go east, young man!
I just got back from a briskly epic (or epically brisk) four-day weekend in the Eastern time zone. I’d been looking forward to this trip for months: after all, I was going to have the chance to reconnect with old college buddies, see some sights I’d never seen, and get in a good, solid visit with my Uncle Dave at his house on the lake.
And you don’t even have to wait for the first day’s installment. It’s here now! Read on.
Four days is an eyeblink of a vacation, so each second was important. I awoke at 2 AM on Friday to have plenty of time to caffeinate myself and get me, my bike, and my luggage to the train stop. An hour-plus later, and the bike was safely chained to a rack at PDX. A little after that, the eyelids were happily back over the eyes as the plane trundled into the sky.
An insanely early departure, coupled with a nonstop flight, is a great way to overcome the loss of three time zones. I landed in Atlanta at 2 in the afternoon, rarin’ to go. Took a train downtown, walked to the Skate Escape bike shop to pick up my rental (they were extremely helpful—I’d recommend ‘em!), changed into bike gear, and rode precariously up Piedmont Road with my luggage strapped to me. My choice of transportation gave the desk clerk at the Ramada Shit-hole a smile, as she realized the car rental hassles / gasoline costs I was avoiding for the moment.
I had just enough time to cool off and get changed before meeting Portia, one of my bestest friends from college, to hear some live music. We went to The Tavern at Phipps, a yuppie watering hole whose versatile house keyboard player completely makes up for the my-wallet-is-soooo-thick conversations going on in the background. I swear, I saw a fake-baked dude with a shaven head and a short-sleeved, collarless, white cotton shirt. I thought I’d stepped momentarily into 2003. Oh, and the waitresses all have to dress up like, erm, ladies of the evening, as part of their uniform.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, keyboard player. His name is Forrest Wolf, or Forest Wolfe, or something like that. He’s kind of a one-man band, who covers all these instrument parts with a couple of keyboards and a PowerBook. He’s kind of a voice doppelgaenger, too: after booming out “A Boy Named Sue” in true Johnny Cash style, he changed sunglasses (!) to take on Bono’s persona for “Mysterious Ways.” Vastly entertaining.
From there, we headed to Fuzzy’s to hear the amazing Francine Reid sing. What a show(wo)man! She had the crowd dancing and singing along, even the clueless people like me who don’t know the lyrics. Glad we caught her—two days later, she went on the road with Lyle Lovett.
Much as I would have loved to bounce along with the crowd all night, I’d been up for nineteen hours and counting, and it was time to get back to the “hotel” and rest up for the next morning’s outdoor activities. What were those, you ask? Stay tuned….