Day 1 - Nashville. What a day. Lawd.

Day 1 - Made it to Nashville. Good Lord, if the rest of the trip is like yesterday, I’ma be dead in two weeks.

I left Hillsborough at 10AM, and mom made sure to pack me a couple of sausage biscuits for the road. Momma always knows best! After a few “Watch out for the deer”s and hugs from mom and dad, I was off. The first thing I did once I merged onto I-40 was play Johnny Cash’s “Wanderer”, cranked as loud as it could go. My journey had begun, yes lawd.

After a couple hours of driving I stopped in Taylorsville, NC to meet “The Incredible Bulk” (Josh Fortner) for lunch. We met at a gas station, then I followed Bulk to Scotz Barbecue in Taylorsville for some grub. It was great catching up with Bulk. Things seem to be going well at the sawmill and he's happily married, so things are good. Before we left I got the waitress to take a picture of us (see above).

The next portion of my drive took me through the Appalachian Mountains – which really would’ve not been a big deal, except that the construction gods were not smiling on me. But the construction delays did allow me to eat those two sausage biscuits while I waited – yum. Once I finally got to Knoxville, though, the skies opened up. I darted through torrential downpours the last 150 miles of the trip. I finally pulled into Sean’s apartment complex at 7:00 central time, after an extended 10 hour journey.

I then settled in and watched the Carolina Hurricanes whoop up on the Sabres and make it to the Stanley Cup finals (Go Canes!!!). Afterwards, Sean and I went out to some bars. Since Sean had to wake up early for work today, he drove and let me do some drinking. Oh lawd. We had a few drinks at an Irish Pub (that had a complete dearth of Irish people – but it did have reasonably priced Harp, which was nice), and it was good catching up with #1 Homie. After an hour or so, we left the pub and stopped by the bar next door that had live music. I swear, the guys in the band at this place looked like leftovers from A Flock of Seagulls, complete with teased hair and earrings. But I liked the songs they were covering, so it was alright. They butchered a few songs, and I had a few bourbons.

After a trash rendition “Friends in Low Places”, the band’s singer then called up some guy from the audience to come on stage to sing Hank Jr’s “Family Tradition”. When this guy got on stage, all the girls, and dudes with teased hair, in the bar went crazy. Sean then informed me that this guy was apparently famous – his name is John Rich. Sean was like “you know, from Big and Rich…” I was like “no, never heard of them…” But yeah, this John Rich guy is some famous country singer/songwriter/producer. He wrote and sang that “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy” song, which he performed at the bar last night as well. I had heard that song before, so that was cool. Too bad I didn’t have my camera, ‘cause a picture of me with a country music superstar would’ve been a good way to start my trip. I probably would’ve made one of my patented camera faces for the picture, which would’ve been freaking priceless. Of course, there were too many girls trying to get pictures with him anyway, and I was too drunk to really appreciate it. Oh well.

But this was not the highlight of the night, no, not even close. After we left this bar, Sean took me to his favorite Nashville dive, The Villager Tavern. It’s like Nashville’s Bob & Barbara’s, but without the PBR/Beam special. At the Villager, Sean and I met the most absurd drunk ever – I mean, even “Dirty Dirty” Tim Rice, or Tripp Lane, in their rarest of forms, couldn’t compare to this guy. His name was Nate, and he was about our age and was wearing typical southern frat attire, so he didn’t come off as crazy when we first sat down next to him. But as soon as he started trying to pull his trigger while sitting at the bar (pull his trigger = induce vomiting), I knew better. I mean, I was ripped, but this dude took the cake. He successfully pulled his trigger (Sean and I jumped back, then began laughing hysterically), then he began high fiving us. He kept doing this thing where he’d put his fist up, I’d touch his fist, then he’d pull has hand back and say “BOOM!” real loud. It was his calling card. BOOM! Then at one point I accidentally spilt some beer on my jeans and mentioned that it looked like I’d pissed my pants. Nate then said “hey, it’s cool to pee your pants!” like in Happy Gilmore. And no shit, he then starting pissing in his pants. As soon as I saw a stream of yellow come out the bottom of his shorts and onto his flip-flops, I got up and left. I hadn’t laughed so hard in years. This dude actually pissed his freaking pants, intentionally, at the bar. Sean then came outside and informed me that Nate had actually attempted to piss ON THE BAR after I’d walked out laughing, and that’s when Sean decided this shit was just too surreal and it was time to go home.

So I got to bed around 3:00AM central, what a day. Drove 530 miles, saw the Bulk, watched the ‘Canes kick ass, hollered at Sean, got drunk, saw a country superstar up close, and saw a guy vomit and piss (both intentionally) while sitting at a bar. And only 34 more days of my trip left.