Just another week in the south

I had this romantic idea of our car breaking down somewhere in the desert, forcing us to walk for miles and miles, until we ran out of water. Well, the car broke down at a big parking lot outside a Wal-Mart. The ride with the tower was a good experience though. He was a big Nice Inch Nails fan, and I got to hear the latest album at a freakishly high volume.

This was yesterday. A week ago or so, we stayed in a house in midtown Memphis. We never really understood who lived in this house. It was some sort of art hippie vegan community type thing, where people just seemed to come and go. You know the type: drawings and poetry on the walls, some old wheelchair as improvised furniture, some old sofa from a dumpster out on the porch. We brought bourbon and nachos, and so we were much welcomed. Also, we installed a shower and ripped out the floor from a room where a new guy was to live together with a bunch of robots. He was a robotics artist hoping to get to Hollywood working with robotic special effects.

In Alabama, we stayed with Curt and Salina. Both of them being white water freaks, we went for a two day trip to the Appalachians. Day one was white water kayaking, day two was rafting. Kayaking is really lots cooler than rafting. Rafting, as our guide put it, is like running down the stream in a Cadillac.

After a night with the mechanics, the car works fine now, and it took us down to Panama City, Florida, with no problems. Although we did get stopped by the police, who thought that we were drug dealers and interrogated us for 15 minutes. Fortunately, we're not drug dealers, so we finally got out of it.