Akku's Dirty South Road Trip 2024 - Day 5, Amish and Tobacco

[ratchart]

Nov 14, 2024 17:25:14 GMT akku said:

We did find a very nice fire station and got chatting to the fire chief. He invited us in to see his pride and joy which is a 1920 Seagrave which he drives in parades. But not for Columbus day. Today it was just in the station. So we had a look, chatted to the guy, had a lovely time and then rolled on.

I love the fact that these fire engines are just regular working vehicles, so much cooler than our British ones. They must boost the public image of the firefighters and help them take a pride in their job.

I also love the fact that virtually every photo looks like a scene from a film.

[akku]

Nov 15, 2024 14:20:51 GMT ratchart said:

I love the fact that these fire engines are just regular working vehicles, so much cooler than our British ones. They must boost the public image of the firefighters and help them take a pride in their job.

American fire trucks are certainly something else. I saw a couple out on the road and they are eye catching

[jayj83]

so invested in this trip

[The Doctor]

In for the ride.
I love trip reports like this!

[akku]

We drove up through Virginia, we passed through Lynchburg on the freeway, I think I didn’t see the best of it. I saw the HUGE religious University campus with its aggressively neoclassical blocks which gave me massively the vibe of what Albert Speer was doing in the 1930s. Apparently the town itself is nice and quite olde America and all that. Maybe another time. No photos as we went through here as I recall I was driving anyway

We got to Charlottesville and once again I was much in need of the toilet by now, popped into a lovely little mini market but the security guard didn’t seem to like David so other than my using the staff washroom with its bizarre signage, we didn’t hang about





We had a lovely chai in a hipster coffee place, then explored the “open mall” which is what you or I would call a pedestrianised shopping street. Found some cool shops which were doing a lot of radical queer and hard core feminist stuff – you can imagine I stand out a bit in such places – but they were groovy – and then headed along back to the car. I needed a quick bathroom break again, we popped into a rather nice posh restaurant and had a couple of diet cokes and chatted to the bar keeper and I used the loo. Went to settle the check and he said “nah, you guys have been fun, its on me” which was lovely. I found a lot of the folks being quite generous of spirit here. Found a shop with a lot of Chinese communist stuff, David bought a messenger bag with some Chairman Mao slogans on it, we saw an art galley and a lovely fabrics shop, and off we went again. I feel like I could live here.




















On the road… stopped at an odd gas station in the middle of nowhere with a mini casino built into it. I bought root beer and didn’t ask questions




















We had to keep moving as tonight would be Yard Act in DC. David thought ahead about hotels and found us one in Central DC which was not too budget breaking. DC is expensive. DC makes London look cheap.

Small accidental detour when I drove us into the Pentagon Parking Lot (oops) but we skiddadled before anyone asked questions. David suggested he should drive. And promptly got us lost in the airport.



The hotel was OK, an independent one, nicer than the Fairfield, not as characterful as The Colony Inn, a little old fashioned and that’s what I like. Friendly service and all good as we grabbed an Uber out to the Black Cat club.



* oddly it seems we stayed right next to another Fairfield. A pox on their terrible breakfasts!

We arrived earlier than anticipated and had a nice Mexican meal before the gig.

The support was a band fro the US (maybe even from Georgia) and David really liked them. Yard Act were awesome. Last time I saw them was a 2000+ Rock City main stage, this was a small 250 capacity upstairs club on a high street. Very different vibe. Great fun. Utterly awesome.

Clubbing / gigging in the US is odd because I am still getting ID'd. Luckily I knew this in advance and had ID on me.











We flagged a regular cab to get us back to the hotel, ears ringing and definitely ready for bed.

Another 300+ mile driving day, and a gig. We did OK 😊

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

[crockpot]

An excellent road trip and excellent write up.
I know what you mean about cost, prices can be a shock but dam, it's worth it.

[Pid363!]

Loving it bookmarked love a US trip

[akku]

Nov 16, 2024 9:00:01 GMT crockpot said:

An excellent road trip and excellent write up.
I know what you mean about cost, prices can be a shock but dam, it's worth it.

The one which really stuns me is medication.

I buy paracetamol from the supermarket, 55p a pack. The equivalent in the US, the cheapest I could find was over $4. My allergy pills, I normally pay £2 at the pharmacy, I found the same brand in Lidl for 79p and again, trying to find something in the US and they were literally $20, $30 and more

[akku]

Trying to avoid this turning into a travel guide… But a little bit of Washington DC needs to be in this. I like to see the country when I visit the country and the capital cities are always interesting, some of the “tourist traps” need to be done. David was also kinda keen to show me a little of DC. So we went down town, saw the Washington Monument and The White House. The Beast (the presidential limo) was outside but it was impossible for me to get a photo of it.




We did see a motorcade go through later in the day, all motorcycle outriders and black Suburbans with the flashing lights, very dramatic








Some neat cars parked up in and around the city
































And there are plenty more things to see than I had time for. I did want to see the Spying Museum and the museum of aviation but we did not. We did take a walk down to the Museum of African Art and we had a good look round there which was interesting. David’s family lived in Botswana for some years in the early 70s and he has some art from that time. He also needed a little snooze in one of the galleries….




















We were peckish by this time, and so I suggested we went to the US Department of Agriculture and used the canteen there. So we did. Probably the most high security canteen I have been to anywhere… But I can now say I have had lunch in a Federal Government Building. The food was OK actually.



One of the cool things I like about the US is the architecture. I am quite fond of a good bit of brutalism and the US is good at that, especially US government buildings. I was quite taken by the Department of Energy building








Also a thing they do well is tunnels. They like them tiled in shiny white tiles. This makes them a bit trippy. I can’t recall from my photos if these were coming out of Washington or no, but they were plenty trippy pics…








With our gig done, Washington seen, you would imagine that we would turn south now to drive back to Atlanta? No. Not yet, we have a mutual friend Bryan who lives up in Baltimore. He is one of the founders of Malaise Motors, worked for Hemmings and a bunch of stuff like that. So we decided to go drop in on him. He seemed delighted so we headed up and out of DC to the north into Maryland.

[akku]

One of the big recommends is “be out of DC before the rush hour” so we headed out after lunch. We drove up to Baltimore which is a city I am a bit fascinated with having been utterly into The Wire so much as to own the box set DVD and have rewatched the whole thing at least twice through. For someone who “doesn’t really watch TV” that’s an achievement.















So some of “Bawlma” lives up to its depiction on TV. Even I wasn’t going to stop to take photos of the gang graffiti and so on. The city is undergoing regeneration. Interestingly in The Wire there is a season arc about the gentrification on the waterfront and I saw that all gentrified. There is also a very cool museum of art there, which is recommended by John Waters who is especially glowing in his praise of the gift shop. We decided to go there and we were not disappointed.

The man...




The place...




















There was even a sculpture made of ’50s Mopar taillights





From here we ran round to find a nice little tea shop, had chai, lovely people (an ancient Asian couple) and then we headed off towards where we had arranged to meet Bryan for dinner. The plan being “find hotel near restaurant”. Simples.




MOAR TrIpPy TuNeLs








Less interesting vehicle spots in this leg of the trip but there was a neat old Chevy cherry picker for sale if anyone wants one?





We ended up in a place called College Park, which seems to have a nice old colonial looking university (UMD? Who knows? Maybe Google if I CBA to look it up) and we found yet another perfectly pleasant modern hotel. I was letting David pic them as he was still horrified by the Colony Inn experience. The hotel was nice, very modern. Ultra modern even. First time I have seen a Bluetooth enabled bathroom mirror. The Lord only knows what I would want Bluetooth connectivity in a mirror for, especially in a hotel bathroom… I digress.








We drove out to the dinner gaff. Oh my, this was Bryan’s local guide pick. “Red Hot & Blue Memphis Pit Barbecue” – well this was a great place. Blues in the southern rock blues style, food in the “loads of it and gorgeous” BBQ type. The server even working his menu experience so I got “the most meat for my money”. Americans do this so well. This particular place did it super well. We had a booth in a bar and proper service with a good American chat. Loved it. Good food and great company. This was at a place called Lauren and gets a 5 star recommend.














Bryan brought along his delightful 1980s Lincoln Town Car for the evening and we ran our jealous noses over that one, what a “cream puff” as the old term goes.











So with that done, back to the hotel to puzzle over the Bluetooth mirror and a good nights sleep. Only did about 200 miles today….

[mrbounce]

I want a BBQ place like that round the corner from me. NOW!

[hairnet]

cracker barrel

if you do that (spesh out in the sticks) youll never go in a dennys ever again

ihop and wendys also ftw

will you be blue ridge parkway on the way back south

as is always the way with places - the media completely get the wrong end of the stick

even in DC (went to smithsonian) once people realise youre not out to steal their curse word and they notice the accent they're friendly

even more so out in the boonies as quite a lot of americans havent been out of their own state never mind the country so different for them makes their day

stayed near capitol hill in a b and b for a gig at miracle theater

[akku]

Nov 17, 2024 12:52:45 GMT hairnet said:

cracker barrel

if you do that (spesh out in the sticks) youll never go in a dennys ever again

ihop and wendys also ftw

Its yeaaaars since I have been in an IHOP, but we used to do them likely daily in Florida. I've also not been in a Wendys in years. Do they still do the salad bar? I liked when you watched them make all your burgers to order.

We did pass a few Cracker Barrels but we didn't go in. I think it was Cracker Barrel introduced me to Chicken Fried Steak which is now one of my all time favourite breakfast items....

[akku]

Nov 17, 2024 12:26:55 GMT mrbounce said:

I want a BBQ place like that round the corner from me. NOW!

The problem is I would never leave....

[The Cat Herder]

Sadly, Wendy’s no longer has the salad bar. At least, the ones I’ve been inside in central Florida anyway.

IHOP is okay, but I’d take Waffle House over them if I could.

[jayj83]

The food looks amasing, Did it taste as good as it looks? Beats the services we have here

[akku]

Nov 18, 2024 11:18:30 GMT jayj83 said:

The food looks amasing, Did it taste as good as it looks? Beats the services we have here

American food is an interesing mix, some of it awful and some of it excellent. I have to say we found some excellent stuff. Some awful also. Usually the hotel breakfasts. There seems to be a law somewhere that American hotels must serve terrible breakfasts. Probably to keep the various chains of breakfast restaurants in business!

The Red Hot & Blue was particularly excellent.

[jayj83]

It looks awesome though, I am not jealous at all, Do love reading this, Gets me through the day at work lol

[akku]

More heavily car content coming soon… Travelogue continues a little for now…

So once again we had to avoid a hotel breakfast and we had been given a recommendation to go to the Amish / Mennonite farmers’ market. Its an actual supermarket, but not like one I have been to before. Some of them barter goods in exchange for the modern services needed to operate a counter in this store. I am told some trade cheese and butter or whatever in exchange for some guy driving their produce up here from their farms. Stuff like that. Their goods are very popular now that a slice of the American population at least is concerned about food production methods in the mass food market – growth hormones, ultra processed food, GMOs, etc. So the tradition farming methods used by these guys suddenly found a much broader market. There is a cafeteria to the side of the main entrance which is where we had been recommended to go for breakfast. It was nice, the server was nice, and blessed us.




















So we started heading South at long last.

Our last stop in Virginia is the city of Richmond.

[akku]

Richmond Virginia is the home of the American Tobacco Industry, in spirit at least. Its also the home of the Edgar Allen Poe museum. So we semi-decided to go have a look at that. We stopped off at a delightful old school dive bar place called Honey Whytes. The lady running the place was a charm, she had country versions of heavy metal songs playing and we got into quite a chat about that.














We met a fella in the street who spoke with such a thick dialect I could hardly understand him, he was basically having a happy fit about the Rover being right hand drive. He really hadn’t seen such a thing in his darn life. Bless him. He did recommend some places I could find good graffiti and murals.



















We also found a rather special building which had formerly been Richmond Dairy Company and had milk pails as a significant feature in its architecture. It is now an apartment block








The Poe museum was OK, we had a shuft, learned a bit and bought swag for gifts for back home (or at least I did). Oddly Richmond has Tuk-Tuk tours.














We also saw more suitable retro car content round here, including a fella driving a Trans Am who looked “Fella Mist Likely to Drive a Trans Am”. He was a fun fella, he was teaching a young lady to drive a manual transmission. He also tried to sell it to us.









































Also saw a few Chevy HHR about but as panel vans. Odd. Did you know GM had its own PT Cruiser clone?





Saw a CROWN Vic on the freeway which appeared to have bullet holes in the back….





Also… windscreen debugging needed to happen more frequently….





And more American countryside as we headed out of Richmond and to the south.