Go West, Young Men

Last weekend we went west. A good friend needed help retrieving a lonely corvette from the frozen north. Well, it'll be frozen in a couple months, anyway. Being the good chums we are, we borrowed a trailer, bought some beef jerky and left at the ass-crack of dawn. Wait, scratch that. We were no where near the crack, it was more like the ankle. Dark thirty. Damn early. So we ate breakfast in Atlanta, lunch in Paducah, Kentucky, and dinner in Edmundsville, Illinois. We picked up a Vette, slept in a motel, had brunch in Paducah, and dinner in Warner Robins. And we had a good time.


Yeah, like there aren't stories to tell.......



First, if you're ever in Paducah, KY, find the Kountry Kastle for lunch. I don't know where exactly it is, besides the bottom of an off ramp, but if you ask anybody driving a pick-up with a ladder or gun rack, they'll point you right. I'd recommend getting the $3, half-pound Angus burger, but you might also want to consider the fried balogna sandwich and fried dill pickles. Or the herd of buffalo (32 wings for $11) or the tamale special. Top it off with onion rings and a 32oz beer for $3.20. The part you can't put a price on is the atmosphere. Dark wood paneling and old neon cast middle-America glow on well-worn vinyl booths and vintage bar stools. I could retire there. Try to ignore the stumbling drunk next door at the strip club, especially if he's bouncing off cars at 1pm like he was when we saw him.



Second, Jesse is a man of his word. If he tells you he has boxes of rocks he needs to move, by God, the man has rocks. And plenty of them. Doesn't matter why, or where he got them, or even if Shane helped him get the rocks off (ahem.), it only matters that the rocks are in Illinois and need to be in Georgia.



Third, the St Louis arch is one of the coolest man-made things you'll ever see. Especially at night. We almost opted not to go see it since it was late and 25 miles away, but we suddenly had a spark of reason and braved the chilly night to hunt down the big sucker. It was.....beyond words. And so I'll use pictures:



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Fourth, six cases of beer is all you can fit in the back seat of a 2004 F150 and still have room for a Jesse. In the same way that wine connoisseurs will seek out local vineyards while traveling, we seek out new and different beers. Some of these we know and love, but can't buy locally due to the vagaries of distribution and antiquated import laws. Some of them are just stuff we've never tried before. Good thing nobody else went, they'd have been very uncomfortable under all that, and the Vette was already full of rocks.

Fifth, Shane can drive 70 mph towing 6000lbs and still shoot a full manual SLR camera. Pretty well. On a bridge over the Ohio River. No kidding. It's a good thing I brought a change of undies.


And Lastly, Corvettes look better in Georgia.


Yep, 1300 miles in 36 hours, so we averaged 30 mph, even while sleeping. And two very good friends. Makes for a Damn Good Weekend.