As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I moved through the southeastern states fairly quickly, and now I’m in Texas. I have some miscellaneous pic­tures from the southeast that didn’t fit in any particular blog post, so I decided to do a quick round-up as an opportunity to do a random photo dump.

After flying back from my visit to the West Coast, I drove from Atlanta to Lithia Springs, Georgia after landing to bring myself a little bit closer to my next destination and break up the drive a bit for the following day. My hotel of choice was the Courtyard by Marriott Atlanta Lithia Springs.

After departing Lithia Springs, my next destination was Birmingham, Alabama. I’m guessing that there was an event happening in the area, because it was difficult to find some cheap hotels (even with my promotional discounted rate), so I opted to stay at the Marriott Birmingham.

Because of my Titanium Elite status, I got upgraded to a corner room on a high floor, which was great. Unfortunately, their M Club Concierge Lounge was still closed and they were still blaming the pandemic for it, which meant I wasn’t able to get unlimited snacks and beverages like the highest elite members usually do at full-service corporate-run Marriott hotels.

After Birmingham, I made my way to Jackson, Mississippi. I decided to stay in Ridgeland, a northern suburb of Jackson. My hotel of choice there was the SpringHill Suites by Marriott Jackson Ridgeland/The Township at Colony Park.

This was a very pleasant hotel; the staff here was particularly professional, and I got assigned a room with a nice view. The location was also fantastic—it was easy to get in and out of the hotel parking lot, and there were a lot of nice shops and restaurants nearby. I also really liked the architecture of the buildings nearby in the area—they had almost a classic charm to them, but didn’t look old or run down.

People sometimes get a little bit confused when I say that I literally bring my entire computer with me and set up my entire workstation at hotels if I’m staying for longer than one night, in order to make sure the quality of my work is not being affected by my travel. To provide a visual on what this ac­tu­al­ly means, I decided to take a picture of my room in Ridgeland after getting everything set up, rather than before.

In my blog post about the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, I mentioned that the other half of the building contained the Museum of Mississippi His­tory. I ended up running out of time and didn’t really get an opportunity to go through it as slowly and thoroughly as I wanted to, so I figured I would just post one of the photos I captured from there in this round-up.

After Mississippi, I drove through Louisiana and made my way towards Texarkana, a city that is split between Arkansas and Texas. My hotel of choice in Texarkana was the Fairfield Inn and Suites by Marriott Texarkana.

This hotel wasn’t really the best, and the person who installed the curved shower curtain rod in my room didn’t use both halves of their brain on the day they were installing it and drilled it in curving down instead of to the side, so the shower curtain literally wouldn’t stay extended all the way. At least I got a nice view of the car wash next door, I guess?

And with that, I’ve conquered a visit to all the southeastern states, filling in the blank spot I had in that corner of the country.

For the next week and a half, I’ll be in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It’s the beginning of a new month, so I have quite a bit of end-of-month finance tasks to wrap up for work from October. Afterwards, I’m meeting up with my friend and former assistant Monica to go exploring Dallas, so there’s more to come soon…

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.

My week in North Carolina is already over, and as of yesterday, I’ve arrived on the coastline of South Carolina in the city of Charleston. Apart from a few hiking trips, I’d say North Carolina was also somewhat uneventful. One of my favorite parts of the state was driving through the Appalachian Mountains when I was traveling in from Tennessee, but otherwise, I spent a lot of this time catching up on more of the “mundane” parts of my life.

My hotel of choice in Charlotte was the SpringHill Suites by Marriott Charlotte Huntersville. I’d say it was probably my favorite hotel room so far throughout my road trip. As you might already know, I’m not really the biggest fan of flashy or fancy hotel rooms, and SpringHill Suites gave me all the es­sen­tials and none of the extras. The hotel was new, the room was large, the location was great, the gym was decent, and the staff was friendly and help­ful.

The first week of each month is usually the busiest time for me, and my time in Charlotte basically coincided nearly perfectly with the first week of Oc­to­ber. I had to get end-of-month finance tasks done for September, including cash flow transaction itemization and independent contractor payroll, and I also had a few special legal projects that I needed to wrap up leading into the launch of the closed beta testing period for The Bazaar coming up soon.

Usually, I like to go to the most popular tourist attractions in each city, specifically focusing on what the city is particularly known for. Charlotte is best known for NASCAR and is home to its Hall of Fame, which acts as a museum. However, seeing as I’m not really that much of a racing enthusiast, and I also recently went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, I decided to pass on the NASCAR Hall of Fame in lieu of going on another hiking trip.

This was at the Clarks Creek Greenway, which was nestled in more of a residential area and was an out-and-back type of trail. I ended up parking at a local middle school near one of the trailheads, walked all the way out to the edge of the path, and came back.

After arriving in Charleston, there was basically only one thought I had in my mind, and it was how unbearably and debilitatingly humid it was. The rain was obviously making things worse, but the weather apparently said that the relative humidity was 98%, which is literally the highest I have ever seen in my life. The worst part is that my hotel is in North Charleston by Charleston International Airport, so I can’t imagine how bad it’s going to be in the actual city of Charleston, closer to the Atlantic Ocean.

Although nowhere near as nice as the newly-constructed SpringHill Suites I mentioned above, my hotel for this week of my trip is still pretty good—I’m in the Courtyard by Marriott Charleston-North Charleston. The room is definitely much smaller, but the good news is that the cost per night is much more affordable than being in Charleston, and even better, air conditioning works very well, so the humidity is actually bearable inside my room. (Though, if I literally just open the door to my room and step out into the hallway, the humidity becomes overwhelming again.)

Because of the rain, I’m not quite sure how viable it’s going to be for me to squeeze in some hiking trips to what I imagine will be extremely muddy trails. However, I’ll be attending a wedding in Charleston this coming weekend, and another one of the attendees is one of my co-workers, so we will probably be going on some indoor tourist activities before and after the event.

I mentioned that the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory was going to be my final tourist activity of Louisville, but it ended up being so un­der­whelm­ing that I decided to tack on one more activity before I left—the Big Four Bridge.

The Big Four Pedestrian Bridge spans across the Ohio River and connects Kentucky to Indiana. It stretches alongside the two vehicular bridges, one of which I took to get from Indiana to Kentucky.

After making it to the other side, I explored the Big Four Station a bit, which was a small park with a little manmade waterfall and some sculptures. I also walked to a very small local frozen yogurt shop and got myself some dessert—a swirl of candied apple and salted caramel, topped with some gummy bears and whipped cream.

After enjoying my treat, I walked back on the bridge to the Kentucky side.

After wrapping up my week in Louisville, I drove to Knoxville, Tennessee.

When selecting my hotel in each city, I usually look at things like location, price, guest ratings, and year of construction. I like to find a good balance of a low rate at a new hotel not too far away from the main tourist attractions that also doesn’t have too many complaints by former guests.

As you can see, one of the things I don’t consider is the type of room and what’s inside it. This is because there is a baseline of what I expect from a hotel room—a parking lot for my truck, clean sheets and towels, disposable bath amenities like shampoo and conditioner, and a desk where I can set up my computer workstation. I have never seen a hotel where I wasn’t able to have this, so I never really considered it as something I had to keep in mind.

Until now.

This is my hotel room at the Aloft Knoxville West. It has very hip decor that may appeal to a zoomer, but you may notice it is missing one very critical piece of furniture: a desk.

I went back down to the check-in desk and informed the customer service representative that I am currently living out of hotel rooms and need to set up a full computer workstation in my room. I asked if they had any foldable tables I could bring into my room, or any other suggestions for my situation. Her response was that they had no tables or desks they could let me borrow, but I could use the tables in the lobby.

I did a double-take, wondering if she was actually so stupid as to imply I should set up a computer tower, two monitors, a keyboard and mouse, a web­cam, dual speak­ers with a subwoofer, and a microphone in a public area. I was considering making a comment, but decided against it, and went back to my room to strategize.

That little coffee table ended up being larger than I expected, and if I set my monitors up so a third of the stand is hanging off the edge of the table, I can erect my monitors side-by-side. I also set up my keyboard and mouse on the coffee table, but it’s not very stable, so every time I type, the table shakes and it gave me motion sickness looking at my monitors. I removed the coffee maker from the little compartment that houses the refrigerator, removed the refrigerator, and moved the compartment over to the seating area to use for my keyboard and mouse.

This is obviously extremely uncomfortable, but the only alternative seemed to be to use the bathroom countertop (which in that case, I would have no chair). I considered switching hotels, but because it would be a short-notice booking, I wasn’t able to find many good rates.

I learned my lesson, though—I definitely want to stick with my regular Fairfield Inns, SpringHill Suites, Courtyards, and Residence Inns from now on, with Elements being a decent alternative if the price is right. After this experience, I am definitely going to be avoiding brands like Aloft and Moxy that try to make my stay more fun and social. I’ve found that hotels with just the core essentials with no extra bells and whistles are the best ones.