For my second activity in Birmingham, I decided to go to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum. I don’t really know anything about motorcycles, so I don’t really have too much commentary on these photos—I just took a ton of pictures of everything that looked shiny and fancy, then picked out the most unique ones to feature here.

The museum also had an outdoor area that I was able to access through a rear door on the first floor. I was lucky enough that, on the date of my visit, there were a few cars prac­ticing on the track. I was able to watch them do a few rounds from the pedestrian bridges, then I managed to find my way down to the main racetrack so I could watch from just meters away.

This museum was overwhelmingly rated as the top tourist attraction in the city, so I decided to go, even though I don’t really have that much of an in­ter­est in motorcycles. This is the general system I’ve been using for other cities as well—rather than seeking out things that I already know I enjoy, I’m just trusting other tourists and going to see things that they say were great. I figured this is also an efficient way to expand my breadth of knowledge and experiences.

I’m very glad that I used this system and came across Barber Vintage, because this museum was amazing.

I usually rate museums based on the variety of different kinds of exhibits they have. For example, I thought that the Kentucky Derby Museum was one of the best museums because it had a little bit of everything—a walking tour, a 360° theater, regular videos, displays, text, interactive experiences, and more. The Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum basically had none of that—it was almost entirely just displays. However, if you take just one thing and do it ex­cep­tion­ally well, that’s sometimes enough, and this museum was an example of that.

I would’ve never expected myself to do this, but I spent right around four hours just looking at motorcycles, and that was just with the self-guided general admission ticket, which didn’t even include access to the entire basement floor. The way that this museum organized the motorcycles, set them up on racks and displays, and sorted them by type, region, and era was extremely satisfying. Even the aesthetics of the architecture of the building was nice.

If you’re ever in the Birmingham area, I agree with all the tourists and highly recommend that you check out this museum. It’s an amazing museum for people who aren’t motorcycle enthusiasts, and it’s probably going to feel like heaven for people who are.

I’m not sure if this feeling is just amplified by the fact that I have spent the past month in an extremely humid climate, but after taking another week-long trip to SoCal and Las Vegas, the West Coast makes me feel at home.

No, this doesn’t mean I’m softening up to SoCal—I still hate California and think it should be ejected from the United States of America—but the en­vi­ron­ment there feels a lot more comfortable than the East.

As for the actual feeling of home, I’m glad that I selected Las Vegas as my city of residency, and after coming back again to take care of some errands dur­ing my road trip, I know for sure that my ultimate, final destination upon the conclusion of my voluntary homelessness is going to be Las Vegas. A lot of people told me that I’m going to realize how underwhelming Las Vegas is after seeing so many other cities across the country, but I’ve experienced the opposite effect—Las Vegas looks even better after all these experiences.

 
I decided to drive from Charleston to Atlanta so I could take a non-stop flight from ATL to LAX, as flying out of CHS would’ve required a layover. This obviously was also productive to my road trip, as I was continuing west anyway, so if anything, making it to Atlanta now rather than later helped break up the longer drive.

My system so far for air travel is to park my pickup truck at the airport parking lot for a week while I travel, then it will be there in walking distance of the terminal waiting for me when I return so I can continue my road trip. This has worked out great so far, as the cost of the parking is usually mostly off-set by the price I would’ve had to pay anyway to figure out an alternative parking solution and then rideshare to the airport. The extra cost ends up being negligible in exchange for the convenience of being able to take off on my own accord right upon arrival.

Now of course, this only works if there is actually affordable parking at the airport. For whatever reason, on the day I was scheduled to depart from Atlanta to Los Angeles, I drove to the south daily lot to park… and it was full. Unfazed at the minor setback, I looped around the airport to the north side to park at the north daily lot… and discovered that that was full as well.

Now slightly more concerned, I figured that the volume of cars flowing in and out of the parking garages must be massive, so if I loop back around to the south daily lot, some spaces might have opened up by then. … I was wrong. I once again looped back around to the north daily lot, and it was still full.

Now, you probably read all that in several seconds, but keep in mind that actually getting from one cardinal lot to the other takes about 5 or so minutes, considering that they’re on opposite ends of the terminal, and there’s almost always decent traffic congestion at the airport during the day. After going back and forth a few times, I realized that I couldn’t keep doing this, because I usually cut it fairly close for my flight, so wasting more time finding park­ing would put me at risk of missing my flight.

I ended up paying 50% more to park in the hourly lot instead.

Never lucky.

After making it to Los Angeles, I went to pick up my rental, which was a Ford F-150 XLT with the 302A package (which comes with the 12-inch screen). This is the same pickup truck that I received while I was in Oklahoma City, but it seemed like the visitors of Los Angeles didn’t treat this particular truck as nicely as those who traveled to Oklahoma City. It had a horrible, horrible transmission problem where it would lurch and jerk every time it down­shifted from sixth gear, all the way down until it got to second gear.

That was obviously incredibly annoying for city driving, especially in Los Angeles traffic, but the truck still had a very smooth ride on the highway on my trip to and from Las Vegas. I usually like to use Avis’ “mystery car” option so I can get a better deal, but in anticipation for the long drive, I spe­cif­i­cally requested a full-size pickup truck so I can be more comfortable.

I spent the first few days of my week staying at the Tempo company headquarters in Long Beach.

Afterwards, I drove to Las Vegas to take care of some errands, like getting a haircut, going to the chiropractor, checking my PO box, and exchanging some stuff from my storage unit.

While in Las Vegas, my hotel of choice was the Residence Inn by Marriott Las Vegas South/Henderson, and the room I got was a king studio. It looked like a fairly newly constructed hotel based off the design and condition of the room. I didn’t use the kitchen at all, but everything was clean, the furniture was modern, and the hotel had everything I needed for a pleasant stay.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper trip to Las Vegas without visiting my former roommate’s cats. I took a few photos, but for some reason, all of them except one came out blurry; here is the one that is in focus.

For dinner the day before my return to Los Angeles, I met up with a few friends and went to an Italian restaurant at Tivoli Village called Al Solito Posto.

Apparently this was supposed to be a great, top-tier restaurant, but I must’ve just picked an unlucky dish, because I thought it was pretty under­whelm­ing. I selected Emily’s Sunday Gravy, which was spaghetti that came with braised shortrib, house meatballs, and veal breast. If you were to ask me “how did it taste,” my response would be, “I don’t know,” because it was so overwhelmingly salty that I literally couldn’t really taste anything. I’m some­what of a meat enthusiast who can distinguish the subtle different flavors of different meats and different cuts of the same type of meat, but this was so salty that all the meat tasted about the same. By the end of the meal, it felt like I had pickled the inside of my mouth.

My friends apparently love this restaurant and go there regularly, so I’m more than willing to give it another chance… but I’m definitely going to ask for something far more bland next time.

For my final activity of my trip to Las Vegas, one of my friends wanted me to accompany him to the Halloween Town Pumpkin Patch, a seasonal carnival and festival taking place at Boca Park. After a quick glimpse, it was obvious that it was a very traditional carnival with rigged carnival games, but he insisted on playing.

Now of course, for those who are not familiar with Las Vegas, it gets excruciatingly hot dur­ing the daytime over the summer, but it gets fairly cold dur­ing the nighttime as it approaches winter. This festival trip just ended up being my friend losing an astronomical amount of money failing at pretty much every single carnival game, and his girlfriend and me following him around, freezing to death, wondering why he is basically just donating money to a place that isn’t even a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) charity.

After returning to Southern California, I took a trip to Orange County for a business meeting, went back to the company headquarters in Long Beach for some more business meetings, then headed back to Atlanta after the conclusion of my week.

I don’t want to drive for long distances on the same day that I fly, so I’m spending a night in Lithia Springs, a census-designated area on the western side of Metro Atlanta. Tomorrow, I head off to Birmingham, Alabama to begin exploring the cluster of four southeastern states that I have yet to visit.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, although I already departed Charleston a few days ago on the 13th, there are still a handful of photos left that I wanted to share from my experience in the city.

First up, of course, are some food photos. When my co-worker flew in from Los Angeles to Charleston on the day of the pre-party of the wedding we were going to attend, I picked him up from the airport and we went close to downtown Charleston to get some brunch. He picked Florence’s Low­coun­try Kitchen, and I think this was one of my first experiences with truly Southern food. He got shrimp and grits, while I had the quiche of the day with a side of potatoes.

I took a bite of his shrimp and grits and I thought it was actually pretty good—it wasn’t excessively flavored, and the texture was very interesting and satisfying. My quiche wasn’t really what I was expecting (though I also didn’t really know what I was expecting to begin with); it wasn’t anything par­tic­u­lar­ly special, but it was surprisingly filling. Afterwards, we went to the South Carolina Aquarium, which I already shared in my blog previously.

The day after this was the day of the actual wedding. We went a bit early because we wanted to explore downtown Charleston a bit. The wedding took place on Market Street, so while they were setting up, we crossed the street and walked down the Historic Charleston City Market.

Afterwards, we continued southeast to the Waterfront Park Pier.

I usually don’t post photos of personal or private things, but I felt like I had to make an exception for this. At the wedding, the couple’s Bichon Frise Mochi was the maid of honor, and she was an active part of the wedding, walking around and interacting with guests. However, social interaction can get tiring, so Mochi decided that she needed a place to rest. After searching far and wide, she found a soft surface—the bride’s wedding dress—to use as her bed.

The day after the wedding, we went to Husk Restaurant on Queen Street. I think this was the point in time that I started concluding that Southern food might not be my favorite type of food. The wedding had a lot of Southern-style food, some of which was good, and some of which was questionably sour and salty. After eating a three-course meal at Husk with proudly Southern ingredients and having a similar experience as the wedding, I realized that my taste buds might be a little bit too sensitive to properly appreciate Southern food.

The starter was Heritage pork lettuce wraps with marinated cucumber and red onion, glazed with Kentuckyaki and topped with Togarashi. It had an ex­tremely strong and piercing flavor such that I could barely tell that it was wrapped in lettuce, and even the pork taste was difficult to pick up.

For my main course, I asked the waiter what he recommended as one of the most iconic dishes of the restaurant, and he recommended cornmeal-fried catfish. It came with summer squash, fennel, and green tomato, sitting inside some Louisiana hot sauce.

Long story short, everything tasted like it was pickled to the extreme, and the vegetables were so salty and sour that the only way I was able to tell them apart was because they were different shapes and colors—otherwise, everything just tasted the same. By the end of the dish, it almost felt like I had just pickled the inside of my mouth, and I’m not sure if I was just imagining it, but I’m pretty sure the texture of my mouth had changed to what happens when you soak your fingertips in water for too long.

For dessert, I got peanut butter pie layered with dark chocolate ganache, topped with peanut brittle, and with a side of buttermilk ice cream. The pie was great and ended up being my favorite dish of my meal, but for some reason, even the ice cream was a little bit sour. I haven’t really ever heard of sourness being a Southern characteristic, so I’m not sure why over half the things I put in my mouth in Charleston were unbearably sour, but it was definitely not what I was expecting or hoping for.

The day before my drive out of Charleston, I decided to go on a hike, as I hadn’t really had a chance to exercise much due to all the festivities. I picked the Wannamaker North Trail, which seemed to be one of the only moderate-difficulty trails I could find in the Charleston area without having to drive too far out.

It was a terrible, terrible mistake.

I got spoiled hiking in mountainous areas in other parts of the country, so I forgot how different walking a trail through a forest would be. Namely, be­side the heavy layer of humidity that felt like it was constantly pushing down on me, there were an insane amount of bugs. I got over 10 mosquito bites be­fore I realized that we had reached disaster levels and tried to figure out a way to get out of the forest as soon as possible.

Luckily, this forest wasn’t very dense, so I was able to cut through some sections and make my way back onto a path straight back to the entrance. If you look at my GPS tracker, you’ll see that I completely skipped the entire eastern side of the trail after having gone through the west side.

And with that, here is an updated look at my United States travel map. (Keep in mind that this is my historical map; these are not limited only to the places I’ve visited during my road trip this year.)

My plan now is to fly over to the West again for a week to take care of some errands and visit our company headquarters to get some in-person work done. Afterwards, I’ll fly back and continue my journey through the remaining cluster of four states in the southeast that I have yet to visit.

I saved the best for last—for the third and final blog post of my trip to Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum, here’s the USS Yorktown.

When my co-worker told me that we’re going on an aircraft carrier, it didn’t quite immediately click in my mind as to how large of a watercraft we would be visiting. After arriving at Patriots Point, I had a moment of just staring at the USS Yorktown in amazement at its size. It slowly sunk in that it was an aircraft carrier, as in, it carried aircraft… which meant it had to be big enough for planes to fit on—and take off from—it.

After entering, we spent some time just walking around the main deck and looking at all the aircraft.

Our first tour was named “Living & Working Spaces, and the Engine Room Experience” (which I think is fairly self-explanatory). This took us through the more “active” areas of the Yorktown so we could see what life was like aboard the watercraft when it was still in service.

Although this was nowhere near as cramped as the submarine, it’s still impressive how people would be able to live on the watercraft for extended pe­ri­ods of time in such close proximity without going insane.

After completing the loop of the first tour, we returned to the main deck and looked at some more aircraft and other exhibits on our way to the entrance to the second tour.

The second tour was called “The Flight Deck & Bridge.” After navigating through a short path, we made it out to the upper level of the aircraft carrier to actually see some of the aircraft that it was carrying.

I go into far greater detail about this in the blog post I already wrote covering the USS Clamagore and Laffey (and you should definitely read that if you want my thoughts), but in summary, this is how history should be taught. Walking through the USS Yorktown was an extremely intriguing and in­ter­est­ing experience, and as someone who has absolutely hated history classes in the past, I thought my visit to Patriots Point was a very valuable ex­pe­ri­ence.

As I mentioned before, we had a late start to our day, so there were actually two entire tours aboard the USS Yorktown that we were unable to complete—the “Yorktown Wardroom, Catapult Room, & Brig” and “WWII Carrier Rooms.” In addition to that, my co-worker and I only got general admission tickets; there were also some upgrade options available, one of which was an add-on for a captain’s guided tour, and another one that included a five-minute flight motion simulator experience.

Charleston is fairly out of the way and I’m not sure if I’ll have a reason to return anytime soon, but if I do, I’m definitely making another stop at Patriots Point. Not only do I still need to actually finish seeing everything that the museum has to offer, but this is also one of those spots where having a prior visit under your belt will enhance your future visits and allow you to notice things the second time that you didn’t notice the first.

And with that, my time in Charleston comes to an end. I have a handful of pictures that I still want to post as a photo dump, but my journey now con­tin­ues to the next destination.