The Pre-Go
Looking at what my summer work schedule was going to be from a vantage point of late May, it was pretty obvious that I couldn't realistically take any significant amount of time off. I wasn't too upset about that. No part of my family was planning a beach trip or a Niagara Falls trip or anything like that, so I decided early in the summer I'd be happier just working the whole summer and taking time off once school had started back up, my projects were over, the air was cooler, and I'd just go somewhere. Hadn't decided where or when, but in pretty quick succession it occurred to me what would be perfect. My birthday, a 30th that I was definitely uptight about, was two weeks after the end of scholastic summer. Seemed like the perfect time to do it. I could take the entire week off surrounding it, and hopefully avoid even thinking about it. I'd just take myself completely out of the situation. No sitting around the house thinking about how depressing it is to be as old as my oldest memories of my parents. (Does that make sense? In my head, I guess I always think of my parents as 30 year olds. They're not 20 year olds, because when I was growing up that seemed too young for parents. My parents turned 30 when I was between 2 and 3, so I guess around the time I could make logical sense of who they were, especially in relation to other people. So, the way I think of it, if I'm 0, they're 30. Now I'm 30. That's a mess of crap to deal with. Yeah, that makes them 60, I should probably take that into account. But I have to deal with 30 first, and I'm not getting by that quickly.) Nobody around who has any idea who I am, or what's going on with me, and certainly nobody who's going to remind me of it. Seemed perfect, but where to go? Initially I thought, “mountains.” For a long time now I've thought I wanted to take a trip to some mountains somewhere and just hang out. But I realized pretty quickly that would probably get old fast, I doubt it would entertain me for a week. But, visit a city? As a general rule, cities of any size annoy the fuck out of me. Call that a generalization if you will, but it's true. So I wanted to find one that wouldn't annoy the fuck out of me, but what the hell city was that? I just kind of stared at a map and tried to figure it out. Maybe Portland? Just guessing, I've just heard it's kind of nice but there's no real particular attraction there for me. And now that indie rock pretty much annoys the shit out of me by default, let's avoid the capital. Maybe Atlanta? Why? I don't know, Georgia seems nice. Nope. Maybe Oklahoma City? You're really stretching now. Then I attacked it Kissick-Seattle-style, asking myself, What's a place that's held mythical sway over my brain for a long time, that I'm somewhat familiar with in terms of attractions, that will offer me plenty of alluring distractions?
DUH!
*SMACK*
Memphis.
And it just all sort of fell together. I could even break it up and include the mountains. Take a leisurely two days to drive to Memphis, stopping wherever along the way, do three days of Memphis, on the way back stop somewhere in the Smoky Mountains, take a hike, and take an even more leisurely two days to get from the Smokies back to Fredericksburg. Perfect. I'd even rent a car so I didn't have to worry about my truck handling the trip. Even more perfect. Summer goes by. Summer sucks. I don't like summer, don't want anything to do with it anymore. I pretty much worked for 10 hours a day, came home, filled 2 hours, slept for 9-10, got up and did it again. And was content to spend it that way. Moving on.
Day 1: Fredericksburg to Erwin, TN
Erwin seemed like it was smack in the middle of the line to Memphis, so that's where I made plans to stay. Picked up my car on Saturday morning and headed straight out. Was so thankful to get a rental with the auxiliary-in for the Zune I'd bought a few weeks before. One of the only things I spent my summer doing was compiling a crap-load of rockabilly, soul, blues, doo-wop, country, R&B, rock & roll, roots, and swamp. (Plus Joanna Newsom of course) Let me tell you, nothing's better than putting that mix on shuffle. Sustained me through hours and hours of driving with a lot of smiles on my face. More than one at a time. I'm really considering never adding or subtracting another thing to the Zune in order to preserve this perfect collection of wonders. Even more amazing because I spent all summer being mostly sick of music. I was saving those genres for this trip, so I was trying out other stuff while driving around. None of it stuck, and I basically ended up listening to a lot of podcasts. I took a separate mp3 player with me on the trip for podcasts, but as long as the battery was holding up, it was all Zune. Drive the first day was uneventful but not unpleasant. It didn't exhaust me the way these trips often can. Got to the Super 8 in Erwin, ready for something to eat. I pretty much knew I was going to be eating a truckload of pulled pork while in Memphis. I didn't see any way to avoid it, figured to pack it all in I'd pretty much be having it every meal. More on that later. So I figured I'd get started early in Erwin. Went to a place called Hawg 'N Dawg, whose specialty is a hot dog with pulled pork on top of it. I wasn't feeling that, not much of a hot dog person anymore. So I ordered the pulled pork platter, which was advertised as pork with bread and two sides. Gotta be beans and slaw. Now, “pork and roll” sounds to me like you're just getting the ingredients for a sandwich, which is why I didn't just order a plain sandwich. Cuz I wanted those sides. But the “roll” was more like a hot dog roll split in two, not really enough to pile pulled pork on. So, it was just okay. It did it's job though.
Fun fact about staying at the Super 8 in Erwin. If you try to go into town to get something to eat, there's a good chance you will be sitting waiting for a train to go by. And possibly stuck between two trains.
Stayed up a little later watching some MMA and went to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment