Firstly, I should point out that there is a very high chance that I may die during my writing this entry. Or at least be carted off into the nether-realm by some supernatural being. See, either I'm currently residing in a 'Shining'-like hotel, or humanity is even more retarded than I first thought. The reason for this is that our room number is 610. Doesn't seem too odd right? Wrong. There are only four floors in the hotel. When given the key, the receptionist looked me in the eyes and told me, 'second floor'. I wasn't totally listening, perhaps in some sort of semi-sexual daydream due to my lack of recent intimate contact. So when Father and I stepped into the elevator (oh God, I'm American), we were shocked to find the highest numbered button was four. Immediately, I pressed the number two button, subconsciously aware that the receptionist and I had some sort of psychic connection. However, when we reached the second floor, the hotel rooms only went up to 221 and so, slightly confused, we headed up to the forth floor; maybe there could be more than one hundred rooms per floor? No luck. Our room simply didn't exist. I began to fantasise that maybe 'floor six' was haunted, that I was going to have to endure a night of pure nightmare. Long story short, our room was on the second floor, only slightly further along. So perhaps the hotel isn't haunted. Yet it still stands as a testament to the stupidity of man-kind: that some designer thought it would be a good idea to label rooms 200-221, immediately followed by 600-621, with rooms above 300 on the floors above. Fantastic.
Not much happened yesterday. We took a detour out by about 90 miles each way to head to 'Grandfather Mountain' - a huge mountain in the Appalachians. The mountain itself was spectacular, with edges without fences that would never have passed safety inspections in the UK. Yet with every beautiful natural attraction, there are always idiot people to, not necessarily ruin it, but distract me enough to want to laugh at them. Perhaps unfairly, the general opinion on American's is that they aren't particularly in peak physical shape. This obviously isn't the case in all individuals (I've spotted numerous very attractive women on my travels), yet occasionally American's do adhere to their stereotypes, much to my amusement. To make it to the highlight of Grandfather Mountain, a large swinging bridge across a ravine, one must climb a few steps to the top of an outcrop of rock. I literally mean a few, it really was no mean feat. Yet I overheard one woman say to another, 'Are you sure you'll be able to climb them? We could always take the elevator'. Fair enough, these were largish women, sometimes stairs will give them problems. However, it was the other lady's response that made me gag: 'No, I should be fine thanks. It's just that I'm not accustomed to this altitude'. Sorry, what? Grandfather Mountain is, admittedly, fairly high, at around 5900 feet. However, it's not fucking Everest. American's love to blow things completely out of proportion - I'm willing to bet that the oxygen concentration up there was almost the same as where you are sitting right now. Alright, so that was only one person, surely the whole of America isn't so stupid? I'm sure you can see where this is going, considering the title of this entry. Further along the mountain, we came across a Dad taking a photo of his family in front of the scenic overlook. Instead of the usual 'cheese!', he said, 'everyone say OXYGEN DEPRIVATION!' My faith in humanity is lost.
Upon entering Grandfather Mountain, we were given a CD. This was a CD that essentially worked as a guide - you put it into the CD player and as you drove up the mountainside, it would point out interesting features and tell stories relating to the area around. I'm sure you have already spotted a few problems with this idea.
''If you look to your left, you will see the famous Grandfather Mountain meadows, they look beautiful in the Summer.''
''Dad, all I see is trees?''
This went on all the way up the mountain. The problem is, everyone travels at different speeds when in the car, so everyone ends up with a very mismatched version of the history of Grandfather Mountain. Fantastic idea, retarded when put to the test. Nice one America.
Upon entering Georgia the following day, we were greeted by a Georgia welcoming sign. Underneath the sign read another message: 'Georgia - home to the 1996 Olympic Games'. Because evidently, nothing else of interest has happened in Georgia for the past 16 years. Think about it. That's like London being recognised for nothing else but the Olympic Games in 2028. I seriously doubt that will be the case - Georgia is just rather boring.
Father had his heart set on visiting a place called 'Wormsloe' or (Wormslow). I didn't have very high expectations for Wormslow as it sounded like a shit version of Wilmslow. Perhaps a Wilmslow inhabited by a worm. When we found ourself at Wormslow, I was convinced that we'd never leave. On either side of the road, trees overhung with hanging moss obscuring much of the view. I'll upload a photo onto twitter. It was very spooky. Wormslow itself turned out to be relatively uninteresting, which isn't surprising really because of America's very short history. Basically, if you've heard one colonial story, you've heard them all. And once again, another twat has become an American legend; Noble Jones was a colonist who opposed slavery and intended to keep slavery illegal in his small town. That was, until the English government legalised slavery in his colony. He then bought a bunch of slaves, because, hey, slaves. The video still showed Jones as really pally with his slaves though, his slave showing a visiting naturalist a pomegranate, as Jones laughed good naturedly at his antics.
Off we set to Savannah, the filming location of Forrest Gump. Unfortunately, the bench that he sat on has been put the museum (which we later saw) because people were attempting to steal it. Honestly, why do people have to fuck stuff up for the rest of us?! Savannah was a lovely city and I was lucky enough to experience another feat of American engineering. Scrap that, TWO feats of American engineering. The first was a lift which only had an 'up' arrow on the outside. Problem was, we had to go down. So we turned around to look for some stairs, only for the lift doors to open and two men walked out. They had obviously come from downstairs. Confused, Father and I stood in the lift, realising that inside was a button for the floor below. I'm still dumbfounded by this lift. I cannot see the point of installing an 'up' button when the lift only has two floors...and the second floor was the one with the button on. You couldn't even go up.
Secondly, was, I assume, a relatively new invention for Savannah: talking traffic lights. I have never wanted to murder an inanimate object, yet today I wanted to multiple times. Upon pressing the button to cross the road, the traffic light would speak:
''Wait....*beep*...wait...*beep*...wait...*beep*...wait...*beep*...wait....etc etc'''
Those of you who have been to America may be aware that crossings like these take for ever, because people rarely walk in America. So this talking and beeping went of for minutes while I stood there, sweating excessively due to the humidity, while an annoying traffic light told me to wait over...and over...and over again. When the voice changed to, 'You may now cross Main Road, Main Road. You may now cross Main Road, Main Road', I was ready to admit myself into a mental asylum. I was seriously considering throwing myself in front of one of the speeding vehicles.
And there we are, all up to date. Tomorrow is the final day of travelling and then I have two weeks of chilling out which I'm looking forward to. And then home. I feel slightly ashamed to say it, but I'm looking forward to that too. I miss people, too much. I like to think of myself as a cynical loner, but the truth is, I actually really need my friends. Or maybe that's just the Jack Daniels talking. Either way, I apologise for the quality of this post, I'm not totally pleased with it. But whatever, everyone has their bad days.
Cya.
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