We got up, finished packing everything the proper way this time, and rolled our suitcases down to the lobby shortly before the noon checkout time. Matt ran the towels back to the return hut so we weren’t charged $80 apiece, or whatever it was. Since we had plenty of time to kill before our flight, we went to the souvenir shop at the resort. They actually had some really cute stuff, so we picked up a few things (including my new purse).

It took some work getting the new stuff into my suitcase without opening everything up entirely, but I managed. We went to the entrance to get a cab, and one of the guys working there cut off our wristbands and asked if we wanted to keep them as a souvenir. I didn’t really want a souvenir of my time at the generic all-inclusive, but we took them anyway.

Our cab turned out to be one of the vans you usually take to the airport if you pre-book. It was just the two of us this time, though. Our driver asked about what we’d seen in Jamaica, and then told us about how he had friends in California who sent him marijuana seeds. As we arrived at the airport, he took out his phone and started showing us pictures of his crops. Awesome.

The airport was very quiet, and check-in was easy. We got to take the Medallion line to drop the bags, and then headed to security, which was really fast as well. We were there plenty early, so we went to go find lunch (we hadn’t had anything but coffee so far) and of course ended up at Air Margaritaville. Since we’d been there on the previous visit, it was officially a tradition.

We ordered Guinness, and our server told Matt that dudes ordered it because it made them horny. I didn’t want to mention that EVERYTHING seems to make the men horny in Jamaica. Matt got a burger, and I had the veggie wrap. It was at least 70% shredded lettuce, but it was still incredibly appealing just because it was fresh. After our meal, our server told us a long story about how he liked it when it was cold, because then it made his lady want to cuddle up close to him. Oh, Jamaicans.

After lunch, we did a bunch of shopping in the airport. We picked up a huge bottle of Havana Club and some high-end Appleton from the duty-free store, some Marcus Garvey dominoes from a souvenir shop, and got beverages for the flight. We then grabbed seats at the bar near our gate, and Matt went to use up his remaining $J to buy beers. He quickly learned that people don’t often use Jamaican currency at the airport, for some strange reason. We weren’t sure why, because it’s much cheaper that way, and you’re likely to have some left over.

While we were waiting for our flight to board, there was an announcement about one of the other Delta flights to NYC. The guy on the microphone said that the co-pilot was trying to point something out to the pilot on a map on a clipboard, and then there was a bump and his pen fell into the plane’s console. While that was probably harmless, there was the potential that the pen could get stuck in the mechanism that controlled the aircraft’s tail. Therefore they had to tear apart the console to find it, and they were very sorry for the delay. Those of us who were not flying to New York thought that was all incredibly hilarious.

After a while it was time to board, right around the time that Kris and Orsi were likely arriving at the airport from Negril. I was a zone ahead of Matt, so I took the duty-free rum box and boarded first so I could get a good spot in the overhead compartment. We had a two-seat row to ourselves, which was very comfortable indeed. The flight seemed to take forever to board, and we were held up well past our scheduled departure. People kept arriving from other flights, both the (eventually cancelled) New York one and others that were apparently delayed or cancelled due to bad weather in the southeastern US. Finally the plane was packed full, and we were on our way to Atlanta, still somehow close to on time.

Leaving Mobay, I could see the hotel and Scotchie’s from the air. (The hotel is the first large one up on the coast past the sandbar, a little below the middle of the photo. Scotchie’s is just south of the circular drive across the street from the hotel.)

About half an hour into the flight, we passed Cuba again! I could see a lot of detail of the farms from above.

We landed just a little late in Atlanta, and headed as fast as possible towards Customs and Immigration. I was glad to be toward the front of the flight, so we could get there before the rush. It’s about a 400-mile walk from that terminal to Customs, but we arrived to find no wait at all. The surly agent stamped our passports in invisible ink (seriously, I can’t find the stamp), and we headed to baggage claim to get our suitcases.

The bags were all latched shut with an industrial twist-tie, and we’d been instructed not to open them to put duty-free stuff inside. We carried it up to Customs, and I only got a little nervous about the drug dog sniffing around all the luggage, because he was so cute. The Customs guy took our form and didn’t even ask us anything, so we walked away reveling in yet another successful Cuban-contraband-smuggling effort. At the bag drop for connecting flights, one of the baggage handlers showed me how to remove the lock so I could put our rum inside. We sent our bags off with a little prayer that they’d make it to Minneapolis, and headed to the main terminal on the train to find some dinner.

We’d eaten at the Sam Adams Brewpub before, so we headed there and looked at the menu. We didn’t see a single vegetarian item on the list, so we proceeded down the concourse. I was pretty sure we were going to end up with fast food pizza for dinner, but then Matt decided to take a look at the TGI Friday’s menu. The last time I’d been in a TGI Friday’s (several years ago, at least), they also put meat on top of everything, but this menu actually had a few vegetarian items, including a really delicious-looking veggie burger. So we sucked up our pride (how snobby can you be in an airport, anyway?) and got a table.

Our super-awesome server brought us two gigantic mojitos, and then our meals. The veggie burger was indeed amazingly good. The Gophers were playing Indiana on many giant TVs around the restaurant, so we were happy.

I checked Facebook, and Orsi had sent a message that they were still in Montego Bay. We figured we’d be running into them in ATL since they were only an hour behind us, but apparently the storm had bumped everything back several hours. They were sitting around the airport, knowing that they’d be spending the night in Atlanta. We’d gotten really lucky!

We boarded the plane and took our spots in the exit row. My seat didn’t have an armrest, so it was gigantic and comfortable. Matt was stuck between me and a lady who snored, but at least she was nice about it. We couldn’t get ESPN on the seatback TV so we missed seeing the Gophers court storm, and didn’t even hear about it til the next day. Our flight back to MSP was uneventful, and our bags had indeed come along for the journey. I switched to wool socks and Keen sandals from my flipflops, put on a hoodie, and we went out to wait for my parents in the cold.

So we got back on the road. It was Heather’s turn again, so I pulled the pillow out of the back and managed to fall asleep pretty quickly. I awoke an hour or so later in rush-hour traffic outside Nashville, and was so sick to my stomach I wanted to die. Heather said she felt exactly the same way. We cursed the Waffle House for leading us astray.

It was around 7am, still to early for much of anything to be open, so we decided to find coffee. We were tired and punchy and nauseated. We found our way around the maze of university campuses to Bongo Java, and barely even noticed the Nun Bun as we ordered as much caffeine as possible. We sat out on the deck, squinting at the morning sun. I paged through the paper, providing insightful commentary which Heather skillfully ignored. We debated about whether it was acceptable for stores to not open until 10am in the civilized world. We made fun of the workmen across the street. Finally, we dragged our asses off the deck and back to the car, and drove into downtown Nashville.

We walked up and down Broadway, stopping into the horrible tacky souvenir shop we always stop into when we’re in town, even though half their merchandise is emblazoned with the rebel flag, and it never fails to piss me off. Then we went to see if the Charlie Daniels Museum was open. Unfortunately, it was not. By that time, our real destination, Hatch Show Print, was open, conveniently allowing us to spend our money and move on.

After that, there was more driving, which is all now a blur. We arrived in Lynchburg after a while, because Heather wanted to pick up some souvenirs in the cute little downtown. I wanted to stop in and say hi to Goose. So we ran into the distillery, and asked the woman at the counter (the very same woman who had been sitting there 6 months before, when we expressed our vast enthusiasm for Goose the first time) if he was working that day. She told me, with poorly-concealed pleasure, that he was not.

Sigh.

We drove some more, along these tiny winding roads through idyllic Tennessee backcountry. It was actually really pretty, and just added to my warm feelings towards that state (excepting the depressing shithole that is Chattanooga). We had been hoping to find lunch in Lynchburg, but the three restaurants there proudly featured 100% meat in all their dishes. On the way back to I-24, we went through the town of Cowan. As I drove past the mini-mainstreet, I saw the word ‘gourmet’ on the front of a building, and swung around the block to investigate.

The cafe was called the Goat Track Gourmet, and it was awesome. The woman who owned the place was working behind the counter, and she said they had been open for three months. They had plate lunches, which Heather and I were unaware of until we drove through the south: you pick an entree, then two sides from a wide and exciting array of options. I had spinach bread pudding with smoked gouda grits and sesame green beans. Everything was so good, we thought about maybe staying there forever, because what are the chances we’ll ever get back to Cowan, Tennessee?

We got back to I-24, and headed towards Atlanta. I was starting to fall asleep behind the wheel, resorting to slapping myself on the legs to stay awake. I pulled off at a rest area outside Chattanooga so we could switch. We staggered into the bathroom, and were sitting in stalls next to each other, in silent hysterics. I don’t even know why, other than that we were so exhausted we couldn’t stop laughing. Heather pretended she was crying, just to upset the other people in the bathroom. She was text messaging me from her phone; I had tears running down my face, and hearing her trying to not laugh out loud was just making me laugh even harder. I can’t imagine what the other women in that restroom were thinking.

Heather managed the rest of the drive, which is good, because I wouldn’t have made it. We were both so tired we wanted to vomit. Or maybe that was Waffle House. We got stuck in traffic for an hour outside Atlanta. I probably dozed off, woke up, promised myself not to doze off again, then dozed off twenty times or so. We got to the hotel around 5pm, and as fast as we possibly could, we jumped into bed and passed out.

I woke at 8pm, and got dressed so we could go out for dinner. Room service had nothing to offer me but grilled cheese, and after Waffle House, the thought of it made me want to cry. We did some quick investigation and decided to try and find our way to Buckhead, which I had heard had good restaurants. We found it easily, and decided on the Raja Indian restaurant. It wasn’t the best Indian food, but it was good, and prominently featured naan and paneer. We were happy.

We awoke at 9am and happily realized that neither of us felt sick to our stomachs anymore. On the way out of town, we stopped for coffee; all the Starbucks baristas were singing along with that Natalie Merchant song about getting older, and complaining about their pathetic barista lives. We took a detour to the town of Juliette, home of the Whistle Stop Cafe (of Fried Green Tomatoes fame). The residents are totally working it as far as the tourist trade goes, which is kind of amusing. All the shopkeepers are chatty and eccentric and cute. We considered maybe eating at the cafe, so went in to look at the menu. I looked down and saw a tableful of deep-fried food and I knew it wasn’t going to happen. So we continued on to Macon, Georgia, the location of our originally-planned lunch spot: Len Berg’s.

(And, yes, since you asked, we are the type of people who could consider Macon a destination.)

Len Berg’s is a bizarre little place. It’s in a small building in the alley behind the courthouse, and has been doing its thing for almost 50 years. It’s all about down-home cookin’, and it’s incredible.

We had discovered it in the AAA guide the last time we were in Georgia, and Heather has had recurring fantasies involving their biscuits and sweet tea ever since. They’re only open for ‘luncheon’ during the week. The kitchen is in the middle of the little building, with a lunch counter facing it. There’s a hallway on either side, and then dining rooms that branch out from there. The rooms are small and connect together like a maze. One of them has a large table with eight seats around it; another has two huge old creaking booths and nothing else. The seating is á la VFW post, cheap veneer tables and vinyl chairs. The waitress brought us the bread, which is amazing: buttermilk biscuits and little corn bread sticks. I asked her where the restrooms were located, and she gestured off towards the distance somewhere, saying, “through that door, you take a right and a right and a left and a left.”

The restaurant features classic southern cooking that you pick from a printed-daily menu. You can choose ‘lunch priced with two vegetables’; Heather ordered the baked stuffed pork chop (W) with fried fresh corn (Y) and country cole slaw (Z). I picked the vegetable plate, and selected my four vegetables: fried fresh corn (Y), country cole slaw (Z), tossed salad (S) with homemade bleu cheese dressing, and broccoli casserole (L). Worth noting: macaroni and cheese (M) is one of the vegetable options. I love the south.

The fried corn is sort of liked creamed corn, only with no cream. The bleu cheese dressing was the color of thousand island, but it was good anyway. My diet coke came in a tiny glass bottle. It was perfect.

Well, actually, the broccoli made me puke, but that was more my issue than theirs. Have I mentioned I’m fun to go out with? Yeah. Anyway, while I was in the bathroom, I could overhear the conversation in the eight-person room (which was a little disturbing, but still). There were a bunch of guys in there who obviously worked over at the courthouse, probably lawyers or judges. One of them was telling the others that for the last year, he had been exercising every day and trying to eat right and lose weight (what Len Berg’s had to do with eating right, I don’t know), because he had the new pacemaker. It occurred to me that everyone has their own personal struggle that nobody else knows about until they hear that person’s story. I mean, I know that should be obvious, but you don’t think about it. You go around thinking that your own life is this intense, gut-wrenching drama, and you envy other people’s simple, happy lives. And it’s not like that at all.

Back at the table, Heather was picking apart her peach cobbler and smiling about the people at the table behind her. It was a group in town for a conference, something about the needs of the blind. The women had the most stunning southern accents, stereotypically polite and genteel. One of the guys at the table was talking about how he helped set up a blind baseball league for kids in his county, and it was fascinating: he talked about the effect that success in sports had on the kids’ self-esteem and ability to function normally in school. Across the way, there was another old couple who had obviously been married since the beginning of time. They had ordered the exact same thing and were eating in silence. When the waitress visited their table, the woman would hold very lively conversations with her, then go back to dead silence when she left. Len Berg’s rules.

Leaving the restaurant, I again felt like crap, so Heather got to drive. I passed out for half an hour in the passenger seat, then felt like returning to the living. She informed me that I had missed the bamboo farm that I was intentionally looking out for, and then pointed out the hurricane evacuation crossovers that allow people to drive on both sides of the freeway while running for their lives. We figured those would probably be in use before long, since Hurricane Isabel was headed that way. At 2:50, I sighted my first seagull. We were getting near the ocean.

By 5pm, I was laying on the beach. I checked into the hotel and was instantly in love, once again, with Savannah. Or in this case, Tybee Island, but close enough. (Tybee island is on the Atlantic, 20 miles east of Savannah, across a series of bridges and causeways, and past miles of seagrass, turtle crossings, and palm trees.) The girl at the counter called me honey and sweetie and told me I was very striking. I swooned.

Our room was on the 4th floor overlooking the beach. We ran in, dumped all our stuff in the room, changed, smeared suntan lotion all over our pasty northern-european flesh, and went out to the beach. Heather went for a swim, which mostly meant standing about 10 feet into the water and getting knocked around by waves. I spread the blanket on the beach and laid down, meaning to read, as usual, but getting stuck just laying there instead. I pulled out the camera and took a picture of my viewpoint from the blanket. I called the parents to let them know we had arrived safely. They couldn’t believe how quickly we had gotten there, and I could hear my dad silently calculating driving times and speeds in his head, as usual. He highly disapproved of the fact that we had driven all night as well, of course. I told them about Atlanta and Macon and our early-morning visit to the Waffle House. Then my mom told me Johnny Cash had just died. That kind of dampened my enthusiasm for the beach.

I watched Heather’s head slowly bobbing south, and considered calling Alex in Miami to tell him to be on the lookout. I watched kids paragliding, and was a little jealous. Heather showed up after an hour or so, and we decided to go to dinner before we got sunburnt, then go back to the beach later.

We drove up to the other end of the beach, by the lighthouse, to a place we had eaten at on our last trips, the North Beach Grill. We had agreed it was one of those perfect moments: the ocean, the salt in the air, the wind, dinner on the beach. We sat out on the deck and ordered fried plantains with salsa. The Flying Sheephead Band was just warming up, a bluegrass trio with banjo, upright bass, and guitar. I ordered the veggie plate, which ended up being two black bean cakes, pineapple salsa, sweet potatoes (I can’t even describe how they were prepared, but they were the best thing I’d ever eaten in my life), and sugar snap peas. The band dedicated their set to the memory of Johnny Cash. The food was excellent and the weather was perfect. It was beautiful.

After dinner, we drove through the little neighborhood of bed & breakfasts and vacation rentals. Passing the pond in Jaycees Park, we saw a funny-looking duck standing there, so we got out to take a look. It turned out that she had a crowd of ducklings, and they all came dashing towards us as we approached. We resolved to come back the next day with something to feed them. I also noticed as we were leaving that the cicadas there near the ocean are unbelievably loud. When I’m walking at Lake Harriet, talking on the phone, and a plane passes overhead, I have to stop talking for a minute because of the noise; it’s kind of the same thing with the cicadas there. Crazy.

We drove back to the other end of the strip, and decided to go all the way to the south end to see what was there. Tybee Island is the typical beach resort town, although it’s still fairly unspoiled: there are a few tacky beach shops and convenience stores, and the obligatory motels and little cafes. But it’s no Virginia Beach; it’s uncrowded and friendly and nice.

We drove three blocks past our hotel and found the end of Highway 80, and a block and a half of little shops and restaurants. We went into a couple stores, which had everything on end-of-season clearance. Heather saw Ben & Jerry’s, so we stopped in, and discovered that their flavor of the month was sugar-free blueberry. Yay!

On the way back to the car, we saw an old guy come out of his shop, lean over and hock a huge gob of spit on the curb, then go back inside. Apart from that, the night was beautiful. We took our ice cream back to the hotel and sat out on our balcony, staring at the ocean. Then we went back downstairs and walked down to the pier. Apart from the wind, the weather was perfect, and we could see a million stars. There were probably 20 guys out there fishing in the dark. We went back down to the beach, took off our shoes, and walked all the way down to the south end, where it was pitch black and signs were warning us not to do something, but we couldn’t read them. There were kids scrambling around the beach catching crabs, and people strolling slowly, being in love. The tide was coming in, and we waded in the surf, my pants legs getting soaked for the second time that day. When we got back to our room, the moon had just come up. I watched Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash playing ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ on VH1. We decided to sleep with the patio door open so we could hear the sound of the ocean.