Southern Stampede

Mile:17,120  
       Five or six days ago I left North Carolina to her visit her sister state, Tennessee, where erin's brother lives.  Music City, and a little bit of rain, the perfect excuse for us to eat dinner and check out some live music.  The band was rocking, two guys, harmony.  I held the tam"bear"ine for a couple songs, and then we talked to the percussionist and acoustic player.  Nashville is a musician mecca, and I was impressed with his "30 seconds or less" life story to catch my eye.  He was really nice, so you should check them out here.  After a killer burger at Loco Cocoa's, we walked through the honkey tonk on our way to the Flying Saucer.  This draught house is a franchise with maybe twenty locations nationwide.  It fits right in with what I'm doing.  I have learned to do more research, drinking, in search of where I want to go next.  It isn't common for most to follow their palate, but right now in life I have the opportunity to do just that.  We drank North Coast Red Seal Amber, and enjoyed Highlands Gaelic ale.  I'm happy I've been writing all this down, too.  I have every new beer I've drank recorded and the date I visited each brewery, so when I go to make a website, folks will be able to see all that info.  Back to Williams after the Irish Pub, then a good nights sleep!
        The dog park is always fun, I've posted before about how I love people watching there.  Judging, profiling, talking dogs, it has literally everything a dog socialite needs.  I met up with Blaire, who erin and I worked with on the glacier in Alaska in 2009 with.  She was with her boyfriend and Brutus, a retired sled dog from Matt Hayashida, Iditarod racer.  After the dog park, a chinese buffet to set the coma, and then I left Nashville!
       I drove down to Chattanooga, Tennessee and visited my good old friend Joe.  Him and his friend Shane are fresh off an AT hike.  They hiked the whole thing in just over five months, and had as many stories about it as I do dogsledding stories.  Needless to say, we had an absolute blast.  Him and his roommate Danny were so cool, they put me and the dogs up for three days.  Not that I won't camp in thunderstorms, it's just the whole roof over my head thing that kept me in the South.  We played darts, and drank some awesome beers.  We sampled Lazy Magnolia pecan Brown ale, LA 31 smoked wheat, Abita Turbo Dog, and a couple brews I brought down with me from NC.  After literally seventy games of darts, I helped Joe's neighbor make a website for her self bound books.  She had a bunch, but what caught my eye were the recycled six pack books, with a bunch of different breweries in the arsenal.  Her site can be found HERE, but it is not yet published, so you'll have to check back!  My payment was three beer bound books, broccoli greens, brussell greens, and rosemary.  A very hippy move, even for me!  The beers listed above were purchased at Beer World, right on the border in Georgia.  Dave was wicked, and helped me out a lot with my research, thanks a bunch man!  Onward I travel, south again.
       Right now I'm outside of Atlanta in Macon, and today I will make the trek to PJ and Jaime's in Florida.  I am hopeful that my florida readers will help me find a couple opportunities while I'm there.  I will be working with PJ at the Back Forty Urban Cafe, and I'm looking to do sled dog presentations while I'm there too!  If any of you know teacher's or principles, send them the link to my website above please!
       As for the book, I have finally met my New Year quota of fifty stories, half way there.  I want to work on  about 25 more while I'm in Florida, but as is the life of a writer, I must wait for the stars to align!  I have about 10 more states to cover, and am super excited to be in the home stretch, and am missing erin like crazy.
       Erin is up in Montana house sitting for a while, and I'm really happy she can be somewhere where she has access to creativity.  Though we both don't want to have a long distance relationship, it will only be temporary until we finalize our summer plans and I finish traveling for the book.  It's tough living like this, but the pay off is a million stories to tell my kids and grand kids when I get old.  Life has given me so much, and as I begin to put this book together, I know it will soon be time for me to give back as much as I can to the communities that have helped me get this far in life!

Here's the video of me posting the impossible!