I woke up in the tent to the pitter patter of raindrops. Normally I would be delighted but my tent isn’t exactly waterproof. It was only barely drizzling at first, however I quickly remembered that my tripod was outside! I scurried out of the tent to put it in the trunk of my car and I returned to sleep.

About an hour later I woke up again to what sounded like a firehose pounding every side of the tent. I immediately checked all my belongings to make sure they weren’t soaked.

“Louie! Louie do you hear this??”

Louie woke up and seemed rather unimpressed by the torrential downpour, but I imagine he was just in a haze after just opening his eyes. We stayed in the tent for a little while to see if we could wait out the storm. Well that storm was in no hurry to leave. Once we started to feel more and more rainwater permeate the tent walls we decided we needed to act.

We started shoving all of our belongings into our packs as fast as we could. Once we were packed it was a race to get everything into the car, including the tent. Chaos I tell you!

The car, once so thoughtfully organized with our gear was now just a haphazard collection of damp clothes. Might I also mention that when we had first arrived at the campground, louie constructed a clothesline for his hand washed clothes. Well lets just say that they were rewashed.

We got in the car, which was presumably still in disrepair, and I held my breath as i turned the key. The check engine light was off! Hooray! We peeled out of the campground and started on the road.

Louie had been dealing with a sore throat for the last few days and this morning he felt particularly ill. For this reason we had to seek out the nearest urgent care in order to prevent him from getting any sicker, or worse, getting me sick!

We stopped in Bryson City, NC for the checkup. Louie was in and out, they said it wasn’t serious so we just bought some vitamin c and hydrogen peroxide.

After that we went to a BoJangles for a terribly greasy “breakfast”. I had this sorry excuse for an egg sandwich and louie got a full chicken dinner…

After clogging our arteries we hit the road, Nashville bound. It would only take us about 4 hours. On the way there it was still pouring rain for the fist hour or two. I would normally be bothered by driving in the rain but it made for some really cool looking fog hanging on the mountains.

After the storm passed the temperature shot up about 20 degrees and the landscape transformed.

We were driving for about another 30 mins or so when we pulled over so that I could snap a picture of the view. In doing so we realized we were parked right next to a trail head.

A quick hike? Why the hell not.

We got on a 2 mile trail and walked through some dense woods that led us under a massive bridge and over a river, it was a great chance to break up the car ride. During the hike I saw a snake wriggle between my feet and it gave me this childlike excitement that I haven’t had in a long time.

I squealed, “LOUIE LOOK A SNAKE!!” as if I had never seen one in person before. It only took a week and a half of not living on social media for me to appreciate silly things like gardener snakes and butterflies.

I heard a man in a TN Walmart say. "Don't worry, we have two 18 packs of Mountain Dew, we are good to go." Lord have mercy...

After our hike we got back in the car and kept going. Before we knew it we were entering Nashville. Driving hundreds of miles through farmland and suddenly seeing a skyline appear on the horizon had this effect on me, like hiking in the backcountry for 15 miles and seeing a lake in the distance. “Water! There’s water over there!”.

We stopped at a Super 8 to get a room since there weren’t many safe places in the city for us to sleep in the car. After checking in and loading the room with our stuff we went to see the strip that I’ve heard so much about.

The strip in Nashville looks like if you took Huntington village and painted it with neon, filled it with country music, and stuck it somewhere inside Manhattan. I say that because Nashville is full of skyscrapers like any other major city, but the strip doesn’t seem to have buildings much taller than 4 stories.

I reached out to my peers via social media as to where we should have dinner and I received a bounty of recommendations. We drove into the city from our motel and payed a whopping $20 to park the car in a lot for 3 hours. That meant we’d have to be back at the car at 9:55pm. We attempted to get dinner at ACME Feed & Seed, a popular restaurant and music venue on the strip, but it was packed to the gills. We decided to check out Jacks BBQ, a tried and true BBQ joint at the other end of the strip, recommended to me by Erin Lasorsa. Well thank you Erin for that because that had to be some of the best BBQ i’ve ever had in my life. I spent $26 on brisket, ribs, pork shoulder, mac n cheese, mashed potatoes, a beer, and a slice of brownie pie.

Just before sitting down at the booth to chow down I hear someone say “John!”

Who the hell here knows who I am? Do I have friends in Nashville? I turned around and there were 4 young women sitting at the booth across from me, all staring at me with these surprised looks on their faces.

“Uhhh.. Hey? I’m sorry… Do I know you guys?” I said with a look of confusion.

They started to laugh and this one woman who I’d later learn was named Julie said “Wait, are you really a John?”

“Yeah I’m John.” I said.

“Are you a photographer?” she said.

I had my camera hanging off my shoulder so she was just guessing, I assumed.

“Uhhh yeah, wait who are you guys?”, I responded.

One of Julie’s friends said, “Wait we don’t believe you, we want to see your license!”

What the hell is going on here?? I wasn’t afraid to show them my license, so I did.

They all started laughing and exclaiming that they couldn’t believe I was John.

“What’s this all about?” I said laughing.

Julie, who was half way in the bag it seemed, went on to explain that she had been trying to start conversations with strangers all night by attempting to guess their names just as she did to me, except I was the first person she actually assumed correctly on. She was so excited to have guessed right. We started to have some funny conversation and learned that they were all from Massachusetts. I asked Julie to take a picture of Louie and I since we hadn’t had a proper photo yet. She obliged.

After saying farewell to those friendly drunk tourists, we began to dig into our food. It was unreal.

After the meal I had to get some of their BBQ sauce so that I could share it with my Dad, as well as send a bottle to Erin since none of that would’ve happened if she hadn’t referred the restaurant to me.

After leaving Jacks we wandered up and down the strip before checking the time to see if we should head back. My phone read 9:30 and Louie’s phone read 8:30. Shit. Either we risk getting a ticket or lose an hour on the strip. We were both starting to feel the effects of the BBQ being absorbed into our bloodstream and decided we were sleepy enough to call it a day.

We got back to the motel and immediately discovered it was only 9:00. My phone was still in NY time. Eh, not a big deal, we were ready to pass out anyway. We stayed up together for a little while longer before Louie passed out. I was up until 3am typing up the events of the past 2 days.

What a day. I still think about that brisket.