After New York I caught the Chinatown bus down to D.C. where I stayed with some friends of a friend who I had never met before - they left the back door open for me. I had to ask the first people who walked in - 'Do you live here?'. Most of my time there was spent smoking American Spirits out the back of their house with Will. We were merely supporting the good people of the Virginia tobacco industry. It is extremely strange but exciting to be having in depth conversations on the state of America and the world in general, with people you have never met before - I guess that is what traveling is all about though.
Next stop was Maryland, where I stayed on a small farm owned by my friend Ted's in laws. There I met his brother in law, Greg, who on a whim I drove down to Blacksburg, Va for a week. It was great to be able to sample the American college lifestyle - Blacksburg is a great example of the university town. Its population is only around 40,000 people, but over half of these are aged between the ages of 18-24. It is extremely chilled out, but at the same time all party come sunset. We got around town on Mopeds and a revolving cast of trucks, sampling beers from all over yonder at the magnificent Vintage Cellars, living off quesadeas and chick-fill-a. I was befriended by the entire apartment complex, and attended parties where I became initiated into the sacred order of beer-pong and various other drinking games. The whole rivalry between Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia even began to make sense to me, and at this point, I realized I could totally live in this town. There was a friendship group I could easily fit into, and Blacksburg has a bottle shop of the first order (the aforementioned Vintage Cellars). As such, it was most saddening when it came time to leave this oasis in the high country. A couple of days before I departed, however, I was thrust into the other-worldliness of the truly bizarre Meadows of Dan.
That day we had been at a local vineyard. Yet the fact that we even able to get there is remarkable, because during the course of that day, Greg and myself were witness to some of the worst driving known to man. I mean, this girl was horrendously bad - turning around to talk to us for ten seconds at a time, backing out onto a highway and blocking all oncoming traffic..just a couple of her faux pas. Her worst sin though was neglecting to take a glance at the fuel meter, as by the time we reached the vineyard we were almost totally out of petrol. Hence the reason for our stop off at Meadows of Dan. Our first inkling that such a place might actually exist came to us on our walk back to the car park. There was a firetruck on standby in case of any emergency, which had an extremely mythical name. 'Meadows Of Dan! What kind of name is that?', our friend Sean exclaimed. 'Yo, don't make fun of my town', came the reply from within.
We thought nothing further of it. Greg put the car in neutral on the way back down the hill to conserve gas, but there was a definite question mark over whether we would make it to a town or not. Luckily, with no help from the locals (who when asked where the nearest gas station was only replied with a barely understandable grunt of 'movin, movin' - thanks heaps, pricks), we spotted a town off the highway, which turned out to be the mysterious Meadows of Dan.
Meadows of Dan is essentially two gas stations and a general store. Confederate flags were for sale, which I suppose is nothing out of the ordinary in the south, but that wasn't what struck me. It was the people. They were just...plain...creepy. It was the Children of the Corn all grown up. Me and my friends were looked upon with unguarded hostility. Bikers orbited the gas station as if on patrol - the message was unmistakably, 'Get the hell out'. Men wore leather tassled flares and carried skeletons on the back of their bikes, the women were plump and unseemly. There appeared to be an unnatural obsession with pumpkins. So we got our gas and got out, but not before taking a few happy snaps in front of the street sign.
On my last day in Blacksburg I was smart enough to burn my toes on a moped. I had been riding around town, and in my efforts to get the stand down (in thongs of course) put my feet right against the exhaust pipe. It was quite hot. For the next couple of weeks I had to change the bandage everyday due to blistering. Oh well, it will be a cool battle scar.
One of the things I noticed in Blacksburg, and in America in general, is the wonderful capacity of people in this country to interact with complete strangers. People talk to one another on the street, in bars, in queues, in a way that makes Australians look like cold pricks. But lets face it, we are. We hate each other. We view other people as obstacles between us and getting our groceries, or beer, not potential friends or someone to talk to to kill time. Its almost like we don't give a shit about anyone unless we already know them. Australia, the indifferent country. When I went to the opening session of The Dark Knight, there was 45 mins to kill after we got out seats before the movie started, so a cinema wide inpromptu game of charades started. This would never happen in Australia. 'What? Interact with strangers when I'm not pissed, yeah right mate'. There was a particularly amusing moment when a blonde girl got up to mime a movie title. The first yell out from the crowd was 'legally blonde', then 'Debbie Does Dallas'. It was a rather raucus affair. There were these total frat dudes sitting behind us who were the source of much beautifully crude humour. One guy got up for his turn and they called out, 'You're a faggot!', 'Could your hair be any longer?', and other such well though out insults. It was entertaining. The movie of course was pretty good also.
