Crazy Miriam and Patrick had left that morning at 4am to get back to Miami for a gig the next night so I met them at the junction of the Interstates for a final eggy-basket breakfast and to get my pillow back! Shall never the twain meet once more? Who knows, Im going south, she’s going to Italy. Well after her paying gig in Miami. I made myself comfortable and gunned my engine down the highway west. I rode the frequencies looking for something good to listen to. 90% is either ‘god-rock’, ‘god-country’ or ’god-chat/rants’ so plainly not for me. I would listen to it occasionally for pure comedy value, some of the stuff they come out with is absolutely hilarious to a true non-believer like myself. The other 5% is just country which is also occasionally side splitting. I will have to find a link to ‘Christmas Carol’ and post it here, I was crying with laughter as I drove down the highway from the horrendous clichés and terrible rhymes. 2 ½ % you get an R&B station which is usually better to listen to than any of the other crap and then occasionally the state will re-transmit National Public Radio, which at least doesn’t tell you its ‘fair and impartial’ like the fox news radio does… if they’re telling you that, it isn’t and it isn’t!

I swung south and now along the back roads of Georgia and found a wonderful local station outside of Douglas who were broadcasting from a local fair and real amateurs with it. Fantastic. I can still here the guy now explaining what ‘real bluegrass’ is. Every time he said ‘real bluegrass ain’t *electrified*!’ I just cracked up, and I cracked up a lot as he kept repeating that line. I was passing through and disappointed with myself that I didn’t drop by and put myself on the air. Everyone else seemed to just be walking up and chatting away. The girl from the local band was ‘desperate’ for people to come and listen to them so im sure they would have appreciated it. However I had a lot of miles to cover and kept rolling south.

When I lost the Douglas guys on the dial I found a dramatization of the life of William Wilberforce on some Christian station that kept me amused for a couple of hours. As everyone knows he found God and then abolished the slave trade in England. Lincoln can’t hold a candle to this guy! :p It got dark and I turned back east, now tuning into some weird show that seemed to be trying to be funny. They had a poet on, then some weird musicians, then some strange sketches and interviews. I found it wasn’t trying to be funny but actually was. Comedy, variety on American Radio? On a Saturday evening? I had accidentally found the wonderful ‘Home Prairie Companion’ which I somehow knew about (probably from hearing about it on the BBC or surfing some random web-site) and sat there laughing along as my GPS took me on some strange curved route in an attempt to get back to the I-10.

I was changing the settings on it from fastest to shortest and seeing what came out and it took me off the highway and down some dark forested roads. I went over the railway tracks, nearly ending up in the hedge and followed the road as it curved left and right, in a generally southerly direction. It told me to go down a dirt track, I turned left and went 30 meters until I thought better of it and after a quick u-turn went back to the sealed road. Last time I went off-road it cost me dearly! The sealed road ended in a dead end by a cemetery though so I pulled around and returned to the dirt track. The GPS route want down here for a mile it said and I could see the tail-lights of a couple of other cars. Well if they’re down there it must be ok! I bumped along for half a mile, the other cars had stopped by a house and I shuddered past them in the dirt up to a … gate. Dead end! Bleh! I reversed up and went to go back the way I came only to find one of the trucks that had stopped now reversed up, blocking the road. Uh oh!

I rolled my window down, trapped and hoping they were friendly.
“Y’all looking for someone?” asked the woman.
“Um, not really, I thought this was a through road”
“This here’s a private road, we own this property. Got a call saying someone was driving up and down….”
I explained my GPS brought me down here and apologized. Seems taking a wrong turn in this country is enough to get you shot as they were undoubtedly packing rifles since they thought I was a burglar or rabbit-rustler or whatever. I wasn’t about to argue that in England farmers generally don’t send a couple of trucks to direct lost tourists back to the road with shotguns since I kind of ignore the ‘private road’ sign when I went past it the second time, and got the hell out. My bad, don’t kill me!

I found the highway and turned west and on to my campsite for the night which was full of campers and hunters enjoying the end of Thanksgiving. The Mosquitos enjoyed my blood too and I nearly wished for a return to the colder days of the north. Nearly.



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