Volume 5: Pete in the USA final episode. A young balding mans journey through 20 something states
Day 21 – St Augustine to Savannah
Today we headed off to Savannah, a city which was a gift to Abraham Lincoln for his services to beards and big hats, and to a lesser extent his role in the Civil War. It was yet again a hot day with absolutely no wind. What is the deal with the US and it’s lack of wind? All tour there was never any hint of a wind which may bring a slight reprieve from the heat. Has the US exported all it’s wind to Europe to be used by wind farms so they can get some carbon credits? Or has it all been sucked in by air conditioners? Just a few thoughts that went through my head.
We spent the first part of the day in town exploring St Augustine. I foolishly decided to go with a few people to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum where the only thing I didn’t believe was that fact it cost me $9.25, while fools who purchased their tickets at the door paid $11.25. This particular Ripley’s is the original museum located in the historic Castle Warden building, the building that appears on the Ripley’s TV show. Yet again there was a “Check your guns” sign at the entrance which also read “Because of the events of September 11th, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! reserves the right to search any and all bags before you enter our facility”. Yes, I can just picture Al Qaeda in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan with a white board listing desired targets in the US. World Trade Centre: tick. Pentagon: tick. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum: cross. Anyway, inside the museum you’re reminded of just how many people have a sh*t load of matches and a lot of spare time. You name it, some freak has made a copy of it out of matches. The other major criteria for appearing in the museum is to be abnormally big or small, and to have 2 heads.
It was good to see the great man San Marco was a popular figure in these parts, reminding me of Venice and San Marco’s Basilica. On the coast of the waterway there is Castillo de San Marcos which apparently baffled enemies for years because the rock used in its construction used to absorb the affects of cannon balls hitting it at pace. I can’t remember what the particular rock is, I just remember JP asking if anyone found out what the substance was and me replying “Chocolate?”.
After exploring the old town we walked back to the hotel to catch the bus. On the way I passed a billboard that had a baby on it and “4,500 babies aborted per day”. As this was the religious heartland’s I thought the sign was a little odd as it initially seemed like they were advertising their success, sort of like the McDonalds signs that say 1 billion served. It was only after reading below the baby and seeing “Before I Formed YOU in the Womb, I knew You…God” that it became somewhat apparent that St Gerard Campus sponsoring the billboard was anti-abortion. Although, it’s still not overly clear.
Back on the tour bus JP had been hinting at some stop we had to make. When we arrived at the Budweiser brewery I could’ve hugged the man it was such a great surprise. He had earned his $2 that day. Once inside the brewery, or as I like to call them “Church”, I read many sermons on how God creates beer from the finest barley, rice and natural hops to lend special flavour, aroma, and character. At the end of the sermon, you get to drink 2 holy beers. Thankfully many of the chicks on tour didn’t drink beer, so I had at least 4 servings.
Our first stop in Savannah was the visitor centre to get out and stretch and urinate. As it was now raining, I had become so focused on how to beat the rain when getting back on the bus I completely missed the fact that I had walked passed the bench used in Forrest Gump. How sad.
When we got to the hotel late in the afternoon, Gav then succeeded in disgracing himself by mooning a bus load of schoolgirls from the apparent safety of our hotel room. When their teacher started counting how many floors our room window was up from the ground, and then counting how many windows across, I thought Gav was in strife. Apparently the teacher did complain, but JP did the responsible thing and ignored the complaint.
The entertainment that night was at a bar a few blocks from the hotel called “Hip Huggers”. Upon entry we paid a $5 cover, and then received a wristband that entitled us to $1 drinks all night. The odd thing written on the wristband was “Duplication or re-use of this band will be considered fraud”. So if I re-use the band I can expect the cops to break down my hotel door and be charged with re-use of a wristband? Is that a misdemeanour or a felony offence? I did what any self respecting aussie would do when presented with $1 drinks, attempt to drink as much as the average car’s fuel tank can hold in liquid. Needless to say I got pretty toasted on $1 hurricanes. When the barman had begun to ignore me later in the evening, after I gave a massive verbal barrage after not being happy about the lack of prompt bar service after I tipped him big on my first drink ($2), it was left to Dave to buy my drinks for me for the rest of the night.
Big Sam spent much of the night talking and sucking face with some local, whom I almost convinced that I thought Savannah women were the best in the world and that I had been all over the world, yet “Savannah chicks rule”. In other weird stuff to happen that night Danielle came up to me early in the night upset claiming Jamie was refusing to talk to her. I gave her a big G up, told her she was awesome, and that if things didn’t get any better then I’d walk her back to the hotel. About an hour later she came up to me, this time crying asking me to take her back to the hotel. Along the way back I gave her another big G up, told her she was awesome again and that Jamie was a dick if he didn’t know that, gave her a big hug and sent her off to her room. I can only imagine Jamie’s look on his face when he would have seen me walking out of the bar with my arm around Danielle, but it was enough for him to wake up to himself and I bumped into him on my way back to the bar as he headed to the hotel to save his sorry arse. I said some Dr Phil like gem like “You’ve just dug yourself a massive hole”. Anyway, they were back together the next day and Danielle thanked me “for all that you’ve done” a number of occasions on and post tour.
Back in the bar it was on the dance floor that I thought Flipper would look a lot better with a hickey, so I proceeded to try and give her one on her neck. Moments later her tongue was launched deep into my mouth and down my throat, it happened so fast it took me a while to figure out that I now needed to start breathing through my nose as all exits to the mouth were closed. Debs, her room mate, suggested we go back to her room “for some tea and scrabble”. We agreed that was a good idea and promptly headed back to her room, and promised to give Debs my room key later so she could sleep in my bed, which was now technically her bed as I wasn’t going to be sleeping in it. After a while of drinking tea, it became apparent to me that Flipper was really drunk so some damn little annoying voice in my head kept telling me it would be wrong to play scrabble with her that night, so I did the right thing and stuck to just drinking tea (damn, this metaphors getting confusing and making less and less sense). So, for a moment I put down my tea, and started walking back to the bar to give Debs my room key. After bumping into her halfway to the bar, we exchanged room keys and I was back to Flippers room for some more tea. The word must have got around because Big Sam burst into Flippers room to see what was happening. At that time I was under the bed sheets and had taken my t-shirt off so for all he knew I was naked. Thinking we must have been playing scrabble he promptly turned and left the room but not before letting out a “Jesus Christ! What’s going on here?”.
Interesting night.
Day 22 – Savannah to Raleigh
Fucking Pepsi! 58 year old truck driver using a fake id to get into 18-35 year old bracket. If sleaze needed a face for it’s promotional posters and videos it would be his. He was sponsored by VB for the first 3 days, then Harvey Beef on the 4th. The only person I’ve ever met whose entire wardrobe consisted of free t-shirts obtained from purchasing vast quantities of beer and beef. For the start of the tour he was forever lugging a big ass bottle of Jim Beam around even though he said he didn’t drink Jim Beam, which had apparently came free with a $29 jacket he had purchased. Freak. As Gav and I had run out of alcohol, it was a shame we had to make eye contact, and then even talk to him later in the night, just so we could top up our blood alcohol levels. Never before had one offended so many, in such a short time, except maybe fellow tourer Marty. Marty reminded me of the character “Lenny” from the book “Of mice and men”. Lenny was a tall retarded man who didn’t know his own strength who accidentally killed a woman and had a thing for petting a dead mouse he kept in his pocket. Marty hadn’t killed anyone on tour (although I’m sure plenty of the women wished they were dead when they were in his presence) and I hadn’t seen the contents of his pockets so I can’t confirm that he possessed a dead mouse. Freak.
Today began with another tour photo, this time out the front of some fountain that was not in Forrest Gump, something JP reminded us of an abnormally large number of times.
The lunch stop for the day was at a unique shopping complex/car park called “South of the Border”. It’s claim to fame was that pretty much every store had “Pedro” in it’s name, like “Pedro’s Leather”, “Pedro’s Coffee Shop”, “Pedro’s house of crappy merchandise”. The one store not to include Pedro in it’s title was the “Dirty old man” store. It was an odd name for a store that sold nothing but dildo’s (I’m talking dildo’s on every wall of this building) and porn magazines. And when you were happy with your dildo selection (having never purchased a dildo I suppose you take the Goldilocks approach; Not too small, not too big, just right), you head to the counter where you are greeted by the most disenchanted shop assistant in America. Which I figured was fair enough as I’m tipping she’s given up going to barbecues because it became all too awkward every time some one asked her “What do you do for a living?”.
Having become fascinated by the different approaches taken by cars to pedestrians in Europe, I had been taking a keen interest in the way cars approached pedestrians in the US (gives you an idea of how exciting some of the places we visited were). I had discovered, after much analysis, that cars in the US always slow for pedestrians, either that or they were in the process of doing a drive by. I was a little amazed as this was a country that was no stranger to people pulling guns on each other in road rage incidents.
Raleigh turned out to be another city so fascinating that JP handed out no maps as there was nothing to see. JP, again earning his $2.
As for the night entertainment, that was drunken bowling. The beer technically became a performance enhancing substance for me that night as I improved by 44 pins in my second game. It was a tight finish to the game, with Gav choking late and with me bowling 3 straight strikes across the 9th and 10th frames. In the end Gav fell over the line in what I’m sure will go down in bowling history as one of the all time drunken finishes.
After bowling we went back to the hotel where I called Mojo to see when she was getting to New York and in an attempt to at least leave this lame tour mentally for a few minutes. Turns out Mojo couldn’t answer her phone the first time I called her as she was too busy sticking a thermometer up some kids butt. In most cases when someone said that it would be cause for alarm, but I just put my faith in the fact that Mojo was a nurse and hoped like hell she was still at work.
Early finish to the night at 1am.
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