America: Found

So I've been putting off this recap post for a long time. And with the Peace Corps breathing down my neck, I wanted to tie up the loose ends of what I did on the road trip. So here is an abbreviated narrative of what went down.

We left Washington, D.C., ad drove to Richmond. On the way, we stopped at a Wa Wa, which was located on Jefferson Davis Blvd.

In Richmond, we went to the Museum of the Confederacy. The museum tries to convince you that slavery was not the main cause of the Civil War. In fact, there is a display that talks about the role that African Americans played in the Confederate war effort (both slaves and free ones). There is another big display that talks about how the South, when it realized it was losing the war, thought about maybe possible considering the possibility of freeing the slaves to help the war.

Then we drove to Chapel Hill, N.C. to go to the Clemson-UNC basketball game. We tried to meet up with my friend for dinner before the game but his phone died, and while he was driving to the phone store to get a new charger, he was pulled over for running a stop sign. So we had Qdoba and went to the game.

The Dean Smith Center is huge. It seats 20,000, and everybody is wearing Carolina Blue. We sat behind the basket in the upper deck. The guy sitting next to us played college football against a Bo Schembechler-coached Presbyterian team in 1950. It was a close game for a half, then UNC blew them out.

We planned to spend the night at my friend's apartment. He works for Duke. Well, he didn't answer his phone after the game. Long story short. It took two hours, phone calls to his sister, his mom, a guy named Snapper, 23 missed calls, and a guy in Durham brandishing a knife, but we finally contacted my friend and spent the night at his place. At one point, we considered couchsurfing in Kryzyzewskiville, but it was so cold that the tenters were given a grace period.

The next day, we drove to Atlanta. On the way, we passed Dale Earnhardt Blvd. in Kannapolis, N.C. (I just want to race, Daddy). In Atlanta, we stayed with my college roommate. We had a delicious dinner at his house before hitting the town. Highlights from that night included our Siberian waitress at the Irish bar and the Waffle House at Underground (considered by many to be the shadiest Waffle House in Georgia).

The next day we went to downtown Atlanta, looked into visiting the aquarium before deciding it was too expensive, looked into going on the CNN Center tour before deciding it was worthwhile, wandered around the Olympic Park, and went to the World of Coke. This was a good decision, except that the Coca-Cola bear bit off my friend's head. After the Coke Museum, we stopped at the Varsity diner, an Atlanta staple, before hitting the road toward New Orleans.

We stopped at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site in Tuskegee, Alabama. The museum isn't quite open but, because one of the Airmen's trainers was visiting, we were treated to a special tour. Then we hit the road for the Big Easy.

We stayed with one of Marshall's high school friends, who is doing Teach for America in New Orleans. We went out that night, and through a random conversation, I learned that one of my good friends from Michigan was working for Americorps in New Orleans. I saw her the next day.

We pretty much spent the next couple of days exploring New Orleans, walking around the French Quarter, going to different music shows, eating beignets, searching for the king in king cakes, riding the street car, and learning about the hurricane relief effort.

After a weekend in New Orleans, we began our journey northward. Our first stop was at an unsatisfying, all-you-can-eat buffet in Meridian, Mississippi. Then, we got off the freeway in Birmingham, Alabama to drop by Bob Dylan's favorite bar, except that it is closed on Monday mornings. So, we continued to Nashville.

We spent the night taking in the scene on Broadway. We saw a country band, a bluegrass band, and enjoyed pint night at another establishment. Even I enjoyed pint night, because I got a root beer. The next morning we took a tour of the Parthenon. They build a model of the Greek structure in Nashville because some guy coined the town the "Athens of the South." Then we got lost in the Opryland Hotel, which has four different ecosystems in it and everything you could ever think would be in a hotel and more. Afterwards, we said goodbye to Marshall and continued our journey.

Unfortunately, the rain that was falling froze. So driving conditions were far from ideal. While driving on a two-lane highway in southern Indiana, we drove off the road and had to be towed out of the ditch. The guy whose lawn we drove onto had one eye and was carrying a sawed-off shovel. He was only there to help. We spent the night in Paoli, Indiana, which is famous for having a ski hill and is just a few miles from French Lick (hometown of Larry Bird).

We spent the next morning in Paoli, waiting for the roads to clear and enjoying the ambiance at the local diner. A bunch of the people staying at our motel questioned whether we would be able to move our snowed-in Buick LeSabre. Well, let's just say that this "city boy" proved them wrong. We were on our way to Bloomington.

We spent the night there with Danny's friend Danny. The next day we drove back to Ann Arbor for Danny's farewell party. We enjoyed a final meal together at the Northside before heading home.