The southeast round-up

November 1, 2021, 9:25 PM PDT by Parkzer • Travel

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…

Hello, Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson

October 28, 2021, 8:59 PM PDT by Parkzer • Tourism

In order to stay on schedule, I’m moving through the southeastern states a bit more quickly than anticipated. I’m only staying three nights in Ridgeland, Mississippi, a northern suburb of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi—one for travel, one for work, and one for a tourist activity. The most popular and highly-rated tourist attraction in Jackson seemed to be the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, so that’s where I decided to spend my off day.

The museum opened with a section called the “Mississippi Freedom Struggle,” which gave a broad overview of the Civil Rights Movement and provided a general timeline of its progression.

Afterwards, the exhibits started with “Mississippi in Black and White,” which spotlighted the African-American leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

Also in this section were five monoliths listing, honoring, and memorializing lynching victims. These monoliths were my favorite part of the museum—not only did they just provide raw data for you to interpret on your own, but I did not realize that so many people were lynched for such mild “crimes,” many of which were not even proven. Intertwined in the lists were excerpts of news articles that covered some of these lynchings.

In the center of all these sections was a circular area that housed a light structure called “This Little Light of Mine,” which was built to honor the civil rights activists who gave up their lives to further the cause. It also had music from the era playing that civil rights activists used to rally morale and faith from supporters.

Next up was “A Closed Society,” a section that explored how the experiences of Black Mississippians who had served in World War II catalyzed the Civil Rights Movement.

Within this section were two short films, the first of which was in a small classroom. The film showed how Mississippi refused to honor equality among races and would separate whites from those with colored skin. It also displayed a lot of statistics about how Black children were at a substantial disadvantage when it came to educational resources compared to their white counterparts.

The next feature short film was about the lynching of Emmett Till, a Black child who had been killed by white men. This film showed that, even though the nation was this far into the Civil Rights Movement, whites could still get away with killing Blacks. Apparently, Emmett Till’s slaying was a big part of driving the Movement forward because his mutilated face was printed in media outlets so people could see for themselves just how brutal the killing was.

In “A Tremor in the Iceberg,” the museum showed how a new generation of leaders gave the Movement a fresh sense of urgency and drive.

The short film in this section covered Medgar Evers’ assassination, and how, somehow, a white man could still get away with killing a Black man. Because of the systemically racist nature of jury selection and how it was based on voter registration, the jury was hung, and the assassin wasn’t convicted until decades later.

In the next section, “I Question America,” things really picked up in the Movement as it garnered more support, but it still wasn’t easy. The two feature films in this section were one in a church that showed the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Council of Federated Organizations, and another about three activists who had gone missing after an encounter with the police.

As the timeline creeps closer to present day, “Black Empowerment” highlighted the triumphs of the Movement that ultimately led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This section also housed some artifacts from the period.

Finally, “Where Do We Go From Here?” featured some of the stories from the people of the Movement. This was also a place where museum participants could contribute their own thoughts on what’s next for civil rights.

As a general overview of the museum, this was another one of those spots where I unexpectedly spent a lot more time than I anticipated. This museum had a way of pulling you in and keeping you hooked on finding out what happened next.

I think one of the reasons the museum had this effect on me goes hand-in-hand with something else I found out, which is, how little I actually knew about the Civil Rights Movement. I was obviously aware that this had happened in the past, but after reading through a lot of the exhibits and displays, I realized that I had confused a lot of what happened in the mid-1900s with what had happened in the mid-1800s. More specifically, a lot of events that I thought happened in the 1850s and 1860s actually took place in the 1950s and 1960s, but I just wasn’t aware of it.

I can definitely attribute this to the fact that I never took history seriously during school so I probably never retained any of this when I learned it, but learning it now and having it completely challenge my existing understanding of the Civil Rights Movement definitely made me feel very ignorant.

This was also very eye-opening, in the sense that all of this was happening not too long ago. When my grandmother was my age, there were Black people getting shot and killed just for being a nuisance, and there would be a jury of people who would look at the case and say “eh, the white guy’s innocent,” which is mind-blowing to me. This in particular is an example of one of those things that I misunderstood by a factor of a century—I expected stuff like this to happen in the 1850s, but not in the 1950s.

I thought this was a great museum. The way it was organized made me hungry for more knowledge, and it kept my attention throughout a bulk of the exhibits, which I personally think is impressive for someone who has historically hated learning about history.

The short films were also unique in the sense that their presentation always included some extra dimension and element of display—either using multiple screens, having differently-shaped screens, or having physical light-up artifacts in the background of the films. The museum took it a step beyond just playing videos that you otherwise would just be able to watch on YouTube.

Note that the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum is part of the “Two Mississippi Museums” experience, with the other half containing the Museum of Mississippi History. Because I spent so much time on the Civil Rights Museum side, I didn’t really have much time to go through the Museum of Mississippi History, so I ended up just photographing everything on that half so I could look back through it later.

If you plan on scheduling a visit here, which I would highly recommend as a must-do activity if you’re ever in the Jackson area, then this is an all-day, open-to-close kind of museum.

Hello, Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama

October 26, 2021, 8:52 PM PDT by Parkzer • Tourism

This post is over 5 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.

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.

Hello, King’s Chair at Oak Mountain State Park in Pelham near Birmingham, Alabama

October 24, 2021, 8:56 PM PDT by Parkzer • Face, Hiking

After arriving back to Atlanta upon the conclusion of my one-week trip to the West Coast, I picked up my truck, spent one more night in Atlanta to rest up, then drove to Birmingham, Alabama to continue on my road trip. For my first adventure in Birmingham, I drove to the adjacent neighborhood of Pelham to visit the Oak Mountain State Park.

I didn’t really do the best job in planning interesting activities along this path—I mainly scheduled things out with a plan to get back to Las Vegas via vehicle by early December so I can wrap up some classes for one of my continuing education certifications—so I based the remainder of my road trip on that, rather than looking at what interesting things are along the way. That ended up being unfortunate for Birmingham, because if I had known there was such a nice state park, I would’ve spent more days here.

I wanted to hike an intermediate trail and selected King’s Chair on the eastern side of the state park. The trip to the summit was fairly stereotypical for a moderate hike like this, with nice elevation gain, scattered simple obstacles, and plenty of fresh air.

Once you get to the top of the mountain, there is a relatively flatter portion along the ridge with a few pseudo-summits before hitting King’s Chair. The first, which I found out from another hiker, is called Queen’s Chair.

A little farther down was another opening, which I originally thought was King’s Chair, but later discovered that it wasn’t. There was a little platform where you could sit down, so maybe we can call it King’s Bench.

And finally, all the way at the end of the trail was King’s Chair.

I’ve touched on this a few times in the past, but people out in the “middle of nowhere” areas (and yes, I know that Birmingham technically isn’t the middle of nowhere, but I’ve historically seen everything outside of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and, to some extent, Las Vegas, as the “middle of nowhere”) are much kinder and more caring. The culture in big cities is to ignore everyone around you and just do your own thing, but as I started visiting smaller cities and exploring out into the country, I’ve had much more pleasant interactions.

I’m not really that social of a person in general, but after I realized that it is normal to interact with each other in these areas, and that I might actually be making people feel uncomfortable by having a “city attitude,” I’ve been much more receptive of social interaction and light conversation with random people I meet in public.

I’ve learned a lot about the world by taking this more open approach to others, and I think I’ve also taught a lot to others by sharing my own stories of what busy city life is like. A lot of my most interesting encounters have been the most unexpected, and I think my interaction here at the summit of King’s Chair tops the charts in unexpectedness.

I met a guy named Hunter who was hiking with his friend. Apparently Hunter used to be an aspiring professional gamer, and he was familiar with Tempo Storm and our past esports endeavors. He’s doing photography now, and offered to take a picture of me, which I obviously accepted.

The top of a mountain in the middle of Alabama is probably one of the last places I would’ve anticipated meeting an esports fan, but I’m glad that we talked for long enough to figure that out, because this experience definitely made my visit to the state much more memorable.

After parting ways with my new friends, I walked across the ridge in the opposite direction, then took a different path down to the trailhead.

Apart from the novelty of my conversation at the summit, the rest of the hike was fairly routine. Oak Mountain State Park is a decently large recreation area, and if I was staying in Birmingham for longer, I definitely would’ve come back at least a couple more times to hike a few more trails.

The West Coast feels like home

October 22, 2021, 10:46 PM PDT by Parkzer • Travel

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.

Goodbye Charleston, South Carolina

October 15, 2021, 10:07 PM PDT by Parkzer • Travel

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.