A few days ago I flew + Uber’d to Mount Airy, NC, home of Andy Griffith and model for his television show’s town, to purchase a vehicle from a guy named Joey whom I met via Craigslist. After being dropped off at his house in apparently the middle of nowhere, we went on a quick test drive with the car, and then took a site-seeing trip through town, passing Andy’s statue, his house, the ‘world’s largest open-face granite quarry’, Snappy Lunch, some old fashioned cop cars which are used to give tours, the local swimming facilities, etc, to eventually visit the local notary lady (at her home on the weekend) and her aged father for the title transfer. Pops had just bought a compact Nissan truck and was proud, and had just hauled 7 loads of free wood down from a guy up the way, and was going to use it to burn in his water-heating furnace, etc. I then drove west to the small town of Robbinsville, NC where I had booked a deluxe-king + living room jacuzzi suite (worth it) in a cheap hotel. On the way, got yelled at by a proud American grandpa vet in the parking lot of a Whole Foods in Asheville, NC for annoying him with noise + fumes while idling the car waiting for the turbo to cool. After a night’s rest, visited Smoky Mountain redneck touge 
峠 Mecca “The Tail of the Dragon” + “Cherohala Skyway”: got held up by some motor homes, chased by a guy on the Skyway in a modified Bronco with a kayak in the back, failed to keep up with this one old dad with his very small daughter on the back of his bike, etc., and drove the very boring ~1,000 miles back to Houston over the next two days while listening to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle audiobook trying not to relate to its anime too much.
Snacks consumed while driving
- 3 32oz. bottles of water
- 2 travel mugs of gyokuru brought from home and brewed with hotel coffee pot water
- 1 Starbucks Tazo Venti Cloud Mist green tea
- 1 cup of Sparkling Dasani Lemon + Lime from touchscreen robot fountain
- 1 cup of McDonald’s ice water
- 1/3 8oz bag of Kettle brand Sour Cream + Onion potato chips
- 1 small packet of Strawberry + Chia chewy fruit cubes
- 1 Hot + Spicy McChicken
- 1 Medium McDonald’s french fries
- 1 Five Guys double-patty with only BBQ sauce + lettuce
- 1 Chicken schwarama-ish wrap thing made by a teenager in a business next to Starbucks
Snacks consumed while stationary
- 1 $6 packet of 8 Whole Foods 365 Everyday Value ham slices
- 1/3 8oz bag of Kettle brand Sour Cream + Onion potato chips (on hotel couch)
- 1/3 8oz bag of Kettle brand Sour Cream + Onion potato chips (in hotel in-room jacuzzi)
- 1 chunk of white firm english-y cheese
- 1 container of organic blackberries
- 1 small cup of Wolfgang Puck airport chicken noodle soup
- 1 Trader Joe’s knockoff Kind almond bar thing
- 0 airplane granola bars (all stolen by greedy passengers in preceding rows)
- 3 Empty Waffle House @ 11pm in front of La Quinta’s egg whites
- 1 Empty Waffle House @ 11pm in front of La Quinta’s hashbrown mounds
- 2 Empty Waffle House @ 11pm in front of La Quinta’s sausage patties
- 2 Empty Waffle House @ 11pm in front of La Quinta’s triangles of raisin toast + apple butter
