark is not a sensible idea. I slipped many times and Ollie damaged his knee again on the way up and down but there was a great sense of pride after scaling it and the views were class from the top. The mountain has the images of Robert E Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson carved into it although they are not as impressive as the mountain itself. On the way back we were subjected to Peter Frampton's 'Do You Feel' which was apparently spoofed on the Simpsons and he became a running joke for us from then on. One that would become even funnier later on. We had originally planned to go karaokeing that night but Stephanie text me to say noone was going but we could have a game of poker, so we grabbed some beers on the way back. Having stopped at some little roadside shack on the way back to grab some beers I was surprised to find the best warehouse beer selection I had ever seen in a shack outside Athens Georgia. They had Beelzebuth, Aventinus, Rochefort etc and loads I had never heard of. We armed up with 48 beers and some heavyweights for the poker and set off back to Athens after a long chat about beer with the owners.

Back at the house we kicked off a seven person poker session. Megan, Jill, Sara, Stephanie, me, Ollie and Megans boyfriend Slade (an ultimate frisbee player) kicked it off. Josh joined us a little later. It was a decent game that descended into drinking games as these things always do. We ended up drinking in teams of three (Sara and Jill had retired) from frisbees (they contain three pints each) before doing some funnelling. Hadn't drank like this since the days of rugby and new years in Edinburgh with the vets. I was quite cained to forced Ollie to funnel his when I really shouldn't have done and then Steph cooked for Ollie and Josh in the kitchen before Josh chucked his spaghetti on the floor and splashed the others. Meanwhile Megan and me made a pact for a marriage of convenience to swap EU citizenship for US. Stephanie retired and Josh went as well. I tried to lure him back to drinking but as he was sharing with Stephanie and she's a very good looking girl, I figured my chances of luring him back were non-existant, but you cant' really blame him. The others all faded off and I was left drinking with the cat, which was a sorry state of affairs.

In the morning most of the housemates left for classes and me and Ollie (he was seriously hungover) headed into town. Here I decided that I would write a blog for this trip afterall and so everything from now on has my notes and not just my memory and Ollie's notes for guidance lol. We headed to the library and couldn't find it so asked some fresher girl who didn't know. I felt a little bad as she looked a little lost, finally gets some conversation when she is a newby and it turns out to be some foreigners who just bugger off. The next guy took us to the Uni library and we bumped into both Megan and Slade on campus seperately. Not bad. Two days in Athens and we were now wandering around town bumping into people we knew. We went back and chilled in the house and Jill invited us to a nude sketching class which me and Sara passed on as we both draw crappy stick men. I don't think the model would appreciate my interpretation of their body. Chatted with Sara for a while and she seemed a cool girl, trying to decide what she wanted to do with her marketing degree when she finished. Sort of arranged to meet up in Mexico City for thanksgiving but I don't know how likely that is to come to fruition. Stephanie came back and Ollie went for a sleep out in the hammock. We were also subjected to the weird tannoy system in the gardens that sounds like a military announcer from those World War Two films and was talking about the chances of UGA's football team. They started the year as national favourites but at the time of writing had lost one game already. Four of us watched almost the whole season four of weeds and then Sara and Stephanie retired. Megan and Slade joined us and we talked philosophy and politics out on the deck until the early hours of the morning. We concluded that people need a higher cause than themselves to believe in and follow in order to have a purpose in life and to feel genuinely happy. I also persuaded Slade (Our first Republican) that McCain would make a good President, but that Obama could be a great one (He may also be a disaster but I have faith and I'm not about to jump my own horse in the race when he looks like winning it). We had met a few Democratic recruiters as we travelled. I explained that I could not vote but that I was converting people with my political knowledge and Obama love. Most of my philosophy is up on my facebook so i won't fire off on one here. The cat had decided to hunt me all day as well which was weird as I'd been playing with it and it kept nicking my ankle everywhere I went. In the morning we got some music burnt for us by Megan (which was useful given how many times we lost radio coverage west of the Mississippi) and found about about the book 'What is the What', which turned out to be owned by the next two couch surfers we stayed with. Ollie was trying to pigeon hole them and had concluded that they allhad that book, had a cat, were Democrats and were vegetarian. It proved reasonably accurate, but then I figure the concept is the closest modern day example to the hippy movement in the 1960s and is like technological hippiedom. Its also good for reaffirming your faith in humanity and basic trust of people. We missed saying goodbye properly as we had to head for Asheville and our court date, but it was a good time and the girls were an attractive, intelligent and fun group. Hopefully I will catch up with them again. And now it was time for the Sword to fall on us.