I had cottage cheese pancakes for the second time in my life in Nashville. Teryn’s pancakes were just as flawless as the batch Mr. Allen (Dean) whipped for us in Seattle. It’s really nice to see a family tradition being passed on and spreading to new places.
It’s also really nice to eat a great breakfast. (MA now taking over writing this post for Danny). After gathering our stuff and packing it into our cars (which now had more room because Bruno and Gina were staying in Nashville to hang out for a couple more days before returning to reality), we said our goodbyes and thank you’s to my sister Teryn, Bruno, and Gina. I must say that it is funny just how long it takes all of us to get our shit together before we can leave to go somewhere, and everyone else on the trip can definitely attest to that. We were now entering the grind mode portion of the trip where our days would consist mainly of driving and not as much daily activities in the places we were stopping. Food would be the main motivator to stop.
So we got on the road headed to our next stop, Memphis. It was about a three hour drive from Nashville to Memphis, which went real smoothly. We were all pretty excited about getting to Memphis because by that time we were hungry again, and our friend Alvin had recommended a great BBQ place for us to go to (where he suggested we try the BBQ pulled pork sandwiches). We arrived at Central BBQ and could tell pretty quickly that this might be one of the better food stops on the trip. We laughed at the entrance to the restaurant because there was a sign that read “Hippies use the back door.” Which was right up our alley. 
Being four liberal, Swarthmore educated guys the sign was probably made for people like us, but we had a good laugh with the restaurant owner (we think he was) when we got in. We explained our road trip to the guy, and he took us through the menu and his recommendations. We wanted to try a little of everything, so we ordered dry rub ribs, three kinds of wings (dry rub, wet, and Jamaican jerk), macaroni and cheese, and a pulled pork sandwich (for Alvin, it was delicious, too). We tried some of the locally brewed beer as well. I’m not sure whether the guy really liked us or if we just ordered a lot of food, but he ended up giving us a discount (the police discount).
Oh, and it was also funny how multiple people gave us incredulous looks when we told them our ultimate destination that day was Fort Smith, Arkansas. They couldn’t believe we weren’t going to spend more time in Memphis, or rather that we would want to spend more time in Arkansas than in Memphis. Anyway the food was amazing! Some of the best BBQ I’ve ever had. I think we agreed that the dry rub was not as good as the wet wings. I personally loved the Jamaican jerk (shoutout to Jamaica!).
From Memphis we made our way through Arkansas eventually ending up at Fort Smith. We had one small hiccup where we got momentarily caught up in Little Rock (shoutout to Bill Clinton), but after about 6 hours we made it. We had had conversations the night before about where exactly we were going to stay this night. Originally we thought we could make it to Oklahoma City and maybe camp somewhere, but we found out that would have been a grind. Then we figured out that our Swarthmore friends Jake, Derek, and Rebecca were going to stop in Fort Smith on their own road trip, so we decided to go there so we could hang with them. We also wanted to make sure we could watch Game 1 of the NBA finals. So we agreed to get a cheap motel/hotel in Fort Smith. On the way in, Sam and I did a quick wikipedia to figure some things out about Forth Smith and we realized this city meant more to us than we could have ever imagined. First, Ronnie Brewer and Bryant Reeves were two NBA players that hailed from there. Second, it was the second biggest city in Arkansas. Lastly, but far more importantly, Fort Smith, Arkansas was the location for the final, climactic scene in the movie Bruno. Now our basketball team had had a hilarious team viewing of this film during winter break this past school year, and it is hard to put into words just how funny this was to us. It was the site of what the movie called “Straight Dave’s Man Slammin’ Max Out.” It was a wrestling match the main character of Bruno set up where spectators thought they were going to watch wrestling but ended up seeing two guys making out in a cage match. The largely anti-gay Fort Smith crowd went hysterical and tried desperately to stop what was taking place, throwing chairs at the cage and screaming obscenities. One person was even caught on camera crying because they could not take the queer act unfolding in front of them. Anyway, sorry for the detailed explanation but the context had to be set. See the movie if you want additional context.
Ok so we arrived, found a nice Days Inn and sat down and starting watching the game. Kobe was doing work all game (much to Danny’s delight, and much to Sam’s displeasure) and the Lakers dominated throughout. At halftime we walked a few blocks down to a sports bar to watch the rest of the game and get dinner. There we met some very friendly waitresses (one of whom was very attractive…we were all captivated by her accent), and had a good laugh about our four IDs being from four different states across the country. Danny told her he was from Long Island, and she looked back at him with a blank stare, and said she had no idea where that was but she bet it was nice. When we told her that we were on a basketball team, she explained to us that she was on her own team. Her sport—livestock judging. Even after a five minute explanation I still have no idea what it is, I guess you just tell people how nice their cows look and stuff.
At the tail end of the meal a group of fellow Swarthmore road trippers stopped by for a beer. Jake, Derek and Rebecca are taking a similar trip and were on their way from Chicago to San Antonio. It was cool to meet up with them and Ft. Smith, Arkansas was a pretty random place for a meet-up. We bid them farewell and went to back to the room to get some sleep so we could begin another “grind it out” day…
MAllen2
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