#secretchiefs3

The Secret Chiefs 3: (Me, Kiki, and my Kia)

I don’t think I’ll ever find another video where I felt more free.  

I turned 22 on November 9th, 2016, the day after Donald Trump was elected as POTUS, and I was stuck in Georgia paying a speeding ticket I’d gotten from a previous trip to Florida about a month before. I made sure that $600 for a speeding ticket was going to have one heck of a journey to go along with it. 

Day 1:

I’d visited Helen, GA: A small mountain town in North-eastern Georgia where there were mannequins standing in funnel-cake stands, German restaurants full of skin-head motorcyclists, and a giant Confederate flag hanging over the courthouse. 

I met a cool guy named Christian at the record store in Athens, GA: This is where I picked up perhaps the best road-trip music material after meeting the first guy in real life that I’ve seen actually drinking LaCroix when it first made internet fame. It inspired me to pick up a new CD in every new record store I’d find, but it’s really hard to top Aphex Twin and David Bowie when it comes to variety.

Day 2:

I saw a miniature Grand Canyon in a place called “Providence Canyon State Park” on the way to paying my ticket in a small town in the midst of cotton-fields. I don’t remember the name of where the ticket was because I spent the least time there. I think I used their wifi at Subway and that was about it. (Fun Fact: Subways are more common in small towns than McDonalds!)

Rather than head back home right away, I decided to go to Mobile, Alabama to meet my good friend, Mia who was living there with her boyfriend Jesse. I had met her 2 weeks prior at a hostel in Asheville, and we liked each other enough to meet up again for an election party that wasn’t in our favor!

Day 3:

Mia: “Have you ever been to New Orleans? It’s only 2 hours away.”

Me: *Leaves Mobile at 5 AM in order to make it to New Orleans in time for a quick beignet and an encounter with voodoo people and still have enough time to drive allllll the way back to Charlotte in time for work the next day*

I drove to New Orleans, decided it was scary after seeing so many homeless drug addicts, didn’t feel safe and decided to avoid the entire state of Georgia on the way back home as a way of saying that I gave them enough money already. In order to get back to Charlotte, I had to drive through the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee which were on fire and then pass through pitch-black mountain roads in North Carolina when I was super tired and needed to constantly be on the phone to stay awake. 

In total, I passed through South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee all in 3 days.