Days 3 -6: Nashville to Niceville to the HLC

Hey everyone!  Hope you’ve all made it to your destinations and are ready to get started tomorrow!

This trip began on Thursday when I left Nashville to go see my good friend from high school, RT, who lives in Niceville, FL - just north of Destin (which is unbelievable by the way…I’ll get into that later).  In the interest of brevity, I’m going to just list some things I noticed on my way down I-65 through Tennessee and Alabama:

1.      Tennessee is awesome…can’t comment on the people because I didn’t talk to any, but that state has some serious scenery.

2.       Alabama is the antithesis of Tennessee, if you’re looking for more shredded tires than you’ve ever seen in your life and a slew of vacant Subway’s, this is your state. (Note: the largest man I’ve ever see in person resides in this state…didn’t catch his name, but wow!)

3.       Florida has palm trees and the softest white sand in the world…seriously, find a way to get yourself to Destin…you won’t regret it

7 hours after my trip began, I found myself in Niceville!  Since the first night was mostly filled with conversation we’ll skip ahead:  The next day, RT and I decided to go for some sushi at a restaurant that was voted “best sushi” in Destin (which might not sound like much, but let me assure you…this place was unreal) Half-way through our meal, one of the servers came over to alert us that Emeril Lagasse was in the building! (the “BAM!” guy…obviously…) This resulted in a mass exodus to the “bathroom” and one patron’s painful attempt to take a picture of him while acting like she was on the phone…it wouldn’t have been so bad, but the girl left her flash on… With sushi behind us, we made our way to Baytowne which is a resort-like part of Destin/Sandestin that has a very New Orleans-type vibe (Note: I loved it). 

After some time out on the town, I got hungry and decided I needed to try Whataburger (worth it!).  The only problem is that I needed to get a cab, and in Baytowne, the cabs are incredibly over-priced…for instance, it costs $30 to travel 4 miles (which was the round-trip distance between the resort and Whataburger).  This would have made me more upset, but my cabby was an absolute juggernaut!  He wore a cowboy hat and referred to himself as “Slick” (I thought was a joke until we arrived at Whataburger and every employee knew him…and called him “Slick”).  On top of all of this, Slick had a little road rage…which I can appreciate.  He yelled at the guy ahead of us in the drive-thru line to get out of our way and “move his ass.”  Things escalated quickly when the driver stepped out and challenged Slick to make good on a threat of violence…nothing happened, but I’ve never seen fast food employees move that quickly.  (Side note: the guy in front of us drove an H2, couldn’t have been taller than 5’4” and had a lady in the front seat who stepped out of his SUV squinting at us and yelling: “ya’ll better watch what you say to my man!”… I don’t think he had a lot going for him).  It was the most entertaining trip to Whataburger ever!, and since it was my one and only trip to Whataburger, I’m assuming that this is all just a part of the experience.

The next day, RT had to work so I wandered around town for a few hours.  I stopped in and had an unbelievable Crab and Artichoke pizza at a local pizzeria then went into a bar to grab a couple drinks and watch some TV to pass the time.  When I arrived at the bar, I ordered a gin and tonic which I was told cost $8.75 (this was well gin…a little pricey you ask me, but I’m on vacation so what the hell).  The bartender was very conversational and casually mentioned to me that he was gay...he didn’t need to tell me…let’s just say I gained an appreciation for what women go through when they’re being hit on and aren’t into it.  (Note: I also got the majority of my drinks paid for so I guess I can’t complain…the whole bill was only $16.00 and I had a few more than 2 G&T’s…not bad!).  After a few hours RT got off of work and we decided to head out and go to some local places.  Again, after some time on the town, I became hungry…so we walked to Waffle House.  I can’t be sure, but I’m 99% positive that the heavens opened up after my first bite of bacon…I had a moment.  Say what you want to about Waffle House, but at the end of the night, I was full and happy.  I also found out that I know more Spanish that I thought…our server spoke mostly Spanish so we had a broken conversation with each other and made fun of a near-by guest…great night.  I spent the night sleeping on a couch at RT’s girlfriend’s place (and by sleeping I mean waking up every 2 hours because the cats kept walking on me…stressful)

Today, on almost no sleep and a pounding headache, I began the trip from Niceville to the HLC (House-Lady Compound).  As I did above, I’ll just list some of my observations:

1.       Thank God for Little Caesars and their hastily made $5 large pizzas.

2.       The panhandle of Florida is in the Central Time Zone…this will never make sense to me

Made it to the HLC around 7:45 pm (after the time change) and I was/am exhausted.  The HLC is beautiful and House-Lady seems to be really cool.  Should be a great situation for the next 5 months!  Tomorrow is the first day of work which means that my favorite summer ever is officially over…it was a great run!  I’ll probably have a post tomorrow to report how everything went.  If anyone has a great first-day story, let me know and we’ll make that the first “Story-Corner Thursday” story. G’Night!

Day 2: Kansas City to the Music City

Today’s trip wasn’t all that eventful, but (as usual) I have a few things I want to mention:

After an uneventful departure from KC, we decided to fill up 150 miles later in Columbia, MO.  Thirty seconds after I begin filling up for gas, a nice young man comes up to me and asks me if I’m interested in going to “an event” tonight in Columbia.  Before anyone gets too excited, this kid looked like he’d just left the Jehovah’s Witness meeting that had taken place in his parent’s basement and was told to approach the first 5 people he saw…and I was one of them.  After I explained to him that I would not be in Columbia and therefore didn’t want to take the invitation away from another, more available patron, he handed me some light reading by the titles of “the Truth and what they’re not telling you” and “Hell awaits the sinner”… (Now, at this point I hesitated and thought to myself: “I should just go to this meeting so I’ll have some fodder for the blog” Then I thought to myself: “This conspiracy theorist radical evangelical group might kill me after my first facetious comment and sacrifice my remains…better not…”) I responded with my thanks and then watched as he approached CM (I was giddy at this point, but unfortunately she just accepted the invitation and nothing happened…worst case)

Just passed Columbia, there is a little town called Lindbergh which I stopped in last year on my way back to Omaha from StL.  In this gas station the bathrooms are selling “Samurai Condoms” which claim to have “ninja strength.” Why any guy would be excited to buy a condom that implies anything that isn’t seen is beyond me, but for 25 cents it’s yours!

Next stop was in Mt. Vernon, IL where they are apparently no longer serving water products due to the flooding that’s taken place.  I would have been a little more upset if not for two things: 1.) they still served us beer and 2.) This town is home to 4 young boys who drive a Kia SOUL that asked CM…by flashing a sign in the car window…if she “wanted to F%#@”  (Note: she didn’t)

So while I’m still laughing hysterically from the previous events, we made our way a little farther East and South to Metropolis, IL which has the vaunted claim to fame of having the world’s largest Superman statue.  If not for my general disdain for DC Comics (and Southern IL), I would have stopped and taken a picture for our friend Bubs.

After exiting the Land of Lincoln, we found ourselves in “Kentucky: Unbridled Spirit” (lame slogan).  Call me crazy, but I didn’t realize how far NORTH Kentucky is.  It borders Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana…why are they considered a southern state?  Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed…Also, there wasn’t any blue grass to be found…if anything, it was more green than Southern Illinois

(Note: Southern Illinois is no good...for anything…It’s equivalent to Eastern Colorado (for those of you who aren’t privy, Eastern Colorado is akin to the 7^th level of Hell))

The day ended with us eating at Chili’s in Brentwood, TN (it should be noted that we ate at Chili’s twice today…how dare you judge!) and CM complaining that the Walmart’s in Tennessee are not all-purpose stores.  They are, in fact, grocery stores that don’t sell anything other than what you might find at your local Safeway.  Stress is quite low (mostly due to Chili’s Original Honey Chipotle Crispy Chicken Fingers) so I guess that’s all for today!  Tomorrow I travel through Alabama by myself! Hopefully I’ll have a few people watching experiences to share.  I’ll try to blog tomorrow, but I meet up with my friend in Florida tomorrow and might just skip posting anything until later in the week.  As always, any delay in a post will result in a 

longer, more entertaining post later so don’t fret. 

Bis später!

Day 1: The Plattsmouth Debacle

Welcome one and all to the new blog!!!  As I’ve done before, I will use this venue to tell the stories that I encounter while on my clinical rotation.  This adventure will take place in Homosassa, FL (for the most part…we’ll see how this thing evolves as you all give me your input).  There will be a post everyday as I travel down to Florida, but after that the posts will become a little more random (probably settling in at 2-3 posts per week).  Thursday (formerly “Rebuttal Thursday”) will now be “Story of the Week Thursday” where I will share a story that one of you gives me from your own clinical experiences.  Other nuances to the blog will come along as this thing evolves…no sense in limiting it to rules right now.  Without further adieu, today’s post:

Today’s trip had its fate sealed yesterday when, while I was getting my hair cut at SportsClips, CM and LS (BACKGROUND: CM and LS are female classmates of mine, and yes, we’re back to using initials instead of names) walked in to say good bye.  The following conversation went something like this:

CM: “Would you be willing to wait a day so we could caravan?”

Me: “Sure”

CM: “YAY!!! I didn’t want to drive all by myself, and you’re probably better at navigating”

In hindsight, the last statement should have been replaced with: “Zach, are you good at navigating?” (Note: I’m not)

So we began our trip at 2 pm this afternoon, both of us excited to get on the road and neither of us aware of how to get to KC (I know what you’re thinking...and it’s not funny).  But we had our navigation systems on and some makeshift directions from CM’s uncle…so we thought we were good.  A little ways down the road, most of the cars on the freeway pulled off at an exit…we looked around and wondered why so many cars wanted to head to Glenwood, IA (of course we don’t stop…) Realizing we missed the boat, we took the next exit and decided we would just turn around back-track to the detour.  As it turns out, there is no way to get back on the interstate once you’ve exited in the wrong spot…there is nothing left to do but take a random highway towards Plattsmouth, NE. Why Plattsmouth you ask? We headed toward Plattsmouth under this sound logic from CM: “I think we went through Plattsmouth last time I went to KC…”  not promising…

We get to Plattsmouth (which is bigger than you might think by the way), but not before paying a toll (yes a toll!!) to cross a random bridge.  It should be said that this bridge has no business being a toll bridge.  It allows the highway to cross a stream so they can get to (you guessed it) Plattsmouth, NE.  We have to have been the only suckers to cross it in the past 20 years.  CM advises we find a gas station and ask for directions on how to get to KC so we drive around town for a while.  Unable to find a single gas station, I stop at the next building I see…which happens to be…City Hall.  I walk into Plattsmouth City Hall and speak with the “City Secretary” to ask for directions.  What ensued was the most backwards conversation of my life that included her asking me: “How familiar are you with Plattsmouth?” and “I’m just really bad with directions, do you know where the school is?”…stress.  So she drew me a map (on some official Plattsmouth stationary) to direct me through the town.  The map included some very prominent landmarks like “the Methodist church” and “Burger King.”  (You can’t make this stuff up)  15 minutes later (and a few U-turns), we found the highway that would take us South.  I looked down at my odometer to see how far we’d gone in the last hour…35 miles?!! in an hour!!!!!????????!!!!!!!!  What followed was an expletive laden tirade and CM insisting that she be the leader since I had failed to get us to highway 75 in a timely fashion.

5 hours after we left Omaha, we finally made it into KC (with a few more U-turns…these one’s were not my fault).  It wasn’t all smooth sailing, but we got here!  Tomorrow’s adventure has us leaving early in the morning for Nashville, TN!  I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to talk about after that one.

Stress levels are now pretty low since CM’s family treated me to salmon and pie tonight!  There can’t be stress after salmon and pie.