Georgia and Ireland

I've thought and I've thought and I've thought, but I don't think I can beat Glenn's hooker story. That's just classic.

I went on a lot of road trips and vacations in college, but there's no crazy stories that really stick out in my mind. I mean, there was the time Jen, Kristina, and I went to Georgia's Rattlesnake Round-up where we learned a bit about snakes AND bought belts with our names imprinted on the back (I still wear mine, thankyouverymuch). The three of us also went with Todd to the lost luggage sale center in Alabama once, which was pretty damn cool.

Then one time with Todd, I rear-ended an SUV on the way back from Atlanta and nearly totaled my car. The tow truck driver, Jerry, offered to take it to the body shop where he worked during the week (he only drove the truck on the weekends) and dropped Todd and I off at a motel. As Jerry described it, there were three motels in the closest town (Barnesville, GA), "but only two you'd probably want to stay at." One of these was owned by "Indians, but they keep it pretty clean," and the other was the new, fancy motel with the WaffleHouse in the parking lot. I asked for the fancy one, please. I think the room here cost me $30 for the night, and it was actually quite new and clean. The next morning, Enterprise picked us up and drove us to their closest store that was several towns away but gave us the opportunity to drive through The Rock, Georgia (not kidding-- there's a big rock at each end of the highway engraved with "The Rock"). The body shop was run by Jerry, Johnnie, Jimmy, and Mama. Mama kept the books and 'the boys' worked on the cars. Now, my car was very close to being totaled (my hood slid under the bumper of the SUV and crunched a lot of important parts; the SUV was unscathed). They were all very friendly and fixed my car in about a week, during which time I used the rental car in Tallahassee, about 3 hours away. They charged me incredibly little to repair it, and I've never had a problem with it since.

I came late one evening by myself to pick it up when they were done. When Mama saw that I was driving home that night all alone (I think it was around 7:00) she asked me, "D'ya have a gun?"
"A gun?? No. Why would I have a gun?"
"Weeelllll... I don't like you driving all the way to Tallahassee by yourself. It's going to be dark, y'know."
"Oh, uh, thanks. I think I'll be ok."
"Tell you what. You give me your phone number and I'll call you along the way to make sure you're alright."

And she did. Around 9:00 she called. I told her I was almost home, and she was satisfied.

The moral here is that if you ever get stranded in middle-south Georgia, look for Jimmy's Body Shop in Barnesville. They're friendly, fair, and actually care about customers.


I think my most exciting "adventure," or at least the one I like to tell most often, is when my friend Jessica and I took a week after studying in London to tour Scotland and Ireland. This trip was probably the best in my life, but one moment stands out (not because it was so great, but because it was so different for me).

Jessica and I were staying in a bed and breakfast on the farthest west tip of Ireland, near Mt. Brendan. We were probably the least prepared mountain hikers ever and were very fortunate that our hosts packed us lunches in tupperware containers and provided us with backpacks and windbreakers. We probably should have considered bringing water as well, but we didn't. I drank right from the streams running down the mountain, while Jessica, justifiably, declined. One day after finishing lunch, we ambled along and came across a small waterfall. We climbed around it and Jessica handed me her camera so I could take a picture of her on top of it. I did, then she came down and we began to switch places. Unfortunately, the large, flat rock on which I had perched was quite wet, tilted, and a little slick. When Jessica reached for my camera, her feet slipped out from under her and she fell forward, bashing her chin on the rock and sliding down into the stream.

I pulled her up and saw that she was coherent and everything, but her chin was bleeding profusely and she didn't seem to notice. Of course, we had no gauze or band-aids or even tissues, so I filled up one of the tupperwares (the only thing in our backpack) with cold water from the stream and made her rest her chin in it for a while, thinking that the cold should at least help the blood clot a little. She started singing "The Bear Necessities," from the Jungle Book and I joined in as well, and eventually the bleeding slowed. Then, however, we had a five-mile walk back to the B&B before she could get any actual help with it. She was really strong about it and I kept telling her it really wasn't that bad at all, but we should go back anyway. It WAS really bad, though, and I was shocked that none of the other hikers we passed claimed to have even a band-aid. Finally, I flagged down the only car on some back country road who gave us some tissues that Jessica pressed against her chin. At one point, I started humming 'The Bear Necessities' again and Jessica asked me why. I told her that she had been singing it earlier and we realized that she couldn't remember anything about 5 or 10 minutes after her fall. When we finally made it back, our hostess came running out of her house and immediately whisked Jessica away to the nearest "doctor" who put 5 stitches in her chin while in his dining room. For the rest of the trip she was a really great sport, just a little worried about her scar. Of course, she got the stitches replaced in a much neater line when she got back to the states. I've seen the scar she still has from that day, and it's totally awesome.

The moral here is to keep calm in emergencies. If I had panicked, or even let on how serious it was, Jessica has told me, she would have panicked too and we might not have made it back in one piece.