Here is a picture to following along with our story. It's a simple story so I hope you don't get lost but if you do... Maybe start from the beginning again?
As the great Morty once said, "I think we should start our stories where they begin, not when they get interesting." Side note please see future post about the One True Morty. I'm not sure what to tell you about where to find it but just keep looking or go into the future because it may not exist yet.
To follow along we're going to go top from left to right and each row after that. This story starts with me flying across the country (via Southwest, I do love me a good Southwest flight). They were very accommodating and made the whole pandemic flying experience very enjoyable. I even got my own row! Flight over, I get to Orlando and it's raining, it's always raining there.
Rhino picks be up and took me to the most wonderful place in all of Orlando, Miller’s Ale House. I think it’s fair to say that considering I’ve only seen a small part of it (Shout-out to Mellow Mushroom). From Miller’s we got this stack of chicken tenders and fries. Cheese, there was also cheese everywhere. On this already stacked pile of deliciousness there was sauces of my choice. Habanero mango and honey mustard, they mixed like fire and more fire. I loved it… There was also ranch on the side and you can bet your ass I dumped that all over my Mountain Melt. Listen to this and tell me you don’t want some, “Original for 30 years; our fresh, never frozen, buttermilk-drenched, hand-breaded, boneless chicken tenders.” Yum! After this meal I wanted to slip into the darkness of a coma but Rhino had other plans.
This is where the first picture is to begin. Rhino FAILED to mention that he lives on the 3rd floor of his building. 3 doesn’t sound like a lot does it? It is, trust me, it is. We went up and down those stairs like 20 times moving things and let me tell you the more you do stairs the easier they don’t get. Finally after lugging furniture and belongings we’re done. I sit, I watch venom, Rhino cleans for another 3 hours. It’s now 2am and we’re planning to leave at 6, oops. Rhino continues to clean and I finally lose the battle of staying awake. Fast forward to 7am because we absolutely didn’t wake up at 6. We get rolling, ‘rocking and rolling down to the beach we’re strolling….’ Wrong song sorry. We’re on our way, thus picture two. We’re as giddy as 4 girls in a stock image. The sun is out, cat in the back, energy drink and gas station cheese sticks in our bellies. We’re ready!
Picture 3, it starts to rain. We see roadkill, it’s alligator. We continue to drive. Florida is actually really green and boring. The road kept going on and on and I swear we didn’t make a single turn until Georgia. Side note I did see one of those elderly community homes where they just pass around STDs. It’s called The Villages and it’s got some wild stories.
Moving on, we roll on through to New Orleans, LA. It was raining on and off the whole time but as soon as we get to the city it’s raining as shown in picture 2 (second row first picture, you get the idea). We eat, we drink, we sleep. Wake up and we head to Bourbon Street, I’ve never been so I needed to see it. A legendary spot on my list of places to see. It looks exactly as the picture, no cars, no people, and no lights. Maybe not exactly like the picture but pretty close. I saw it but as we all know, I couldn’t experience any of it.
Fast forward to dinner, we go to eat at a restaurant called Pardo’s. It was fantastic and they got a shout out on the pod. Extra points if you can name the episode it was in. The third picture was us. The one where they discovered something legendary that was only before legendary? Yeah that was us. We discovered the best food in New Orleans. I can only describe it as one notch better than the sauce volcano above. Except this was fancy food. I definitely didn’t have any business being there. They didn’t care, they had the best service and food I’d ever experienced east of the Mississippi. I’m still chasing the fleeting feeling of walking into an establishment I’ve never heard of and having an exactly delightful dining experience.
Frodo, my boy, it’s alarming how well you describe the next part of this story. Turmoil, distress, confusion, other words that mean ‘a lot of discomfort’. The A/C died, not suddenly though, no, no, no that would’ve been ok. It started the morning we left NOLA and I remember it like it was a week ago. I was driving and I noticed the light cold air coming out was not nearly as cold as before. I wrote it off as some type of temp issue going on with myself. 2 hours later I feel myself sweating, you should never sweat in a car with A/C that is working properly and on full blast. Thats when it finally hit, in the middle of not friendly Texas. The air is now hot. It’s 100+ outside and we’re trapped in the car like brownies in a glass pan. Grab a toothpick because I think we’re about done. We get off on the next exit, which feels like it’s 45 minutes away. It’s a small town, one like you’d see Clint Eastwood shoot up back in his glory days. We decide our next move as if our survival depends on it. To be honest, it probably did. We stock up on water from the also unfriendly 7-11. I snag a bag of ice thinking we can do something creative with ice (spoiler alert we don’t). We’ve got water, we’ve got ice, we’ve got dirty looks from the locals who I’m pretty sure are cannibals. Not like regular cannibals but like the Midsommar villagers where instead of using you as fertilizer or whatever they just eat you. We’re on the road, we decide we need to make it to San Antonio because if the heat doesn’t this city will. San Antonio is 80 miles away, that doesn’t seem that far right? We take off. Windows down, not talking, barley breathing, sweating, and angry. We’re on a mission to get this car fixed so we can get on the road once again. It’s hot, we hate each other, I’m sure Rhino is about to blow.
"Is that Papa Hades from The Hills Have Eyes 2?" - Wolf "No I think thats just a local here." - Rhino
Finally, we see it on the horizon, our discouraged souls reignited by the fact we get to stop this journey. We are now Frodo, we have been through the heat, still in it actually, we’re a little beaten and broken but we’re here. We finally made it. We have some Whataburger for dinner and call it a day. One twist here though, the hotel I booked? Oh yeah it sucks, it sucks a lot. Let me describe it one sentence. There were no roaches. Seems like a good thing though right? Read it again but add this next piece. There were no roaches ANYWHERE. How many times have you been to a hotel in Texas that had the ice and vending machines in a room without a door and there haven’t been any roaches. What I’m saying is the roaches have more class than to stay here. They weren’t under the vending machine as you would suspect. In Texas roaches are everywhere. The fact that there weren’t any when there was food easily accessible and guarded says a lot. Remember this, there is always a bigger fish. The bigger fish in this case happened to be the other hotel guests. Those teenage girls that shouted obscenities at us in the Whataburger drive through, they definitely eat roaches too. You ever get upset at someone because you did something wrong? You’re frustrated they caught you in the wrong? Thats what happened, we caught them and they called us mean jerkfaces or something. They weren’t exactly the sharpest piece of trash in the can if you catch my drift.
Next day, long day, very long day, San Antonio to Tucson. It’s going to be hot, we know this. Can’t get the car fixed so we decided to just take off. We get up at 4 and leave. We’re trying to avoid any and all heat. We know today is going to be miserable, knowing that we hype ourselves up for a day of survival. Everything is fine until we hit New Mexico. Thats when it starts, the heat begins to creep in. I try to get ahead of it and peel my clothes off. I look like Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura when he operates the rhino. I’m sweating head to toe and in the middle of this Rhino is napping. During this nap he starts choking and I think to myself. This is it, if he dies he dies. Not my fault he couldn’t hang.
Rhino pulls through thankfully, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I’d probably be out starting another pod with someone less funny. All is well, Rhino is good, I’m shirtless and the cat in the back is just chilling. If you haven’t figured it out yet Rhino has a pet cat. I call him (the cat) Baby Rhino. Neither know this and I’ve actually never done it until right now but it’s a thing and I’ve just started it.
"Arizona’s color scheme is terra-cotta and cactus." - Rhino
Tucson is on the horizon and our eyes burn but we make it. We unpack the car of necessities for the night and sit for a bit. Time for food you say? We go to this awesome pizza place named after all famous killers in Hollywood history. Serial Grillers was very delightful, I would go again. On our way to get pizza it’s raining again (see row 2 picture 1 again). I’m not joking it was really raining like that in Tucson.
"Can you imagine having a nice house but it's in Arizona?" - Rhino
Last day, Tucson to San Diego, a short drive relative to how far we’ve already come. We wake up early to beat the heat and get going! Jokes on us, you don’t beat the heat in AZ the heat beats you. It’s 6am and already hot. Like hot, hot, as hot as it was when we showed up the day before in the afternoon. We get in the car, on a mission, we’re getting home today. See picture bottom left. The day goes on and as usual we loose all moisture and hydration we had. As we climb out of the desert we’re the bottom middle picture. We’re on the verge of heat stroke but we can see the light at the top of the mountain. We come out of the desert and the temp immediately drops. We’ve done it, we just have to keep driving and San Diego will soon be on the horizon.
Last picture, we kick the damn door to San Diego down as we arrive. We’ve done it, we beat the desert! We’ve bested the dust and flame, also the name of my next poem. We finally complete our journey. Rhino compares it to that of a middle earth epic, highs, lows, team up, adventure, feast, famine, common enemy, internal turmoil and teamwork. Most importantly teamwork, something we’re already good at.
Thanks for coming on this journey with us. Let us know your comments on IG or here!
TL;DR - A/C went out, got hot, death approaches, we win in the end.