Savannah: Part Deux 5: Charlotte Airport. Eew.

Welp, the Savannah trip has come to an end.
And the Sitting in the Airport in Charlotte trip is getting extremely, extremely old.
But rather than jump around too much, I'll start with a recap of last night and eventually work my way to the gray faux-leather airport chair my caboose is going numb in.

The Crab Shack:
Reason enough to go back to Savannah. The platter for two was enough to feed three, at least. It would kill Uncle Tom fourteen times over.
Two kinds of crab, crawfish, shrimp, mussels, sausage, potatoes, corn and a slice of key lime pie for dessert. All of it was fantastic.
Everything was outdoors, with big fans and mist machines all over. Our table overlooked the marsh/river area and we could watch fish jump while we ate their brethren.
Right when we sat down, the waitress came over and congratulate us on our engagement. News travels fast.
(Actually, a family who had been at the lighthouse when Joey proposed was at a table a few feet away. They bought us beer.)

After dinner Joey and I headed back to Tybee beach for a sweet sunset walk. As we were walking back towards the car, all the little sand crabs started breaking out of their holes around us. Not an ideal time to be barefoot, but generally fun to watch.

Watching the setting sun and scurrying crabs left Joey and I in the mood for mojitos.
Actually, I'm not sure the sun and crabs had much to do with that. I think we just really like mojitos. Anyway. We headed to Jazz'd to imbibe. I'm pretty sure the bartenders there make the best mojitos this side of Dixie. They use giant chunks of fresh lime instead of lime juice and the effect is incredible. Mmmmmmojitos.

We got up this morning, packed up our belongings and headed out. I miss Savannah already.

At the airport, the nice folks at Northwest Air informed us that our flight had been overbooked. There was a US Air flight leaving shortly after our scheduled flight, though, and we were told that the US Air flight could get us to Indy at the same time as the NWA one. If we switched, NWA would provide Joey and me with vouchers, good for a round-trip ticket anywhere NWA flies, plus $30 in airport food coupons.

We took the deal.

We ate at the Dewar's restaurant, where I had a marinated portabella sandwich (yum!) with cottage fries (also yum!) and Joey had a BBQ sandwich. For free. Thank you, NWA.

And that's pretty much where the good times stopped rolling.

Our US Air flight had a small scheduled layover in Charlotte.
When we got to the gate, we were told we had a delay due to basic maintenance, but we should depart for Indy no later than 4:15.
Then the not-so-nice US Air folks told us we had a second delay because of weather, but that the plane was in the air and we should depart for Indy no later than 5:40.
THEN the flight was canceled, just as a previously canceled flight in the gate next to us was reinstated. Curious.

So amid about 38798478937498327897598370384 other US Air customers who had canceled flights, Joey and I had to go in and out of security checkpoints for a good couple hours this afternoon. We're on the standby list for the 9:20 flight to Indy...but odds are not looking so hot right now. I think there's about elevendy billion other, similarly disgruntled, customers on the standby list as well.

We are, however, booked on the 7:15 a.m. flight tomorrow if nothing pans out tonight.
Worst case scenario: Airport bar, followed by a night of uncomfortable sleeping on the airport floor. I refuse to sleep on the chair I'm currently sitting in. I think it's intentionally designed to force the buttox into a sort of numb submission after a certain amount of time. It's like it's yelling at me, wondering angrily why I haven't gone away yet to bother its third cousin, the coach seat in row 10B.

xo!

Savannah: Part Deux 4: Barbecue, baby

Vacationing is amazing. Amazing.

Last night after lounging, Joey and I took a ride on the Savannah River Queen and saw some river life and landmarks.

The Waving Girl statue was pretty nifty. The boat captain/tour guide gave us the whole spiel behind the statue. Including the Waving Girl's abnormally large feet.
It's quite a story, so I'll tell y'all when I get back.

One half of the river, past the downtown district, is part of an island and still looks like there's a good amount of grasslands around. The other side is full of industries: ship builders, import/export businesses, etc...
I think my favorite was the exotic wood importer that also happened to export scrap metal.
I feel like it's going to end up on a House episode featuring Typhoid fever combined with tetanus.

For dinner we headed up to Vic's on the River for some (more) delicious Southern Cookin'.
I had shrimp & grits with andouille sausage and a ham gravy.
Best. Grits. Ever.
And I usually don't really like ham, but the ham gravy was surprisingly delicious. Really, really light with just a slight kick to the aftertaste. The shrimp were fresh-caught and were completely, utterly fantastic and have probably ruined me for shrimp for at least the next 3 months.

I will learn to make grits.

Joey had grouper with a Parmesan risotto and succotash. I had a bite...which was good, but not quite as good as his duck from the night before.

Dessert: Sweet potato creme brulee.
Oh sweet southern god of desserts!
Melt-in-yo'-mouth perfection. (And our Mint Juleps were pretty smashing too.)

We were going to try to go on a "haunted" carriage ride around town, but by the time we got to the take-off point the area had been commandeered by a four-foot, three-inch, crazed, middle-aged gestapo lady with "lists" of her "party members" that she was trying to subdivide into "groups."
The poor "haunted tour" attendant looked like he was ready to throw off his ye-olden-day cap and grab a scotch. He took the time to tell us they were all booked for the night, though. Oops.
Maybe tonight? Or next time?

We decided to head to Stogies, a cigar bar, for some drinks and such. After our first drink, both Joey and I confessed to gurgling, unhappy stomaches, so we came back to the hotel and watched the Discovery channel. We're totally hip.

We went to bed kind of early (the heat wears us out and Man Vs. Wild wasn't on...) and got up by 8:30, even though we said we were going to sleep in.

After shopping around for some stuff and peeking in the windows of the Savannah College of Art and Design's windows, we headed back to Sweet Leaf for lunch.

You know, I don't think I have ever liked a restaurant as much as I like Sweet Leaf. The atmosphere is incredible, the customers are always all over the board and the servers are really friendly.

And then there's the food.
Ohhhh, ohhh, the food.

Joey ordered the sampler platter, which had smoked ribs, pulled pork, chipped beef, and smoked chicken breast. On the side, he got the devil's eggs and the smokey baked beans. I took lots of bites.
Everything. Rocked. Hard.

I had the chipped beef plate with potato salad and the collared greens. I can't get enough of their collards. The beef just fell apart the second my fork touched it and melted away in my mouth. I want to ship a giant barrel of their food home. I even like the potato salad, and I rarely like potato salad. Mmmm.....

So after lunch we went back to meandering and sightseeing and galavanting and such.
After coming back to the hotel, taking a quick dip in the pool and showering off, we're ready to head back out for dinner at The Crab Shack.

Rachael Ray went there on $40 a Day, and Captain Ron and the Mrs. Wilkes' crew all recommend it, so it has to be incredible.

I think we're planning on heading back out to Tybee Island to watch the sun set over the ocean... mmm, romantic evening!

I love y'all, and I can't wait to see you!

We'll be flying back tomorrow at noon and spending the night in Indy, retrieving our pups early Friday morning. I miss the boys! I hope Porter doesn't think he's been re-abandoned...

Friday afternoon and all day Saturday will be spent mooooving. Ugh! There's so much to pack! So much to unpack! So much to clean! Eek! But then Sunday we'll be back up in NWI for a few days.

I can't believe it's already August.

xo!

Savannah: Part Deux 3: Fried Chicken Accomplished

2:14 p.m. and I've already eaten until I was ready to burst.

Joey and I got up early to stand in line at Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding house...we were the 3rd party in line, so it was a 30 minute wait worth every second.

Mrs. Wilkes sure knows her stuff. Spiritual, soul food at its finest.
Everything was family style: we were at a huge kitchen table with about 10 complete strangers, including 3 women from Alabama, a couple with their newborn daughter from Denver, and a handful of actual Savannah-inians.

When we sat down, the table was already loaded with biscuits, corn bread, collared greens, snap beans, cucumbers, mashed candied yams, squash casserole, butter beans, black eyed peas, okra and tomatoes, rice and gravy, grits, red rice, beets, barbecue pork, mashed potatoes, beef stew, and sweet tea.

And then they brought out the fried chicken.

Oh sweet lawd, chiltens. I ate a little bit of everything. And a little more of some things.
And as the Mrs. Wilkes' crew says, "If the colonel made fried chicken this good, he'd be a general!"

As we waited for the food coma to wear off, Joey and I headed to the local art museum where we played with blocks and markers. I'm sure the parents in the kids' section wanted to kick us in the shins.

The museum is cool, though. Small, but well-designed and holding a slew of modern-ish paintings and sculptures. We rocked it out there for a while, before finding a post office to get stamps. The stamp machine gave Joey all his change in nickels, which I can't quite figure out. Apparently the USPS has an abundance of five-cent pieces that they're actively trying to push off on people too lazy to stand in line.

And now we're off to lounge by the (empty) pool.
"It's like swimming in soup!" (Overheard last night by a pool occupant.)

Love y'all!
xo!

Savannah: Part Deux 2

Wheeeee!
Day two in Savannah is about to come to a close.

Joey and I got up (sorta) early and headed out to Tybee island for some surf, sand and sun.
And bruises, but those were unintended. :)

Even though most of you already know, I'll repeat the great news one more time. I love saying it:

JOEY AND I ARE ENGAGED!!! WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!!! AHHHHHHH! :)

He proposed at the top of the Tybee Lighthouse. And it was the most romantic proposal I ever could imagine.

Here's the lighthouse...now imagine the view from waaaaaaay at the top.
Yep. Romantic. Amazing. Incredible.

My ring is gorgeous. I keep catching myself staring intently at it, as if I expect it to sprout legs and try to dance. I keep dancing. I'm ecstatic!


On another note...

Keeping with the spirit of food, which is why I started this blog, we had a wonderful lunch on the beach, post perfect proposal.

We had a beach grille shack suggested to us by a couple at the top of the lighthouse (who had no idea what had just happened), and sauntered over to see what they had.

In classic beach grille fashion, they had a slew of bugs, sand, busted-down furniture, and a menu that seemed, at first, pretty basic: burgers, salads, sandwiches...

Joey ordered a grilled fish sandwich (which he put a ton of different "house" hot sauces on, all of which were amazing, especially the mango habanero sauce) and I got a grilled vegetable sandwich.
I expected it to be beach basic, but it had fresh zucchini, squash, eggplant and a few slices of fresh baby mozzerella with a balsalmic glaze, served on toasted ciabatta.
It was amazing! The baby moz really made the sandwich

Both of us had the pasta salad side dish, which also had a balsalmic glaze and was completely scrumptious. I devoured my entire plate, and stared enviously at a couple of kids' plates a few tables down...the fried chicken strips looked and smelled like heaven.

My goal for the trip is to find awesome southern-fried chicken.

After lunch we did the beach thing...and less than ten minutes into beach fromping I got stung by a jellyfish. Ick.

In all honesty, I wasn't initially sure that's what it was...all the hype, I figured it would be a LOT worse.
Instead, it was a little irritating and a dull stinging sensation, but after a quick spray of ammonia/salt water spray from a lifeguard (who confirmed the jellyfish diagnosis) I was back to being on top of the world. And waves. (I have a nice welt to show. It isn't too bad, and it no longer hurts.)

I watched Joey frolic for about 20 minutes while the ammonia spray sank in and worked on my tan, and then I learned the finer points of body-boarding. I love it all. I love the water in general.

Joey's got an impressive bruise from having a body-board scrape all up his midsection.
We look like we had an intense afternoon...but we were both laughing the entire afternoon. I'm sure there are more than a few people who assumed we were either deranged, drunk or fundamentally stupid. :) It's incredible!

...Dinner. Oooooh, dinner.
I don't know where, exactly, to start.

It was a romantic engagement dinner, for sure.

We split a bottle of wine and made googly eyes at each other the entire meal. We're nerds.

The bread at (Insert name of restaurant here....) was perfect. Light golden brown and crispy on the outside, cushy and warm on the inside. "Perfect French bread" according to Joey.

Appetizer: raw oysters on the half shell, served with a lemon pesto sauce, a horseradish sauce and a cocktail sauce. Incredible. Really, absurdly fresh.

Entrees: Joey had the duck. It was fantastic. Light soy glaze, crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. Served with a mushroom risotto and fresh green beans. All of which were phenomenal, and one of the "best meals ever," according to Joey.
I had one of the daily specials...a trout served with a lobster sauce, fresh steamed okra and scalloped potatoes. It was, by far, one of the best meals I have had...ever.

Dessert: Fresh blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries served over cinnamon and vanilla ice cream in a homemade almond bowl. It was mmm-mmmm-mmmmmazing.
The kitchen even wrote "congratulations" in chocolate across the side of the plate. :)

And now, we're just about to relax after a swim in the hotel pool and are ready for a new episode of "No Reservations" on the travel channel with Anthony Bourdain....my food hero.

I love you all!
Goodnight! xoxo

Savannah: Part Deux 1

Snap! I adore the South.

Joey and I had two safe flights (Indy to Detroit, Detroit to Savannah) and are now back in "our" town. It's sticky humid outside, but we've kept lethargy at bay.

We've already had a trip to Sweet Leaf, our favorite barbecue spot, and a quick nighttime ferry boat ride where we met Captain Ron, who planned the next few days for us:

Lots and lots of down-home Southern cookin'.

Sweet Leaf was just as good as we remembered. I had the daily special: smoked pork tenderloin with collared greens and the granny-smith apple coleslaw. Deeeeelish! Joey had pulled pork with smokey baked beans and the coleslaw. By the end of the week we're going to try to cajole them into letting us tour their kitchen.

For dinner we decided to give Corleone's a whirl. They've got Godfather pictures all over and Tuscan/Southern infused food. I had muscles and linguini in a light garlic white wine sauce and Joey got the shrimp scampi. I feel huge. It was delicious and extremely filling, and immediately after setting down our forks we decided to go get ice cream and take the ferry ride.

The ferry was awesome, if a little short. But in the 20 minutes we were on board, we ended up in the captain's cabin talking about family-style fried pork chops and Christmas tours. Amazing.

I currently stink, so I think I'm going to jump in the shower before bed. We're planning an early day tomorrow, with a breakfast at (according to Cap'n Ron) the Best breakfast joint in Georgia, followed by an all-day excursion to Tybee Island.
I think we're planning on kayaking or fishing, and I'm hoping for another visit to the top of the Tybee lighthouse so we can take silly photos...

Love you all!
xo!

Savannah: Countdown to the Sequel

Five days to go.
Hold on to your Sweetwater brews, Georgia.

Joey and I are already planning on some more rock & roll bingo, trips to Tybee Beach/Lighthouse and mass amounts of Sweet Leaf and Sweetwater.

Rock & Road.

Eight: Back Home

Home!

Joey amazingly drove the entire way from Savannah to Indy.
We stopped for dinner in Knoxville at a sushi place called (I think) Nama. It was fabulous, in the snooty metrosexual way. I had some incredibly tasty sushi, all conjured up by a sushi chef that looked like Colin Ferrel.

I was super excited to see little Walter again. He turned one while we were gone.

After we got back to Lafayette on Friday I checked myself in at St. Elizabeth's ER.
I'd been having some intense stabbing side pains throughout the day and figured I should have someone look at me.

The final diagnosis was that I had an ovarian cyst and that another one may or may not have burst. They weren't too sure what was going on.
I'm not too thrilled with the treatment there. Sure, they gyno-ed me up, down and sideways, so to speak, and they had a lovely, "more-fun-than-a-carnival" catheter in me, but they didn't draw blood or check my appendix as I'd requested. Plus, the ultrasound they performed didn't show any ovarian cysts, yet that was my "final" diagnosis. That seems a little sketchy. I think I'm going to go back home and have this checked out.
They gave me some painkillers, so at very least I can't feel the pain any more...I just know it's still there, which is a bizarre sensation.

Um, so that's my update.
I made it back in one piece and then started to fall apart. Joey's taking amazing care of me, though. We snuggled and he listened to me babble incoherently through the Percocets.

The two posts directly below are the random ramblings I had while Joey and I drove back.

x's and o's!

Ten: Road Rambling pt. 2

Sitting in a rock & roll bar in downtown Savannah, I was approached by a hulking lumberjack of a bartender who looked straight out of any movie that has the scary ax-yielding redneck standing alongside the road.
He would’ve rightly scared away a hearty portion of clientele, should he have worked anywhere else in quaint little Savannah, but this was a rock & roll bar. People here liked whiskey shots and tattoos—and this guy had one heck of a tattoo on his arm.
It was supposed to be a horse’s leg, I think. It may have extended past his sleeveless flannel button-up onto his chest: a whole equine scene, complete with bales of hay and a trough. I never got around to asking because I was so captivated by the uncanny resemblance that the horse’s leg had to a penis.
With throbbing veins and a turned-out horseshoe, this galloping stallion had a full-on erection.
I spent a few minutes pondering my options. In all of my social inappropriateness, I really wanted to pointedly mention this to the guy.
“It’s interesting that a burly fellow like you has a massive Johnson inked on his arm,” I would’ve said.
I like my teeth, though, and I would’ve hated to provoke anything that would have me returning to school without a few.
It got me thinking, though. Tattoos are great. Unless they’re bad.
Is there any way to tell someone that they’ve got something absurdly awful embedded into them? I’m not sure there is, which is a shame. There are a lot of bad tattoos floating around out there.
I’m a snob about such things, I suppose. Not everything has to be a divine work of art, but is it that hard to get something that doesn’t look like it was drawn up by a fourth-grader on a caffeine binge? Bad tattoos scream ‘Cheap.’ Or worse—‘Jail.’
If someone is that adamant about forever donning, I don’t know, let’s say a tree frog, on their ankle, they should treat it like the investment it is.
Tattoos are art. Good art costs more.
Nobody goes out looking for an authentic Warhol print expecting to pay $17 for it, and similarly, nobody should go out looking for a genuinely good-looking tattoo expecting it to be super cheap. You get what you pay for, typically, be it food, wine, clothes or art. The difference here is that most of the above aren’t needled into the epidermis. They are enjoyed and then they’re over. Not so much with the tattoo thing. That tree frog will stay on that ankle until a doctor with a laser beams it off.
I’m pleading: don’t be that guy. If you’re getting a tattoo, shell out the cash necessary for a good one so I don’t end up sitting across the bar trying to find a way to tell you that you have a giant penis on your arm.

Nine: Road Rambling pt. 1

So, yet another of my digital cameras has unfurled it’s zoom lens for the last time. That’s number four, if anyone’s keeping track.
I think the cameras are competing with the cell phones. It’s getting to be an all-out brawl.
A few years back I started to think that technology was conspiring against me, a horrid revolt led by the evil czar Lawn Mower, reaching as far as Television Remote and Electric Toothbrush.
Put any of them in my dainty little clutches and they will cease to function nearly instantly.
I thought that getting away from home base, ducking off Lawn Mower’s radar for a bit, would give me a few minutes of bliss. Nope.
Even in Georgia he found me. His minions are everywhere. He has recruited my standard, necessary, personal belongings: Cell Phone is his voice; Camera his eyes.
They crap out on me leaving me desperately rummaging through the annals for an alternative. They are out to make me bow town to their grand master overlord, the invisible, ever-present force that surrounds us all.
I’ve deluded myself, shrugging off Electric Can Opener and Navigation System as convenience items, not representatives of the gross demigod I’ve been unintentionally thumbing my nose at.
Lawn Mower isn’t leading a revolt, it’s beating me into submission: I will worship—not him, not Navigation System—but the chips and bits and bytes and binary omnipresent force that pulses through them. They’re going to win. I will be Technology’s humble servant or I will continue to suffer the flaccid life of one who has not embraced the power.
All this time I was ignorant. I conjured curses, tossing the empty shells of Cameras and Phones into drawers and blaming faulty Technology.
Technology isn’t at fault: I am.
I kneel at your feet, Great and Powerful Technology.
Keep me from blackouts and shutdowns, error messages and shoddy pop-up windows.

Seven: the short post

Waitress @ Dinner Tonight: Here are your pear ciders, ladies. (Pause.) Oh! Oh! Sorry. Um, lady and um, um, okay. Don't hate me.

Yep. Joey got mistaken for a chick.

Six: Savannah, Georgia, Georgia, Georgia.

I have sand stuck in my ears.

Joey and I rocked the beach today, heading over to Tybee Island. In 20 minutes we went from historic Savannah to the slightly more tropical-looking Tybee, that features summer beach homes painted teal.

We visited the lighthouse, climbing all 17,382 steps to the top. It's a really big lighthouse.

After climbing down, we ducked into some of the historic homes around the lighthouse and I saw the smallest bathtub I've ever seen and a really creepy set of old stairs.
Joey and I would both be yellow little wussies if we'd lived back in the 1830's.

We took off for some lunch at a joint called Sting Ray's that had a ton of outdoor seating. I had some grouper--the "local favorite" on the menu. It wasn't jaw-dropping, but it was still pretty good. The breading was perfectly browned but a little too bland for my taste. The hush puppies were the golden tickets.

"These hush puppies put Long John Silver's to shame," Joey declared, his mouth gaping open in awe.

Post-lunch we lounged on the beach for a while, taking pictures and chilling out.
Now we're back at the hotel, getting ready for dinner and a crazy night of Rock & Roll Bingo.

(Why is it Rock & Roll Bingo? Because they give you a lot of booze with the Bingo card. Time to party like a sub-par middle-aged rock star!)

X's and O's!

Five: Savannah

So...
Joey and I just got back to our hotel from our first rap battle.
If you've ever seen Eight Mile (the crappy-but-not-so-crappy Eminem movie) you know what I'm talkin' about.

The entire way back we started silly raps...examples include:
1) kids, i'm from 'round Gary, you think yo' rhymes gonna threaten, gon' scare me? You got yo' hats, all flat 'round the brim, the oversized shirts, you got words you got rhyth-Eeeem...
2) Hey dude you look like Alf, may as well keep them words in yo' mouth.
Well, obviously you like food; yah just got schooled by a white dude.

...
We went to go see The 300 tonight. Interesting movie. Awesome cinematography, if nothing else. There was a great blend of old-style dialogue with modern-time wit.
Joey and I are about to run down the hall clad in sheets so we can re-enact the epic moments.
(He just doesn't know about it yet.)

The Tapas dinner we had after the movie doesn't seem to be agreeing with either of us.
It was delicious on the way down...

X's and O's

styri: Savannah

Dear Beloved Friends and Family,

I regret to inform you that I'm never coming back from Savannah.
I've discovered an intense addiction to Southern-Style crack, better known as collard greens.

We've had an amazing day, but before I delve into that, I promised a better recount of last night...

Before we even got to Savannah, we stopped at the most ...um... preciously quaint little gas station I've ever seen. They still had the old-style pumps, where each pump was one sort of gasoline and all the numbers just kind of spun around on casino-style rollers. I was astounded. A gas pump that doesn't take a credit card?! The south is bewildering.

Once we got in, we found our hotel with little difficulty. We're right on the river, smack-dab in the middle of Savannah's historic district.
The hotel was, as I said earlier, overbooked, requiring us to stay in a hospitality room. I'm not going to lie: it was awesome.
Maybe I didn't get to sleep in a bed, but I could watch CNN while peeing! (There was a small flat-screen TV in the bathroom.) It's the simple things, you know?

We set out right after check-in, deciding that since it was about 10:30ish and we'd been driving all day, we deserved some grub and a beverage.

We successfully located the latter directly across the street at a little English-style pub. The bartender there was a small, portable library of Savannah-related information, including the best places to get food and drinks. He seemed more in-the-know about nightlife for the 35+ crowd, but he managed to direct us to Mercury Lounge, an interesting-looking bar with the most mentally incapacitated doorman I've ever encountered. He tried to turn us away on account of Joey being less than two years old.
Yes, I said two. Less than two.
(The guy had, apparently, looked at the "issue" date on his license instead of the "date of birth.")

After settling in to some comfortable animal-print bar stools, Joey took off to play some assorted songs on the juke box and I chatted up the bartender, finding out his take on the food and drink scene.
This guy seemed a little more in tune with the college nighttime hot spots, and he confirmed bartender #1's food recommendations.

We finished our drinks and headed back to our enormous, bed-less, spectacular room-with-a-view.

This morning I woke up to the sun shining across the river.
From the window, I could see a happy-looking tug boat tootin' and groovin' with a flock of seagulls (the birds, not the early 80's pop group) flying around it.
Not an entirely bad way to wake up.

We got dressed quickly-ish, changing rooms into one that had proper pillows and such, and then decided to set out for the BBQ smokehouse that had been recommended by both bartenders.

Sweet Leaf Smokery is a "crap-almost-missed-it" sort of establishment.
It's stuck in the middle of a series of buildings where nothing is going on and the entire restaurant only has about 20 tables--if that.

Joey and I started off with most interesting Georgia beer they had available: Sweet Water Blue. Our waitress didn't tell us anything about the beer, aside from the fact that it was not a dark beer.

It was blueberry beer! Oh sweet surprises!
I've submitted a formal request to fill the entire back seat with bottles of this deliciousness before leaving Georgia.

Um...the food.
Oh, oh, oh, the food.
(Grandpa, cover your eyes.)

It was foodgasmic.
That's the only way I can even begin to describe it.

(Okay, Papa, you can read again.)

Joey got some pulled pork, with smokey baked beans and Granny Smith apple coleslaw on the side. I had the chipped BBQ beef with some collard greens and the Granny Smith coleslaw.
And thus, we're never coming back.
It's inevitable: we're going to be sitting back in Indiana craving this stuff within two weeks. We're going to be miserable, knowing nowhere within 17 hours can compare.
The meat literally dissolved in my mouth. It came topped with a light, sweet BBQ sauce that complimented the woodsy, smoked flavor of the meat.
I could go into painful details here, but I'm probably going to read through this when I get back...and I'm not that much of a masochist.

We hit the streets, spending some quality time in the several lovely, flower-strewn parks downtown, ducking around some shops. We stopped for ice cream at the Savannah Candy Kitchen, home of Tubby's ice cream. With a name like that, you have to expect it's worth eating until you're roughly the size of a freight liner...and it was.

We're setting out now for dinner and a movie.

x's and o's!

Three: Savannah

Quick update. It's BBQ time.

Got into Savannah late-ish last night, after Joey drove straight through from Nashville.
Our hotel is pretty fantastic...except our room doesn't have beds in it. Seriously.
We booked our room through Orbitz, and when we got here the guy at the desk informed us that they'd overbooked...and so he upgraded us to what he called something along the lines of "like a deluxe suite." He made sure to tell us that they had roll-away beds available.
In short, we're in a hospitality room.
Pictures of all sorts (including the room) can be found here.
Enjoy.

Last night we headed to a couple of pubs. They were awesome. The bartenders gave us some great info on places to eat/drink. I will recount them with more detail later, when we're not answering the calls of our starving stomachs.

xo!

Dos: Nashville

We just got to hotel #2.
You know it's good when the dude at the front desk tells you that Little Richard is staying here, too.
I'm going after his curls. A long night in the lobby awaits.

The Maker's Mark distillery was pretty rockin'.
Joey and I got to sign and date a couple of bottles of bourbon whisky and hand-dip 'em in the wax. I took a ton of pictures; I'll be sure to post them soon.

Here's a link to Joey's blog, in case y'all are curious. It's essentially the same stuff, but from the hairy-chested, manly man point of view.

Entertainment for the evening partially consisted of watching a 173 year-old woman line dance the pants off a troop of preteen girls in purple vests. (That's an estimate on her age. Those are not her god-given hips, I can tell you that.)

Tonight's dinner made me realize that in terms of quality BBQ, the place with the most fake animals hanging upside down from the ceiling is probably going to have the best grub.

(Dinner of the night: Half slab Jack Daniel's ribs, bleu cheese coleslaw, 1 local pale ale--all from Wildhorse Saloon.)

As far as Nashville goes: On the whole I'm not impressed just yet. It's more of a commercial town than anything else. Every other shop is a memorabilia outlet. The scenery is great and there's a lot of live music, which is awesome, but Nashville itself seems to be trying a bit to hard to have a hootnanny.

Tidbit of the Night:

Me: How the hell did line dancing start? I mean, who thought that was a good idea?
Joey: I think it was one drunk cowboy...he started randomly stomping and clapping and figured he looked good... because he was drunk. And then the guy next to him, also drunk, decided to follow him because, well, ...he was drunk. And so after a bit there was just a whole line of drunk cowboys, clapping and stomping randomly, and since they were all drunk it just ...kept on going.

I looked it up a little bit ago. Turns out, it was not drunk cowboys. It was disco. Country stole it.

xo!

Ein: Louisville

Any initial qualms I had about subjecting myself to a hearty batch of southern folk have been soothed.
...Maybe it's the fact that so far Joey and I have found that southern hospitality extends from the twang-blaring gas stations that probably sell rounds of shot to the dark corners of clubs.

We busted in to Louisville yesterday evening, just in time for dinner. We started at the Bluegrass Brewing Co., a comfy little establishment that, according to my partner in crime, seems like a place where a large group of intellectual friends should gather to talk.

The food was great (I had a homemade spinach & walnut burger w/garlic fries); the beer was phenomenal. I had a raspberry meade and some blond ale-ish thing. I could've guzzled a gallon of the raspberry stuff. It was like juice. Beer flavored juice.

After dinner Joey and I set off for some after-dinner drinks and such. We chillaxed at the Maker's Mark lounge where I had my first Mint Julep. Bring on the derby hats and horses, baby!

We hit the streets, stumbling (not literally) upon a crazy little punk band from Florida that was playing at a little hole-in-the-wall that had some slammin' art work, including a painting of Max from Get Smart that I fell in love with. Oohhhh Max!

We're about to head out now; we've got a tour of the Maker's Mark distillery and a visit to Bardstown in the work.

x's and o's!