right on bro!

Hey all - I’m running behind on my updates, but this covers last Friday and Saturday. I’ll get to Sunday when I get to my next destination.

Left Roanoke, Virginia late Friday morning. There.weren’t any planned stops for this day - the only goal was to get to Jacksonville, North Carolina, which is located on the very eastern edge of the state along the Atlantic Ocean. My route took me through Virginia’s hilly, winter countryside on Highway 220 down to Greensboro, where I reunited with the same Interstate 40 that I used to travel out this way. (In fact, for all of you L.A. people, you can take I-40 clear across the country from Barstow to the interstate’s end in Wilmington, North Carolina. But more on Wilmington later.) Ate lunch in Burlington at the K&W Cafeteria. I didn’t know they still had pay-by-the-dish cafeterias anymore, but when I saw the billboard, I had to check it out. I ate my fish, french fries and collard greens amidst the senior citizens that populated the dining room. It was okay. Back on the road - I-40 took me past Raleigh-Durham (Research Triangle Park and great indie-rock college radio near Chapel Hill), and then south to Warsaw, where I took small roads to Jacksonville.

I was in Jacksonville to see my friend Steve, who I played with in a couple of bands over the past few years. Earlier this year he became a Marine officer, and now he’s stationed at Camp Lejeune, probably for the next few years. When Steve first arrived in Jacksonville, he told me the city was “a shithole.” I really, really wanted to give Jacksonville the benefit of the doubt on this one, but as it turned out, Steve was right. Jacksonville is the most disorganized, rough city I’ve ever seen. It’s bad strip mall after bad strip mall, tatoo parlors, furniture stores, used car dealerships, and strip clubs, seemingly all just dumped at random along Western Boulevard, the city’s main street. Traffic on Western rivaled rush hour in Los Angeles, it’s really hard to see the street signs, and there are no crosswalks or sidewalks at all. Somebody really needs to get an urban planner up in that joint, ASAP.

I finally made it to Steve’s place after getting lost for 45 minutes. We ate dinner at Texas steakhouse, and then walked to a local bar to play pool, drink some beer, and shoot the shit. It sounds like Steve really likes being a Marine officer (although not necessarily being in Jacksonville). He’s still the same cool-ass Steve, except he’s got a regulation haircut (medium cut) and more of an air of confidence that I haven’t seen in him before.

On Saturday, Steve took me around Camp Lejeune, which was pretty cool. It didn’t look like I thought it would - I thought I’d see tons of Marines running around singing cadence, tanks shooting each other, and various other things being blown up. But the base looked just like a big, quiet college campus, except they have humvees and armored trucks, and a shopping mall. After that, we drove around Jacksonville a bit, hung out a local coffeehouse there on the outskirts of town, and grabbed some lunch at Smithfield’s BBQ, a local chain where the barbecue chicken is, unfortunately, not very good at all.

Then it was off to Wilmington, which is about 35 miles to the south. Wilmington’s downtown is cool - several blocks of restaurants, bars, clubs, and shops in restored 19th-century brick buildings on the waterfront Front Street, surrounded by a neighborhood of beautiful antebellum houses. A lot of the houses have been preserved and made into historic landmarks, even as their owners live there. There’s a lot of young people walking around, and the area doesn’t feel like it has the pretentiousness of a Los Feliz or a Melrose. The odd thing about Wilmington, though, is that a lot of the storefronts off of Front Street are empty - it’s like they built up the area in anticipation of growth that never happened. I later learned that they closed the railway and sent off all of the manufacturing jobs, so there isn’t a whole lot of industry in the area anymore.

We got some tea at Port City Java, walked down Front Street, and had a drink at the Hell’s Kitchen bar, where, I was informed, they shot Dawson’s Creek at one point. Walked down Front Street again, ate some pizza, and walked down Front Street once more. Then we met up with Steve’s friend Allison, and then went to the Soapbox laundromat/bar to watch a couple of hard rock bands play. The joint was pretty packed, it sounded great in there, and the bands that we heard rocked really hard. After that, Allison took us to the Blue Post, a bar that was formerly a brothel in the old days and is allegedly haunted by the ghosts of prostitutes and the sailors that patronized them. I didn’t see any ghosts, but the bar was really cool. Finally, we drove back to Jacksonville in the early morning and went to sleep.

I left the next morning, feeling a bit sad - I had such a good time this weekend. I was reluctant to leave. Even though Jacksonville was crap, Wilmington was nice, and besides, wherever you may be in this world, it’s more about what you make of things, and the people you’re with, isn’t it?

I have to go now…gotta check out of this motel. No photos, but here’s a rough map of where I’ve been so far. Hope all is well with everyone!