The time had come for a very literal descent into the Deep South. "Literal" because, unbeknownst to me, I would be saying goodbye to the last elevation I would be seeing for a long time...
I have a theory that by either technological evolution, alien intervention or demonic possession, my motorcycle is at least partially a sentient being. Its behavior is statistically divergent from the predictability of a mechanical device. It tends to decide how and when to cooperate based on what is best for our team of two. Leaving Asheville, the objections from The Monster took the form of a gritty clunking from my chain and rear sprocket. In my ignorance, I took this only to mean that replacement or break down was imminent. The intended urging to reflect on and appreciate the topographical glory I had been basking in went shamefully unheeded. Sorry, old friend. I'll listen more closely in the future.
I left Asheville with only rough plans about where I was headed and little to no plan about how I would be getting there. It only took me 31 years to learn certain critical facts of life, but if I had learned nothing else from the prior year, it was that life had exactly zero fucks to give about your plans. Better to make yourself as adaptable and capable as possible, and play the hand you're dealt. That, You can control.
Headed south. Florida at some point. By way of... Savannah? Why not, sounds decidedly Southern. It was early July, and my journey was taking me through South Carolina and Georgia, but I put a lot of faith in the fact that I am a rugged New Englander. Soft-hearted as we may be, our will is hewn from the same granite that makes up the bedrock of our homeland. There was a job to be done, and I decided I didn't give a shit about the heat. I drank in my new surroundings eagerly. Palm trees started to replace the deciduous trees I had grown accustomed to in the upper elevations. Cicadas began to sound off, and tiny lizards studied me whenever I would stop for a cigarette. My aversion to major interstates allowed me to see some local color, such as a small-town main street with a giant banner proclaiming it the "Coondog Festival". I went around the outskirts of Spartanburg, and with the sun diving hard on me, I ripped around Greenwood, SC on a truck-only bypass that carved through a forest of towing pines that were a little too geometrically arranged to be natural. Later research revealed this to be a tree farm. I was time to find a hideout for the night.
When camping in a location that is not entirely legal, the priority is concealment. Stay away from anything that would draw the eye of a passerby; a break in the trees, a stream, a boulder. Sick to a regular expanse of the same old scenery and blend into it. You can be visible to the eye and invisible to the mind at the same time if you do it right. I saw my spot and doubled back for it, crossing my fingers that I'd get a minute or two with no bored or nosy truckers to report an Italian race bike suddenly jumping the roadside berm and disappearing into the trees. A precarious 50 foot off-roading session took me over, around and through branches, rocks and ruts in the forest floor, all the while wrestling my bike to stay rubber-side-down slipping and skidding on deep pine needles and leaves. I got myself in position to jump off to scout a bit deeper for a campsite. I lucked out. The area had no side roads or houses, but was not short on old logging roads. Seeing the overgrowth on the tracks long-since abandoned by heavy machinery, I knew I was home.
Many things to consider when you've got your entire life strapped to a pasta-rocket; it's gotta fit, it's gotta stay on, and it had better be everything you're going to need. Another important consideration is that you should be able to carry all of it, preferably with a free hand. After much forethought, trial and error, I can unload my bike in ten minutes and carry all of my earthly possessions with BOTH hands free. All bags, clothing, electronics, camping and survival equipment, if properly arranged, can be carried to the campsite in one trip. It's a hell of a good way to keep yourself from owning (being owned by) too much shit, and it's enough to make any Zen Buddhist smile contentedly.
A quick inspection of the forest floor assured me I want setting my gear down on any ant hills, a precaution that I would fail to take three days later, much to my detriment, but we'll get there... The Monster was 50 or so feet into the woods but since it would be there overnight, I went back to see to it that no stray headlights would catch a reflector and betray my position. I threw my rain cover over it and hacked down some branches to break up the clean lines of the blue nylon. Another twenty minutes, and my tent was pitched, all my gear was safe inside and all of my sweaty clothes were hanging on a paracord line across the old, forgotten trail. I had logged about ten hours of saddle time that day and won a Judo match with a 350 pound opponent made of red hot steel and slippery carbon fiber, but it still took until well after dark for the thrill to give way to exhaustion. The frogs and cicadas finally won out, and I drifted off.
Breakdown/loadup was as smooth as it should have been on such a beautiful, peaceful morning. The maneuvering to make it back to the road would have had a range of effects if viewed by the staff at the Ducati factory. The mechanics would have cringed over their espressos, but the engineers would have stood up and cheered. I took less care with my escape, and a distant semi driver undoubtedly saw me spring from the undergrowth, drop a gear and dissappear.
The day greeted me with a glorious sunrise and scant traffic. I envisioned Savannah as my next stop, but my chain had me worried enough that I actually got in touch with a friend from up north who now lives in Myrtle Beach. A Biker herself, she was all ears when I told her I might need a place to crash and wait for a part to ship. In the end I went through two cans of chain oil and a small mountain of gas pump grade paper towels to keep my chain from breaking and slashing through my leg, though two teeth did break off of my sprocket. The Monster and I shared a smirk about that as I remembered toying with the idea a couple years ago of switching to a smaller front sprocket with two less teeth. It's a mod referred to as "dropping teeth" that changes the gear ratio and increases torque, but dropping them mid-ride is not the way to do it. Afterwards the chain synched up with my new "custom" sprocket. This just meant that the next break down would surely strand and injure me, but I decided to roll the dice.
I had done precisely zero homework on what to do in Savannah, but I knew I would want to make the most of my one night there. Rolling a lot of miles in one day means extra fuel, but more gas money was offset by spending nothing on food or water all day. It's not that I had none, it's just that there are other ways to get it than paying for it. Since my budget looked good for the past few days, I sprung for the cheapest motel I could find, Motel 6 Midtown. This afforded me luxuries like a roof, a shower and a locked door to stash all my shit behind so I could travel into town unencumbered. In my excitement, I actually left my good camera in my room, which I regretted, but this was before my "adventure-proof" phone started to give up the ghost, so I managed to get some passable shots with it. I took a third and final shower and started the engine to the sensations of what I would consider my first night in The Deep South.
How to describe Savannah... Having only one (Tuesday) night in town, I am by no means an authority, but I can paint a picture of what jumped out at me. The most poignant and poetic way I can describe how Savannah struck me is to say that rolling through town made it seem very much like The South had won the Civil War, and I was in the capitol of the Confederate States of America. Cobblestone streets led me past churches and buildings made of stone and brick. I was heading north through town and right through a historic district where on every other block, I was paraded around a small grassy area. In the center of most of these was a resplendent carved likeness of historical figures that were integral to the history of the city. Mostly statues, sometimes monuments or plaques, I felt as though a Traveller could not gain admittance to town without this history lesson. It felt incredible to be in a truly OLD town again. I felt hundreds of years of history, strife, triumph and culture all with a genuinely foreign feel. Any place is foreign or exotic to someone, and this was different enough for me to feel that way. This was the feeling I knew I had to chase once life chewed up my plans and shit me out onto the road. I was starting to see the world.
I knew I'd only have one night in town, so I got some recommendations from locals about what there was that I shouldn't miss. I'd done a couple of days with very little food, and certainly nothing that qualified as "unique local fare", so I decided food and drink would be part of tonight's budget. I kept hearing about places that were "right in City Market", which was evidently a thing. "Vinnie Van Go-go's Pizza" was one of the more common recommendations, so I used that to get myself heading in the right direction. I had parked The Monster (for free no less! ) near the waterfront which was all brick and cobblestone buildings, the oldest of which was directly down on the water and connected to the main thoroughfare by warves and ramps made of still more cobblestones. The Northerner in me wondered what in the world the snowplows did to deal with that in the winter... oh yeah... never mind that I guess. The ramps were spanned by elegant foot bridges made from wrought iron that added nicely to the aesthetic. The heat was getting to me, and I couldn't help but stop in at an alleged Irish pub, undoubtedly named "O'-something's" for a Sam Adams. This is not a food blog (Food Network execs, I could totally do one, just sayin'), and can't even begin to fake it as a beer snob, so let it suffice to say, my beer was cold. What was interesting though was that there sitting at the end of that bar was the first time I noticed an interesting phenomenon.
Inevitably the question comes up, "Where are you from?" Now that don't really live anywhere, that takes on new meaning. Anyplace I've ever lived is equally not my home, but one thing that is concrete is where I was born. The best way for me to express this to someone who doesn't know where the Melrose - Wakefield Hospital is would be to say, "I'm from just outside of Boston, originally." Fifty percent of people immediately interject, "OH! You mean BAHH-STEN?" ("A" sound found in "pasta") and proceed to laugh at themselves in all their worldliness. If you have had sufficient exposure to a proper Boston accent, you can already see the flaw here. If not, consider this a public service or cultural education. I lost my accent when I went to school in New Hampshire, where Masshole are burned at the stake, but I have maintained my fluency. The following is a response that I've developed to both confound the Joker and educate them on the subtleties they are falling to grasp, complete with Trainspotting-esque phonetic spelling:
"No, no, no, lookit, it's BAWSTIN. With a dubbayoo. What you said woula stahted with 'B - A - AHH', like 'Meet me at the bahh fer a beeuh.' You cahn't staht BAWSTIN with 'B-A-AHH.' Ya geddit?! I already cahn't undahstand you people, and ya just makin' it hahdah!"
Usually, my new friend and I are both cracking up the time I get to the end.
I stepped back out onto the street, my appetite awakened by the icy beer, and headed toward "Vinnie's". It was time to see what all the fuss was about. On my way, I really began to believe that it was getting hotter, despite the sun setting, but when I rounded the next corner, I suddenly realized you didn't have to be a masochist to live this far south.
In front of me was a wide-open square the size of a city block. My attention was immediately commanded by a graceful and brilliantly lit fountain, jets of water arcing rhythmically into the hot summer twilight. A cooling most hung in the air all around, and affected from me a deep, peaceful breath. Laughter, conversation, music. There was a buzz of humanity washing over me. It pushed back the haze in my mind as the cool mist pushed back the heat-haze around my body. I had found the beating heart of Savannah, and I was just as much a part of it as every person there. I felt that satisfaction carry me through the square and into "City Market".
Essentially two adjacent city blocks of downtown Savannah are not there. In thier place, there are benches, tables, booths, small stages and dance floors. Around the perimeter, are store fronts that seemed to be mostly restaurants, but there were also art galleries and souvenir shops. There was even a horse and carriage parked in the center taking people on jaunts around town. After sitting for a few minutes to take it all in, I spotted "Vinnie's" in the corner. Five minutes later, I was confronted by something I can only express as the biggest motherfucking slice of pizza on earth. It was as long as my arm from elbow to finger tip, and it was great.
I stopped of at a half dozen other places in City Market, including a gallery featuring an artist with a number of surrealist interpretations of scenes from The Big Lebowski (obviously a genius). There was a candy factory/shop that smelled like heaven and just a half block away a club called Jinx. There was a vacant stage upfront with a violently vandalized amplifier, an eight-foot portrait of "Fu Manchu" on the wall and the air conditioning ducts painted like the black-and-white worms from Beetle Juice, complete with paper maché heads full of teeth. Definitely my kind of place, but tragically dead on a Tuesday night. Satisfied with my evening, I strolled back toward the Monster when the sound of a blues harmonica blasting through an amp made me turn on a dime and step right into a doorway. I have never been so magnetically drawn by music in my life.
I discovered the Blues at the very same point in my life when I realized I needed it. It had been a very long, hard winter trapped inside the husk of my old life. Nothing but ashes left of my marriage. Falling flat on your ass when the rug is pulled out sucks, but that split second where you're hanging in the air is actually worse. When I started listening to the Blues, it helped me know what rock bottom was. The beauty of it is that once you do, you have something to push off against. My push started when I hit the road, but I made sure to get a good firm grip and know damn well which way was up. Sitting in that club and knowing that I was hearing something so real and raw right on stage in front of me was a real turning point for me. It was a perfect way to wrap up a night that told me, "You're heading the right way. Just ride hard and smash off those rear view mirrors, because there's no need to look back."
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Next time, I reach Florida and am greeted by fire ants, giant goldfish crackers and 80's dance night. Don't miss it!
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