Ehren Vists The South

I knew it was going to be an interesting vacation when, after checking into the bed & breakfast in the center of Fredericksburg, VA, I found that a bottle of Scotch was included with the room. Scotch and a canopy bed. What more could a man ask for?

Seriously, they served scotch with breakfast. On the same table as corn flakes. It took every ounce of willpower not to pour it over my cereal and mix it with my orange juice. I can just imagine the looks of horror as I became louder and more belligerent over the course of breakfast before finally screaming, “WHO THE FUCK PUT CORNFLAKES IN MY SCOTCH???”

All in all, the weekend really brought home the John Cusack quote from the movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”:

"This place is fantastic; it's like "Gone with the Wind" on mescaline. They walk imaginary pets here, Garland - -on a fucking leash. And they're all heavily armed and drunk. New York is boring!"

Further proof that I was in for an interesting experience was when we had a brief conversation with the inn’s proprietor:

“So, where are you from?”
“Just outside of New York.”
“Oh…well, you should still be ok. Just don’t tell anyone you’re from the North.”

Obviously, I had no idea what the fuck I was getting myself into.

Wandering around the quaint, little town I quickly noticed two things:

1. People in Fredericksburg fucking LOVE ice cream. There must have been 15 shops for the stuff in the tiny place, and they were all open. In February.
2. The Motto for the state is, apparently, “Virginia is for lovers.”

Now, I’m sure a bunch of people are expecting an incest joke here. My friends, I would never pick on the slow, inbred, racist residents below the Mason-Dixon line like that. Instead, I’m going to hypothesize that given their obvious insatiable hunger for ice cream, that the motto should more accurately be changed to “Virginia is for FAT lovers.” Sort of like the official state for chubby chasers.

While I saw many strange and glorious things on my trip, the winner, hands down was this little place off the side of one of the main roads:



That’s right. It’s a Drive-Through or Walk-Up Bar-B-Que place, converted from a drive-in bank. Just for education of anyone who’s considering actually visiting a place that lets you order Bar-B-Que sauce by the gallon: the food there is strictly for torture or initiation purposes. I actually went so far as to sample the food. It was as if an angry, hammer-wielding dwarf was attacking my colon. In retrospect, downing a healthy portion of questionable meat product before a four hour car-ride was NOT one of my better ideas. I may need to hire an exorcist before my pants (or car) smell the same again.

I can see him now: spritzing Holy Water on my seat, starting the wash and yelling “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you” as the washing machine spins demonically and climbs the ceiling.

Of course, the weekend wasn’t ALL bad. And not just because of the brandy and girlscout cookie dinner. Sometimes, a picture really is worth a thousand words, and while I COULD type them all out, I just feel so dirty writing “eight-rope money-shot.” So just enjoy this picture instead.