photo by
johnnyberg
Plan and
Blog your Trip
04 May 2010
Tue May 04, 2010 Full Page 
The following morning I headed downstairs with my bags and was met by the smiling staff of the Marriott. It was a great hotel and they’d loved having a Delorean in their midst. The concierge told me that they’d had their small share of exotic cars come through, but that none had raised as many comments as my 30 year old beast. Willie the valet was particularly impressed (despite the fact that he’d actually driven her into the carpark, and knew that under that shiny skin lurked the heart of a well used, early-80s vehicle) and was all grins as I packed my bags and let them take some photos. In fact at one point the receptionist had to come out and get everybody back inside to their respective posts…so I’m hoping I didn’t get them in too much trouble. I started up the grumbling V-6 and slowly headed out of town through the southern part of the historic district. Driving her round the squares, so evocative of life over a hundred years ago, was a surreal experience. But fairly soon the pretty houses and squares became just houses (albeit still very much older American style houses) and finally the collections of shopping malls, gas stations and chain restaurants that seem to lurk at the perimeter of most US towns and cities these days. I had wanted to duck into a Best Buy (an American electronics chain store…kind of like JB HiFi on steroids….all American stores are like their Australian counterparts on steroids…or perhaps I should say that all Australian stores are like a pale shadow of their American counterparts) and grab a couple of things, not least of which was a GPS, but I was too early, so instead I grabbed some gas and hit the road. As I drove out of southern Georgia and headed towards my next stop, Gatlinburg, I became aware that I was really doing two very different trips here (well three if you include the tornado chasing…but bear with me). The first is a sightseeing tour of some of America’s famous, infamous and almost completely unheard of landmarks. Historic towns and villages, battlefields, and natural wonders are all on my schedule. But second is the great American road-trip. A long haul journey across a country that’s really been made for driving holidays. The whole nation seems geared towards these kinds of trips, and I’m getting the impression that more people take to the highways and interstates still than any other form of long distance travel, and by a pretty major factor too. While driving I’ve become used to the sight of campervans and buses, behemoth houses on wheels with a ‘normal’ car attached to the back like a dinghy hooked to the rear of a luxury yacht. There seems to be a set up like this for every budget, from small Winnebagos dragging Nissan towncars behind, to gigantic shiny buses, a bajillion feet long, with sides that extend out when they’re stopped, and the latest model corvette or BMW latched to their backsides. These are their own self-contained little universes, and you can go from the Florida Keys to Las Vegas’ sunset strip in just a few days without once ever having to leave your own cocoon of comfort. It may seem like I’m bagging these things out, but really I can definitely see the attraction. Fill the swimming pool sized gas tank, charge the giant rack of batteries as you drive (like some supervillain bringing up their planet-destructo-gun to full power) and then just relax as the evening descends, beholden unto nobody for your comforts like food, bedding, or facilities. No motels with mysteriously changeable levels of hygiene, no risk of full accommodation. The only downside being that you have to stick to the highways, and are kinda limited to those areas that don’t require three point turns. But that’s the thing. Almost all the places you’re likely to want to visit in America are linked by this sprawling network of highways and interstates. And they’re really an entire location themselves. If you take America as a country of individual states, each with their own quirks and landscapes, then I’d put forward that the highway network is state number 53. As I drove now from Savannah along the six lane interstate towards the Smokey Mountains and Gatlinburg, I got the very clear feeling that just there, out beyond the trees that line both sides of the road and keep the locals from the worst of the traffic noise, a whole world was happening. It was like I was sitting in one room watching television while a party was happening in the rest of the house. But my room also had a fridge, and a convenient toilet, and a bed and a shower. Every dozen miles or so rest stops appear. As you drive signs appear on the side of the road in groups of three. The first tells you what chains are there to provide you with food, the second tells you which brands of gas station await you, and the last which motel groups are represented. Don’t like the fact that there’s a Wendy’s but no Hardees…well then keep driving pal, because next stop you may get lucky. Or have you been waiting for a Comfort Inn because that’s who you’re a member with? Well guess what, turn off in 2 miles and there’s a bed and room and some frequent sleeper points waiting for you. Maybe you might find one of the larger restaurants displaying a local specialty (like gator, or shrimp), but that’s as much of a taste of the surrounding world as you’ll get. Because really you’re here to knock over the miles, and god forbid you should have to do that for any amount of time without a burger in your hand, or a slurpee to break the monotony. It should be hateful and awful and I should be complaining about it vociferously. But I have to say that for somebody like me, who has definite points of interest to get to with fairly huge stretches of distance in between…it’s absolutely perfect. I’m loving the highway lifestyle and although I’m yet to really descend into it (this first leg up the east side of the country and across to Chicago is a series of small hops between friends and family…and also a test to see if the D will make it that far), I have no fear that when I start the major haul sections of my trip I’ll fall gladly backwards into the wonderful world of the motorways. The only danger is that you absolutely have to plan your trip well. Don’t think you can get on the interstate and then duck off whenever you pass through an interesting town, or when some sight or other takes your fancy…because you won’t pass through a town, and any interesting location is well protected from the sights and sounds of the highway. The most you can hope for is a small brown and white sign with a vague name and no explanation at all of what lies just off the road, passing at the speed of sound and tucked almost invisibly between giant billboards for Arby’s restaurants or Days Inn motels. If you jumped onto this network with no real plans of where you wanted to go, but just a vague idea that you’d drive till you felt like stopping and doing some sightseeing, well then you’d die of old age out there. You’d get stuck orbiting this entire country for years on end until you ran out of money to spend on fuel or sausage biscuits or carbonated sugar water. Then you’d no doubt starve to a silent death in a layby somewhere, poring over a map that shows you’ve continued several thousand miles beyond where you thought you’d end up, and then not be moved along until the circling buzzards attracted the attention of a hyped up trucker. So it’s a good thing I knew where I was going. A town that Bill Bryson once wrote about with such fascinated horror that I absolutely had to go see it. Gatlinburg. The following morning I headed downstairs with my bags and was met by the smiling staff of the Marriott. It was a great hotel and they’d loved having a Delorean in their midst. The concierge told me that they’d had their small share of exotic cars come through, but that none had raised as many comments as my 30 year old beast. Willie the valet was particularly impressed (despite the fact that he’d actually driven her into the carpark, and knew that under that shiny skin lurked the heart of a well used, early-80s vehicle) and was all grins as I packed my bags and let them take some photos. In fact at one point the receptionist had to come out and get everybody back inside to their respective posts…so I’m hoping I didn’t get them in too much trouble. I started up the grumbling V-6 and slowly headed out of town through the southern part of the historic district. Driving her round the squares, so evocative of life over a hundred years ago, was a surreal experience. But fairly soon the pretty houses and squares became just houses (albeit still very much older American style houses) and finally the collections of shopping malls, gas stations and chain restaurants that seem to lurk at the perimeter of most US towns and cities these days. I had wanted to duck into a Best Buy (an American electronics chain store…kind of like JB HiFi on steroids….all American stores are like their Australian counterparts on steroids…or perhaps I should say that all Australian stores are like a pale shadow of their American counterparts) and grab a couple of things, not least of which was a GPS, but I was too early, so instead I grabbed some gas and hit the road. As I drove out of southern Georgia and headed towards my next stop, Gatlinburg, I became aware that I was really doing two very different trips here (well three if you include the tornado chasing…but bear with me). The first is a sightseeing tour of some of America’s famous, infamous and almost completely unheard of landmarks. Historic towns and villages, battlefields, and natural wonders are all on my schedule. But second is the great American road-trip. A long haul journey across a country that’s really been made for driving holidays. The whole nation seems geared towards these kinds of trips, and I’m getting the impression that more people take to the highways and interstates still than any other form of long distance travel, and by a pretty major factor too. While driving I’ve become used to the sight of campervans and buses, behemoth houses on wheels with a ‘normal’ car attached to the back like a dinghy hooked to the rear of a luxury yacht. There seems to be a set up like this for every budget, from small Winnebagos dragging Nissan towncars behind, to gigantic shiny buses, a bajillion feet long, with sides that extend out when they’re stopped, and the latest model corvette or BMW latched to their backsides. These are their own self-contained little universes, and you can go from the Florida Keys to Las Vegas’ sunset strip in just a few days without once ever having to leave your own cocoon of comfort. It may seem like I’m bagging these things out, but really I can definitely see the attraction. Fill the swimming pool sized gas tank, charge the giant rack of batteries as you drive (like some supervillain bringing up their planet-destructo-gun to full power) and then just relax as the evening descends, beholden unto nobody for your comforts like food, bedding, or facilities. No motels with mysteriously changeable levels of hygiene, no risk of full accommodation. The only downside being that you have to stick to the highways, and are kinda limited to those areas that don’t require three point turns. But that’s the thing. Almost all the places you’re likely to want to visit in America are linked by this sprawling network of highways and interstates. And they’re really an entire location themselves. If you take America as a country of individual states, each with their own quirks and landscapes, then I’d put forward that the highway network is state number 53. As I drove now from Savannah along the six lane interstate towards the Smokey Mountains and Gatlinburg, I got the very clear feeling that just there, out beyond the trees that line both sides of the road and keep the locals from the worst of the traffic noise, a whole world was happening. It was like I was sitting in one room watching television while a party was happening in the rest of the house. But my room also had a fridge, and a convenient toilet, and a bed and a shower. Every dozen miles or so rest stops appear. As you drive signs appear on the side of the road in groups of three. The first tells you what chains are there to provide you with food, the second tells you which brands of gas station await you, and the last which motel groups are represented. Don’t like the fact that there’s a Wendy’s but no Hardees…well then keep driving pal, because next stop you may get lucky. Or have you been waiting for a Comfort Inn because that’s who you’re a member with? Well guess what, turn off in 2 miles and there’s a bed and room and some frequent sleeper points waiting for you. Maybe you might find one of the larger restaurants displaying a local specialty (like gator, or shrimp), but that’s as much of a taste of the surrounding world as you’ll get. Because really you’re here to knock over the miles, and god forbid you should have to do that for any amount of time without a burger in your hand, or a slurpee to break the monotony. It should be hateful and awful and I should be complaining about it vociferously. But I have to say that for somebody like me, who has definite points of interest to get to with fairly huge stretches of distance in between…it’s absolutely perfect. I’m loving the highway lifestyle and although I’m yet to really descend into it (this first leg up the east side of the country and across to Chicago is a series of small hops between friends and family…and also a test to see if the D will make it that far), I have no fear that when I start the major haul sections of my trip I’ll fall gladly backwards into the wonderful world of the motorways. The only danger is that you absolutely have to plan your trip well. Don’t think you can get on the interstate and then duck off whenever you pass through an interesting town, or when some sight or other takes your fancy…because you won’t pass through a town, and any interesting location is well protected from the sights and sounds of the highway. The most you can hope for is a small brown and white sign with a vague name and no explanation at all of what lies just off the road, passing at the speed of sound and tucked almost invisibly between giant billboards for Arby’s restaurants or Days Inn motels. If you jumped onto this network with no real plans of where you wanted to go, but just a vague idea that you’d drive till you felt like stopping and doing some sightseeing, well then you’d die of old age out there. You’d get stuck orbiting this entire country for years on end until you ran out of money to spend on fuel or sausage biscuits or carbonated sugar water. Then you’d no doubt starve to a silent death in a layby somewhere, poring over a map that shows you’ve continued several thousand miles beyond where you thought you’d end up, and then not be moved along until the circling buzzards attracted the attention of a hyped up trucker. So it’s a good thing I knew where I was going. A town that Bill Bryson once wrote about with such fascinated horror that I absolutely had to go see it. Gatlinburg.
Filed under United States of America
"Brian " "brian " "brian " Where are you now ?:::"JT " Hey Callum, interesting reading. Keep it coming. Rgds:::
Sat May 01, 2010 Full Page Bidding farewell to Jacksonville I hit the I-40 and pointed my stainless nose towards Savannah. This first leg was a relatively short, easy hop of a couple of hours. Far enough to give the D a decent workout, but also short enough not to tax her too much at the start of the trip. I will be (I hope) throwing some serious miles on her over the next few weeks, and I wanted to ease her in gently.As it turned out, she mostly performed admirably. The growly V-6 behind me puttered away nicely and I was heartened to find that the driving position, which I’d found nicely comfortable when I first slid behind the wheel, got better as the minutes turned into hours. It’s like seeing an ever changing world from a leather recliner rocker…albeit one that occasionally tries to dart out from under you in high wind. In fact it surprised me just how twitchy she was on the roads. A low, sleek, shiny bullet like this was acting like a high sided delivery van whenever a puff of breeze wafted over her. When I finally got to Savannah I did a reorganization of the luggage and found that the main problem was the fact that almost all the weight (myself, my luggage, the collection of maps and AAA books to rival the number of volumes in Alexandria’s library which Joe was kind enough to give me…thanks Joe! J) was positioned behind the front wheels. The Delorean’s weight distribution of roughly 40/60 front to rear wasn’t really a problem when lightly loaded with an 80’s debonair gentleman, his lady of leisure, and a golf bag. But get a six foot Aussie geek, two large bags (one full of clothes, the other full of gift essentials like boomerangs, stuffed koalas and industrial sized jars of vegemite) and a small forest’s worth of maps, charts, books and assorted literature and the connecting friction between the front wheels and the ground was noticeably lacking. So I moved all the paperwork, my camera tripod, and some of the heavier items to the low, flat trunk at the front of the car and everything smoothed out wonderfully. She’s a proud old lady, and doesn’t really want to wander around with a fat butt. Can’t blame her.Savannah itself is truly beautiful. The town (like a lot of them down south) has a central ‘Historic District’ which is then surrounded, at a pleasing but not inconvenient distance, by the modern essentials of people’s lives. It’s all very well basing yourself in a city like Savannah, but one cannot survive off mint-juleps and tourist tat alone. After checking into my hotel (the Courtyard by Marriott) and grabbing a quick shower I hit the street, eager to see what Savannah had to offer.Viewed from above, the town (and really, the historic district is the size of a comfortably sized town) has the normal east/west north/south street alignment, but broken up by a number of small, grass and tree filled squares (most famously shown in Forrest Gump as Tom Hanks sits at the edge of one, scarfing down chocolates and waiting for a bus that shouldn’t have come because where he sat isn’t actually a bus-stop). Each one a shady, quiet oasis of cool on a warm southern day. I was there on a relatively mild, late spring day with temperatures in the mid- to high- 20s, but as I entered each cool square I reflected that during a hot and humid summer these little sections of green and shadow, surrounded by old style homes and mini-mansions must feel like paradise. As I wandered around in a big sweeping loop from my hotel, down to the district limits and then back up toward the river, I was blown away by the beauty of the place. As if the very town had primped and prepped herself for my visit. Donning the old lace dress, and veiling herself in drifts of Spanish-moss.
I wandered down as far as a huge green field, attached I believe to a college or Uni, where bright young things lounged in the sun or threw Frisbees to each other. I should have brought a boomerang with me…if only for the shock value, but then again I never actually re-taught myself how to throw one of those things before I left for my trip…and there’s a fine line between being a cool Aussie sharing a piece of local culture with foreigners…and being a complete tool with a funny accent hurling a bent stick away from himself and then having to run after it.
I turned around and headed back north, up the second street of squares and towards the river. Here was yet more olde-worlde prettiness, as I crossed tramlines and walked between buildings whose frontages didn’t merely include pillars, but were actually completely composed of them. In fact one edifice (I believe it was a bank) was nothing but pillars on all three sides that it presented to the world. It looked like some kind of pillar display store, and I love the idea of people wandering around deep within it, moving from pillar to pillar desperately trying to find the one with the ATM stuck in it. I crossed the main street and noticed a cigar shop. Since I’d left Jacksonville a day later than I planned I was thinking that I’d bypass JR Cigars in North Carolina…a bit of a dogleg really for the joy of wandering around a giant cigar shop. There’s another on the west coast, and I’ll be in a better position then to see how much money I can afford to spend on stogies. But here I could duck in, see what was available, and maybe grab a couple for the mellower moments of my trip (at least until I hit California where just about anything enjoyable is banned in every public location you can think of). Well the store was incredible, inside, past all the smoking paraphernalia was a walk in humidor of small, but massively well stocked proportions. The room at the Hyatt was as nothing to this little corner of a little shop. And it smelled like a grown-ups’ candy store. I browsed for a while, before finally buying a Sopranos CAO special, a Mango-scented stick from Drew Estates, a Gurkha premium and…um…another one. I also nabbed a travel humidor, lighter and cutter. The whole lot coming to just on a hundred bucks. In Australia the cigars alone would have come close to that…we really are being reamed by local cigar merchants, I just have to say.With my new purchases I descended a line of surprisingly steep steps and hit the cobbled paths of the river frontage. By this stage I was feeling a bit peckish and extremely thirsty, and a dark tavern presented an alluring prospect of drink and food (as well as Southern Riverside Atmosphere™). I went in and, after talking beer with the girl behind the bar for a few minutes, I decided on a glass of something called Magic Hat #9. The menu’s own description of this beverage is “A sort of dry, crisp, refreshing not-quite Pale Ale. #9 is really hard to describe because there’s never been anything else like it before.” I can attest that this is indeed the case. It’s an almost perfumed, citrus type of beer, but with a softer finish than you might normally get. It’s a southern special, and although not everybody’s cup of tea (especially for those people that would prefer a cup of tea), I’d definitely suggest anybody visiting the south to give it a try at least.Once I was nicely refreshed, I turned to the bar menu, and immediately one item leapt out at me. Shrimp and grits. I’d promised myself that if the opportunity presented itself I’d have to try grits down-south, and here was a chance too good to pass up. When it came, it was a large bowl of shrimps with a kind of red-pepper and onion cream sauce, with a circle of fried grits underneath. In the end it was really tasty, and the grits were a kind of polenta/couscous textured cake that was really nice. All up it was kind of like a falafel burger, with less emphasis on spice and herb flavours. But it set off the prawns and sauce nicely. Afterwards I hit the riverfront again and wandered along in front of well styled, but inescapably touristy shops. Sweet shops, airbrushed tattoo places, at least three different souvenir stores selling identical t-shirts, caps and ridiculously cumbersome statues. I very nearly grabbed a foot high plaster statue of Uncle Sam and Mickey Mouse waving a flag, purely for its crazily over the top nationalism…really it was like the kind of thing you would expect to have been made in Taiwan as a crazy mish-mash of American imagery, but 40 dollars was a bit much for the simple novelty value…and I would still have had to lug it across the country with me. Further down there was a penny-pressing machine, which for the cost of a few quarters (and of course one penny) would squish a coin into one of a couple of different stamped designs. A dollar was much closer to my idea of value for touristy stuff, and I happily punched out my little copper-coloured slice of Savannah.After this I went and had a look at the water traffic for a bit, toying with the idea of smoking a cigar. I didn’t, but instead just leaned against the railing and gazed across the water at a gigantic, multi storey building. I have no idea what this structure was, possibly a headquarters for a shipping company or some government department, but it was vast and built in that late 1800s squared off style so evocative of turn of the century (last century, not this one) American prosperity. It was so arrestingly large and imposing, standing alone on the far bank of the river that I just stared for whole minutes, before a light rain began to fall and I headed back to the Hotel. As I walked back up a much more modern street I passed one of the ubiquitous chain restaurants that scatter this country. This one is known as the Outback Steakhouse. Although I didn’t go in this time (I was still nicely filled with a surfeit of grits) I am definitely going to have to give them a try before I leave. The restaurant has an Australian theme, and both the radio and tv ads are voiced by genuine Aussies (not really bad yank voice actors, as was the danger). Goodness knows what I’ll find when I actually get inside one of these places, but I’ll be sure to let you know.
Tue Apr 27, 2010 Full Page Well it’s been a pretty intense couple of days. But the upshot of it all is that I’m ready for this trip to begin in earnest. The biggest task for the start of my holiday was of course the registration of my Delorean. Many 2am phonecalls from Australia to DMV people and other assorted government reps had led me to believe that attempting to buy and drive a car in FL when you’re a foreign national was foolish bordering on impossible. Basically it appeared that I had to prove I was a FL resident(which of course I wasn’t)by the use of a fixed address(which of course I didn’t have)to show that I’d be staying put should the government need to contact me(which of course I wouldn’t be).But as it happened, everything turned out fine. Thanks to the wonderfully helpful Judy of the Jacksonville DMV(a lovely lady who was so excited to hear that I was registering a Delorean that she took her break early just so she could see it and get a photo with it…something which I expect to be happening quite often), I was in and out of the DMV in just over an hour, fully registered and with a total cost a couple of hundred dollars less than I anticipated(I’d been quoted about 1,500 over the phone in Australia…as it was, I paid slightly more than 1,200).But of course this was only the last full day in Jacksonville, before the pressures of Monday were to be heaped on my shoulders, I had a weekend of attempting to recover from jetlag, finding my feet in an American world, and learning to negotiate the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car before then.The Jacksonville portion was to begin with my being picked up from the airport after my flight from Miami by the guy who sold me my car, a 1981 Delorean DMC-12, Joe. To ensure that I got off to a quick(if nerve-wracking)start, Joe had promised(threatened?)that I would drive us back from the airport in my new car. Now here was a man who was waaaay more confident about my ability to drive in a strange car in a strange way in a strange country than I was. By the time I boarded my flight from Miami I was as nervous as if I was about to go on a blind date. I couldn’t concentrate on anything during the trip, but as we touched down in JAX International Airport I was at least briefly distracted by the sheer size of the place. I had it in my head that Jacksonville was a smaller, out of the way city, similar in size to say Canberra or Adelaide. On an American scale(at least population wise)this may well be the case, but as it turns out, in physical breadth Jacksonville was until very recently the largest city in the US, and I have to say that its airport matched that. For what amounted to a smaller, out of the way place, JAX International was easily on par with Mascot or Tullamarine in Australia. Huge expanses of concrete, taxiways spreading off to the horizon, and terminals beyond counting….almost all of which were empty, but that’s beside the point. I struggled out to the baggage claim and then made small talk with the bellboy that helped me with my bags(a car lover as it turned out…and one as undiscerning as I, in that he loved muscle as much as tuner, and couldn’t wait to see the Delorean). I spent a nervous few minutes at the pickup point, heart racing, until suddenly there she was, sleek and low and the culmination of many, many years of desire and want and disappointment and hope.
I babbled a few incoherent sentences and phrases as she swept into view and pulled up beside me, my hands shaking, and out popped Joe, huge grin and a bouncy excitement completely at odds with the elderly retired dentist image I’d formed in my mind.
Now I just need to take this opportunity to say that this man is one of the nicest, friendliest, most openly honest and agreeable people I’ve ever met. He and his wife Sharron were as welcoming as if the entire country were their own home, and I’d just moved in next door. When this whole adventure began over a year ago, I thought I had touched base with a polite guy who would sell me an unseen car, and maybe provide a little information. As it happened, I truly feel that I have made a great friend(two actually)that I will value forever. As well as selling my dream car to me, they took me out to dinner on the first night, then Joe acted as tour guide on Sunday when we went down to St Augustine. This is America’s oldest town and in it lies America’s oldest fort. A Spanish/Mexican construction initially that was never taken by force once in its entire history. Although it was peacefully handed between the early conquering nations of the world(Spain, Britain, France)like a time-share in the Bahamas. Incredible really because in comparison to the vast castles you get throughout Europe, this seems a decidedly gentle affair. Only two stories high and sitting on a nice, grassy knoll it almost looks like an upscale children’s playground.But as it happens it was a murderously resistant edifice, and had the park rangers and historically garbed volunteer guides been handing us arrows by the pointy end rather than information pamphlets it would(according to history)have been impossible for us to have had a wander around the barracks, prison, and inner-courtyard. Even better for us was the fact that the entry fee is waived on Sundays.Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t really conducive to a long wander around(there were in fact severe storm warnings and a tornado watch for most of the weekend), and they even had to keep people off the upper floor battlements due to the possibility of lightning strikes. Although we did get to watch a demonstration of musket drill which the volunteers gave to a group of children…because nothing says youth like a rag-tag militia of 7 year olds with long wooden guns. It was really cute and indicative of the attitude of America overall when it comes to historical sites, namely that instead of just wandering around and reading small plaques, there’s a lot to be said for getting involved…even if it’s in something incredibly twee and cutesy.The lowering skies and almost constant background rumble of thunder kept us from investigating the historical town attached to the fort(steeped in pirate lore, from a distance this place looked like a mini fun park with its themed restaurants and occasionally costumed residents)and we headed back via a nice little seafood restaurant in which I completely stuffed myself on fried shrimp, onion rings, gratin potatoes and a hush puppy. I’m really having a hard time getting my head around the ordering of sides with a main…along with the myriad options that go along with the…well…options(how would you like your potatoes, which dressing with your salad, do you want human fingers with that?). That and the fact that everything, and I mean everything, has some kind of protein inclusion. Even fresh salads come with bacon, cheese and rich dressings. I really am in the land of the Atkins diet. When I got back to my hotel room from doing all the car stuff yesterday I was craving something but had no idea what it was. After grabbing a beer, a coffee, and a few snack things, and continuing to feel unsatisfied I snaffled a fresh orange and apple from the complimentary kitchenette in the foyer, and the sudden burst of fresh, undoctored, juicy cellulose was ambrosia. I’m definitely going to have to stock up on celery. So after the sights of Sunday, we turned to the business of Monday. Registration swapping of my new car. This was really crunch time as far as my trip was concerned. If it all went pear-shaped I did have a fallback plan of transporting the car over America by road and doing the trip in a hire-car, but this would take a solid chunk out of my travel budget, as well as impacting on the feel of the trip itself. Certainly I’d still be taking in the sights and sounds of this huge nation, but cruising the highways and byways in a 2004 Honda Civic would definitely not be the same as doing it in a 1981 Delorean. However, as I mentioned above, all my fears were for naught. We stopped off first at the garage who I had organized to first look at the car and assess her quality(as well as making sure that Joe and the vehicle actually existed, and that he wasn’t claiming to be a Nigerian prince in his spare time). This was a friendly crew under at RPM Automotive, under the management of Brian, who had been great throughout Joe’s experiences. In fact, they’d been so good with the Delorean that they had become his garage of choice. Over the next couple of months I’ll be getting a first hand taste of the quality of their work, but so far they also seemed honest and friendly. After that it was off to the DMV and the professional and kind assistance of Judy. The only small hiccup was when I discovered that the DMV didn’t take credit card, and the nearby ATM had a withdrawal limit of less than $400 at a go. After three bites at the cherry I hit my maximum daily limit for cash withdrawal on the card, and so had to combine that with a handful of the bills I’d brought with me from Australia. Nothing quite like paying 1200 bucks in 20s, 5s and singles. But Judy laughed through it and took my wads of bills with barely a blink. For a few extra I went for a slightly unusual plate, and now a cartoonishly grinning Manatee graces the back of my new car.We then swung past another garage where the plate change would occur, not a legal requirement, but just because a piece of trim needs to be removed from a Delorean to change the plate, and Joe got another mechanic friend of his to do it. I don’t know whether it’s his own infectious personality, or the southern hospitality I kept hearing about, but every single person we’ve interacted with so far has been great. We grabbed lunch while they worked on the car(a chicken salad croissant the size of both clenched fists, yet another protein laden salad and a bucket and a half of Mountain Dew)and then went back to get her, new plate affixed. The lady behind the desk refused to take a payment from Joe, but I instead gave her an Aussie $10 I’d been keeping in my wallet for just such an occasion, which pleased her and the other staff their mightily. Although I have to say, nowhere near as pleased as I was to slide behind the wheel of my now completely legal Delorean. For the first time I truly felt like she was mine and this trip was now completely real.I bid a fond farewell to Joe and retired for my last night in the Hotel. It’s now just about 8.00am and once I post this I’ll get showered and packed and hit the road. Next stop Savannah, a nice hop about two or three hours down I-95. This should be long enough to give the Delorean a proper work out and test her for any potential failures…while still being short enough to not put too much strain on her too early into the journey. I have booked a place on the edge of the Historic district, and once I check in I intend to spend the afternoon wandering the squares and streets of old Savannah. Should be fun….I may even sit on a park bench somewhere and eat a box of chocolates. The one thing I must remember(as reminded by Judy from the DMV, who is a Savannah native)is not to mention “That Book”.
