2,300 Miles of Fried Food and Antiques

After three weeks of traveling in the pickup, I’m coming up on the end of my tour of the South. I posted a few pictures at the bottom to recap, but rest assured there are far too many stories to cover in just one post. Alabama flea markets, Florida state parks, Mississippi diners, Austin tacos, two music festivals, Mississippi flea markets, Bourbon Street, alligator gar, Louisiana flea markets, boiled peanuts, a minor fender bender in a brand new truck (my bad), Georgia flea markets (Catherine really has a thing for antiques), and at least two dozen uses of “Yeah we don’t have that in Delaware” to break the ice with strangers.

In order to maintain some form of cheap and reasonable hygiene on the trip, I joined Anytime Fitness before I left Delaware. While it’s 1-year, $40/mo. contract seems like a scam, it’s a necessary expense. Thinking I’d be all set with 1,800 locations in the US, I was quite disappointed to learn that it takes 30 days until you can use another gym. Thus, finding an early morning bathroom and shower is proving more difficult than expected, but with the help of baby wipes and 24-hour Walmarts, I’m making it work.

Now for a quick and long-overdue synopsis of my 2,300 mile journey through the South…

Charleston, SC

My first home in Charleston! This was a way better option than Walmart. Enough light to feel safe, but not enough to keep me awake.

I arrived in Charleston pretty late, so after a bit of walking around downtown, I retreated to the Walmart just outside the city for a good night’s sleep. This is also where I discovered the Anytime Fitness scam. Thankfully, the owner of the gym saw that I couldn’t get in and gave me a two-day pass. I didn’t even plan on working out that night, but he was a former Marine, so when he said, “There you go. Now go get your workout in,” I followed suit.

My one full day in Charleston was largely spent walking around and people watching, culminating in a night of trivia at a bar on King Street (I was in first place going into the last round but came in fourth overall because of a lame Nicholas Cage question at the end). The next day, I woke up just before 6:00 a.m. to try to make the Charleston Running Company’s group run. No one was there, so I gladly started my own running club, party of one, and proceeded with a 5-mile tempo run around the city. Out of shape and exhausted, I stuffed my face with huevos rancheros at the Hominy Grill (probably the best I ever ate) and drove south to Atlanta._

Atlanta

My co-pilot, bringing a bit of Brooklyn to Georgia

Once in Atlanta, I stayed with my old roommate from New Haven for a night, then picked up my sister at the airport. Catherine flew in from New York City so that we could spend the weekend with Eric Dunn, our neighbor from Wilmington. It was our first trip to see Eric in his element and it’s safe to say he’s got the city of Atlanta, especially Decatur, under control. Almost as soon as we arrived, he took us out for microbrews and veggie loaf at his cousins’ restaurants. What better way to a McBride’s heart!

Between the insanely good beer at The Brick Store, homemade pizza, famous coffee house (according to Catherine) and the use of Eric’s washer and dryer, we spared no indulgence before driving to the Gulf. He also took us to an all-organics wholesale market to stock up on road food. It’s like a healthy Costco — every city should have one.

The Gulf Coast

We got some real local fare at the Big Time Diner in Mobile, MS. We also learned to ask if everything on the menu is deep-fried, including the veggie plate.

Catherine came prepared with the Roadside America app on her iPhone, which provides detailed descriptions of odd tourist attractions in nearly any American city (Did you know Delaware is home to the world’s largest frying pan? Or that Guilford, CT is houses a pen of neon turkeys before Thanksgiving?). Thus, saw everything from national parks (Fort Pickens on Pensacola Beach) to the best Vietnamese restaurant in Montgomery. We found that less highway means more locals and, if we had the time, would have done the whole southern coast on country roads.

Needless to say, healthy eating on the road is tough, but driving through the south did provide an opportunity to try new things, especially since we flexed our vegetarian vows to include local seafood. I had my first boiled peanuts in Alabama, raw oysters in Pensacola, witnessed an all-fried veggie sampler at the Big Time Diner in Mobile, and ordered the only vegetarian dish at Sonic (grilled cheese and tater tots). I’m not sure if the people who eat this fried food regularly are completely ignorant about its health consequences, or just don’t care and are willing to roll the dice. When I told our server at the Big Time Diner that I thought crabs are usually steamed as opposed to fried, she replied with, “Well I guess you could steam them, but that’d be gross!” One thing that’s very clear down here is that people cling to this, “It’s a free country” mantra dearly, so I guess if they want to eat fried chicken and waffles for breakfast instead of a world-famous Pete McBride Smoothie, who am I to argue.

On the grocery side, rice cakes and granola are the newest staple additions to my diet, along with apples, peanut butter & honey sandwiches, and (when I’m driving) McDonald’s coffee because they serve Newman’s Own. Overall, I try to keep each meal to under $3 if I’m cooking it myself, or $7 if I’m buying it. Preparing food out of the truck is actually quite easy, as is washing the dishes. It’s keeping food over night without a refrigerator that’s difficult. With each new meal, I’m learning the room-temperature life span of a new food. The shortest? Grits. Pretty soon, I’ll probably just cook one big meal a day, eat the whole thing, then snack on fruit, nuts, and peanut butter for the other two meals.

Texas

Catherine with Charles and Lexy McBride. Who knew we had such cool relatives in San Antonio?

From Pensacola, we drove to San Antonio as quickly as possible, stopping at Danaland (New Orleans) for quinoa salad and some much-needed rest. Once in San Antonio, Catherine and I stayed with my dad’s cousins, Charles and Lexy for the one night we were there, which wasn’t nearly enough time to hang out. Charles joined the Air Force when he was 20, shipping off to London, San Antonio, Japan, then back to San Antonio, so we never saw his family much. He did, however, have great stories about the early years of the McBride family, including when my grandfather came back from the war and started Burns & McBride. Catherine and I agreed that someone, probably our cousin Patrick because he’s good with the video camera, should collect family stories for the next generation. Catherine also has high hopes of scheduling a McBride family reunion in 2013, so there may be plenty more storytelling to come.

In Austin, we checked out a bunch of concerts at South by Southwest, a huge music festival with a ton of free shows. Next to the music, Austin’s most prized possession has to be its food. At $2 a piece, Torchy’s gets my vote for best breakfast taco in the city, and a tie with Taco Deli for overall greatness. Before we left, my friend Tom Whiteside took us out to the Eastside Cafe, a very cool farm-to-table restaurant where we got to recharge with some homemade veggie burgers before driving back east to New Orleans.

New Orleans & BUKU

Our group at an Absinthe bar in downtown New Orleans.

Three days in New Orleans with our friends from Delaware is enough to wipe out the strongest of men. Throw in St. Patrick’s Day and the Buku Music Project and you’ve got yourself pure chaos. There was the heckling on Bourbon Street, stickball games outside Dana’s apartment, long runs through the city, making a mess at Cafe du Monde, a two-day music festival, and people watching at Harrah’s until 4 a.m. (I’m glossing over a lot here, mostly because it’s 6:35 p.m. and I’m laying in the back of my truck ready to fall asleep.) Catherine summed it up pretty well with, “You’re friends seem to really live that life’s-too-short mentality.” We do — and as exhausting as it can be, it’s largely responsible for where we all are in life, even me in the back of a pickup truck.

After I dropped Catherine at the airport and the rest of our group went separate ways, the trip definitely took on a different tone. There are no more deadlines or schedules. Places I’d like to see, yes, but no set plans on when I get there or what I’ll do. It’s liberating, in that I can catch up on sleep, but it’s also tough to know that I won’t have any familiar faces around for a while. Thus, my blog post production rate will likely triple, littering your inbox and news feed, so here’s your heads up! Once all of this rain passes, I’ll drive northwest through Mississippi and Arkansas, then start making my way towards Kansas. I actually planned on leaving tomorrow (Friday), but it turns out the annual Hammond Smokin’ Blues & BBQ Challenge is this weekend. Fifty-two teams in the competition, plus sixty in the “backyard.” Two competitors told me they’ll “turn in their meat at 3:30 tomorrow, then start cooking at midnight. The judging starts at noon on Saturday. I also met the organizer of the event, Eric, and signed up to volunteer (I did not tell him that I’m a vegetarian). This could be the most exciting weekend of the year for this town of 20,000 and it’s a darn shame Catherine’s not here to stop me from throwing vegetarianism out the window.

: Driving through South Carolina was pretty uneventful, but stopping at this historic site/park for lunch was nice

: A fine stoop here at the mansion.

: A little odd, but I couldn’t get over the trees in South Carolina.

: Charleston, SC. I think this row of colored houses was called Rainbow Road

: My first home in Charleston! This was a way better option than Walmart. Enough light to feel safe, but not enough to keep me awake.

: Charleston Art Gallery – the sign said they also had a gallery in Asheville, NC, so I thought it might be run by some Appalachian types. I was wrong.

: A park at the southern end of Charleston, also the end point of my run

: Running along the water in the early a.m., I had this whole path to myself to watch the sun come up in 75-degree weather.

: Eric’s home in Decatur, GA, just down the road from Emory

: Catherine with Charles and Lexy McBride. Who knew we had such cool relatives in San Antonio?

: One of the many antiques shops we visited (though definitely the best), and look who has all the merchandise!

: We got some real local fare at the Big Time Diner in Mobile, MS. We also learned to ask if everything on the menu is deep fried, including the veggie plate.

: Catherine and Eric whipped up this homemade za with brussel sprouts and shallots. What?! True story. Try it.

: Eric and Catherine in front of the Atlanta skyline. (Sorry Craig – the lighting was terrible, no way around it)

: My co-pilot, bringing a bit of Brooklyn to Georgia

: Catherine also made this gourmet road food of rice cakes, peanut butter, and green apples.

: How can you say no to a sign like this?

: A more rural flea market where we got our first taste of Alabama’s boiled peanuts

: The third time she’s eaten seafood in nine years, Catherine and I dive into some local oysters on the half shell in Pensacola, FL.

: The fried oysters weren’t bad, either. We ate all of them.

: Catherine and I stopped in Montgomery for lunch. Much to my surprised, it was completely deserted, but we did find a decent veggie burger.

: Prepping for the St. Patrick’s Day parade coming through New Orleans

: Bill and Jason representing the great state of Delaware in the parade

: Buku Music Project: A two-day concert featuring Avicii, Diplo, Scrillex, and (randomly) Wiz Kalifa. Too many more photos from those two nights and you’d question my moral character