The Deep South Road Trip 2024
Day 0
All the best ideas start with a stupid idea, or maybe all the best ideas are indeed stupid ideas. This one took a little while to gestate but it was fully worth it.
It all began in March. I went to see a band called Yard Act at Rock City in Nottingham. I like Yard Act a lot. It was an awesome gig. If you are unfamiliar with their work you can check out their “breakthrough” track Overload
And indeed my current favorite track (a standalone single) Trench Coat Museum
I posted on Facebook about this and an American chum of mine David responded that he had checked out this band, thanks for the intro, amazing stuff. My work here is done, end of story, right?
Erm, no.
A couple of weeks later I get a message from David “Yard Act are doing a US tour”
“You should definitely go see them, they are awesome live”
“I’ve got tickets. I got you one too”
Well now.
You may remember David is my Anglophile friend who I bought a Rover 620 for last year and he shipped it over. The plan emerged that we would drive up to the gig in the Rover and make a little trip of it.
Where are we seeing them? Washington DC.
“David, you live in Atlanta. My geography isn’t great but I don’t recall that being especially close to Washington DC.”
“About 650 miles if we take the direct route, which we won’t. Probably 3 days drive each way?”
AMERICAN ROAD TRIP!!!
In a 25 year old Rover….
So my friend has spent $15 on a gig ticket for some dive bar so it’s the least I can do to fly transatlantic to go see…. I booked time off work, I cashed in my airmiles (thank you work!) and booked a flight out.
2 weeks ahead of the trip some of the worst storms to hit that coast line hit that coastline. Parts of Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina were trashed. A colleague who lives out that way spent 3 days hiding out in her basement. Crazy times. I was concerned. David was down at his family home in St Augustine which was central to one of the storms. I was concerned for his safety as well as his ability to get back to Georgia to meet me off the flight! He made it the day before I flew out.
I was chatting to him, asking about the plans for the trip “I’ll pick you up at the airport when you arrive”
“and from there?”
“Well, we take it as it comes.”
“We haven’t booked any hotels or anything”
“no, best not to, no idea what kind of devastation there will be so we will just stop where we find places, it’ll be fine”
It will be fine. Famous last words? Or the voice of justified confidence?
So I drove down to Heathrow in the rattly old Fiesta of Doom (due to work trips it made 3 return trips to Heathrow in about as many weeks!) and jumped my flight and before too long was touching down in Atlanta.
You will learn many* fun facts, much as I did. Who knew that Atlanta is the world’s busiest airport? An astounding 104 million people arrived / departed there in 2023.
I also need to retract something I have said long and loud over may years. Namely that American airport employees are the most obnoxious and officious and aggressive anywhere (and I have been to Russia, China and Saudi Arabia). The folks at Atlanta were absolutely fine. The process was a little slow, but hey, US immigration, right? But they were nice. Nobody lost my luggage and I met David outside with the Rover
What a greeting!
The Rover is still on UK plates as you can see. This is because David managed to persuade Georgia DMV to issue the same number as a sort of personalised plate and he has a set of proper Georgia plates with the same number on, usually propped up in the windows.
I have never been to Atlanta before, other than transiting though the airport there, so it was interesting to see the city. Much like my experience of the immigration guys I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of things on this trip, and Atlanta was one of them.
First things first though, it was about midnight and I was feeling rough after the flight, maybe hungry but because of the time difference my body was unclear as to what meal it was after. David suggested a Waffle House. I’d never been, and this made it even more imperative! Waffle House is a “Georgia thing”. I asked if they would still be open and was told that its actually a measure of how bad a disaster is as to if the Waffle House has closed. Not a joke.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
This is youre second fun* fact!
So I rolled up and ordered a hash brown bowl. The server asked what I wanted to drink. I didn’t want caffeine at that time of night so I would sleep. I asked “what do you have?” and David pointed out “they don’t serve Alcohol” but before I could say I definitely didn’t want any the server popped in a cheery
“Sir, I have a little something in my car. I can pour you one out….”
Apparently that is “peak Waffle House experience”
I had orange juice. Safe choice
Made it back to David’s about 12:30am or so. David is an interesting car guy, his correct collection is a mix. Obviously he has the Rover, but also a X300 series Jaguar Sovereign, a Mercedes of a SUV type I don’t recognise, an electric Smart Car and also a Tesla which is his wife’s car. He also (like me) has inherited an older Japanese modern car from his mum (some form of Honda). He has a background of VW stuff, aircooled type.
“Whats the plan for tomorrow?” I asked
“When you wake up, we get in the car, find breakfast and then take it from there”
My kind of plan. It has breakfast….
So the next week was to be a ride and a half. We would encounter a Latino biker, 2 fire departments, a Navy Seal and a deep dive into my own family history and Armish breakfast…. As well as a whole host of car spotting and more.
Sneak preview...
Day 0
All the best ideas start with a stupid idea, or maybe all the best ideas are indeed stupid ideas. This one took a little while to gestate but it was fully worth it.
It all began in March. I went to see a band called Yard Act at Rock City in Nottingham. I like Yard Act a lot. It was an awesome gig. If you are unfamiliar with their work you can check out their “breakthrough” track Overload
And indeed my current favorite track (a standalone single) Trench Coat Museum
I posted on Facebook about this and an American chum of mine David responded that he had checked out this band, thanks for the intro, amazing stuff. My work here is done, end of story, right?
Erm, no.
A couple of weeks later I get a message from David “Yard Act are doing a US tour”
“You should definitely go see them, they are awesome live”
“I’ve got tickets. I got you one too”
Well now.
You may remember David is my Anglophile friend who I bought a Rover 620 for last year and he shipped it over. The plan emerged that we would drive up to the gig in the Rover and make a little trip of it.
Where are we seeing them? Washington DC.
“David, you live in Atlanta. My geography isn’t great but I don’t recall that being especially close to Washington DC.”
“About 650 miles if we take the direct route, which we won’t. Probably 3 days drive each way?”
AMERICAN ROAD TRIP!!!
In a 25 year old Rover….
So my friend has spent $15 on a gig ticket for some dive bar so it’s the least I can do to fly transatlantic to go see…. I booked time off work, I cashed in my airmiles (thank you work!) and booked a flight out.
2 weeks ahead of the trip some of the worst storms to hit that coast line hit that coastline. Parts of Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina were trashed. A colleague who lives out that way spent 3 days hiding out in her basement. Crazy times. I was concerned. David was down at his family home in St Augustine which was central to one of the storms. I was concerned for his safety as well as his ability to get back to Georgia to meet me off the flight! He made it the day before I flew out.
I was chatting to him, asking about the plans for the trip “I’ll pick you up at the airport when you arrive”
“and from there?”
“Well, we take it as it comes.”
“We haven’t booked any hotels or anything”
“no, best not to, no idea what kind of devastation there will be so we will just stop where we find places, it’ll be fine”
It will be fine. Famous last words? Or the voice of justified confidence?
So I drove down to Heathrow in the rattly old Fiesta of Doom (due to work trips it made 3 return trips to Heathrow in about as many weeks!) and jumped my flight and before too long was touching down in Atlanta.
You will learn many* fun facts, much as I did. Who knew that Atlanta is the world’s busiest airport? An astounding 104 million people arrived / departed there in 2023.
I also need to retract something I have said long and loud over may years. Namely that American airport employees are the most obnoxious and officious and aggressive anywhere (and I have been to Russia, China and Saudi Arabia). The folks at Atlanta were absolutely fine. The process was a little slow, but hey, US immigration, right? But they were nice. Nobody lost my luggage and I met David outside with the Rover
What a greeting!
The Rover is still on UK plates as you can see. This is because David managed to persuade Georgia DMV to issue the same number as a sort of personalised plate and he has a set of proper Georgia plates with the same number on, usually propped up in the windows.
I have never been to Atlanta before, other than transiting though the airport there, so it was interesting to see the city. Much like my experience of the immigration guys I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of things on this trip, and Atlanta was one of them.
First things first though, it was about midnight and I was feeling rough after the flight, maybe hungry but because of the time difference my body was unclear as to what meal it was after. David suggested a Waffle House. I’d never been, and this made it even more imperative! Waffle House is a “Georgia thing”. I asked if they would still be open and was told that its actually a measure of how bad a disaster is as to if the Waffle House has closed. Not a joke.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
This is youre second fun* fact!
So I rolled up and ordered a hash brown bowl. The server asked what I wanted to drink. I didn’t want caffeine at that time of night so I would sleep. I asked “what do you have?” and David pointed out “they don’t serve Alcohol” but before I could say I definitely didn’t want any the server popped in a cheery
“Sir, I have a little something in my car. I can pour you one out….”
Apparently that is “peak Waffle House experience”
I had orange juice. Safe choice
Made it back to David’s about 12:30am or so. David is an interesting car guy, his correct collection is a mix. Obviously he has the Rover, but also a X300 series Jaguar Sovereign, a Mercedes of a SUV type I don’t recognise, an electric Smart Car and also a Tesla which is his wife’s car. He also (like me) has inherited an older Japanese modern car from his mum (some form of Honda). He has a background of VW stuff, aircooled type.
“Whats the plan for tomorrow?” I asked
“When you wake up, we get in the car, find breakfast and then take it from there”
My kind of plan. It has breakfast….
So the next week was to be a ride and a half. We would encounter a Latino biker, 2 fire departments, a Navy Seal and a deep dive into my own family history and Armish breakfast…. As well as a whole host of car spotting and more.
Sneak preview...
Ax GTi Turbo
