We have made it to our first big destination, memphis tn. The ride in was simple and we got here with a severe quickness. After eating an amazing lunch at dixons southern buffet, the best damn buffet in the world, we shot like bullets down 51 to memphis. Getting into the city limits, we were overwhelmed by the stench of garbage and rotting flora and fauna all around us and it was highly unpleasant until we saw that crazy damn pyramid. We snaked our way along the river until we had entered the downtown area. Memphis, we decided as we rode to our hosts house, is definitely cool as shit. Even though the city is obviously hurting severely from economic woes past and present, there is a certain artistic charm to most of the places we went through. Even though the country seems to have somewhat forgotten this historic city, its residents, both young and old, have not let it fall by the wayside. Our host, dan, works as an assistant studio manager at the oldest continually running recording studio in the country (maybe even the world.) He is cools as shit, and his roommates, what little we saw of them, were very cool too. Our first night there, we tagged along with dan to a friends place, located in a very rich part of town with huger and huger houses and big ole lawnies, where he and his friends carved up some pumpkins. Dan made one of his face, another guy, jeremy, made one of lionel ritchey, anf the third was turned by katie into a ghost. They all turned out speccy, and we were highly amused at how long it took them. Not too long though, as we got to go see a show later on with jeremy and katie and her boyfriend aaron. This was not just any old showy, all local and damn. No, no...we had stumbled into a somewhat metal loving crowd of folks, and we saw f*cking toxic holocaust and skeletonwitch. Both totally awesome. The pit was shitbat crazy, both ben and I made our ways into it, and beer was cheap and getting all over everyone and everything. Some one even spilled some into a puddle on the floor which was icked numerous times into a fine beer-mist-spray in the air. It was so much goddamn fun! I love metal. One thing that was really cool was that everyone was actually really nice, not stand-offish, and they would do a double take if they didn't recognize you from shows past. It was a real welcoming crew of folks, just out having a great time. I also highly recommend both bands to anyone who likes metal and hasn't heard of them. Seeing them live was especially fun, in a small intimate venue called the hi-tone which is a variety venue. Whatever comes that is good, seems to end up there. Islands was playing the next night! But we didn't want to tempt ourselves with two nights of drinking before an extreme rain departure. Our second day in town, we lazed around got some ridiculously spicy pizza, and it was rainy pretty much all day. I decided that my sharpie-custom walmart shoes weren't cutting it in all this wetness and outdoors situations, so we headed to the local outdoors shop where I purchased a new pair of hiking shoes with the gore-tex tech. Very comfy and much more appropriate footwear for a trip like this. I unfortunately had to ditch my old pair (custom...so custom) in the garbage, along with my old helmet in which I discovered a crack. I normally wouldn't worry, but after hearing about poor joe reistetter, with his cracked skull, I made a point of replacing the old thing. After doing all that lazin' like a craisin, we were invited by dan to see a private live in studio performance by a band called star and micey, a three piece singer/songwriter type band (all members play at least two instruments on the simo.) The music was a little starry-eyed, touchy feely, I love you in the most innocent and christiany way possible type for my taste, but they have certainly honed their craft and they were all very nice dudes. The fact that the music wasn't up my alley made the fact that I was seated on the floor, front and center of the decorated make-shift stage, with three cameras trained on the band and the small audience, very very awkward. My feet kept falling asleep, and I kept trying to watch the cameras and wait till they were all on the band so I could inconspicuously rearrange my legs and feet, only to make eye contact with each of the cameras at least once. The studio was truly gorgeous, and of their accolades the one that stood out to me was the gold record certification plaque for the 1992 world wrestling federation soundtrack, forceable entry. Also they had some gin blossoms album covers on the wall, but despite those two, the studio has done some seriously awesome things (look em up: ardent studios.) So after that, we went back to dans and listened to some cool obscure rock music (you just wait ian) and then got our stuffy packed up and ready for our early morning departure...which turned out to be a shitsville exit if ever there was one. We left dans at around 9 (much later than we anticipated leaving), went to $acdonalds for a breakkie sand, back to outdoors store to borrow a floor pump to top off our tires and left...in pouring rainy. It was shit raining pretty hard, windy, cold. We made our way back toward the river, only to find the directions from our less and less trusty guide to be unclear and shoddy at best as to how to get out of the city via the pedstrian walkway on the bridge of i-55. After less than five miles into our ride, an hour and a half of getting soaked to the gills, getting turned around several times, almost getting routed onto the highway itself, ben getting acid rain in his eye, me falling over and cutting my leg up, and us not knowing where the f*ck to go anymore and beginning to get at each others throats a bit, we decided to bitch out and spring for a goddamn hotel room for the day and night and hopefully wait out the rain. So here we sit, feeling significantly less defeated than before and very full on papa johns pizza, in a hotel 8 or something, just waiting to spring out into arkansas and beyond to our final destination. We hope to reach new orleans before friday the 13th of november. We hope to meet our friends there for many good times, and we hope to meet my roommate and best friend ian there too. I hope we get to leave memphis, nothing against it...I am just so ready to move on. We figure if we can ride a few more miles per day, and shave some miles off the distance tally, we can get there even sooner.
Sent from my fingers and brain.
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