Day 11 – July 13, 2002
We left Louisville on a drizzling morning after a hideously boring stop at the Slugger Museum. As bad as it was, the bored punk girl explaining the modernization of the bat-making process made it all worthwhile. "30 minutes or 30 seconds…which would you choose?"
Mix #58 Full of Dust and Guitars, Volume 1
Maker: Jeremy Date: 3/01 Begun: 10:57am Ended: 12:41pm Miles Covered: 102
Leaving Louisville, KY – Another two tape set, this one is a look back at the 20th century. Volume 1 is 1900-1949. Dan posits that if we live until the year 2100, Jeremy can make a 21st century retrospective for their mix tape road trip into outer space and the red spot of Jupiter.
Mix #59 Full of Dust and Guitars, Volume 2
Maker: Jeremy Date: 3/01 Begun: 12:43pm Ended: 2:47pm Miles Covered: 112
Right outside Cincinnati, OH – 1950-1999. Jeremy compares his life to the "Oogum Boogum Song:" no political overtones, just shaking his goods. Upon hearing this volume, Marc commented that some Oasis on the tape would have really "livened things up." Now entering Licking County.
Mix #60 Best Mix Tape
Maker: Dan Date: 9/01 Begun: 2:53pm Ended: 4:12pm Miles Covered: 93
Leaving Columbus, OH – The 60th mix and the first mix cd, chronologically at least. My god, how slow we were to catch up with technology. We wonder how fast we would have to drive during this mix to beat the current miles per mix record of 147. We figure out we’d have to go about 109 mph. Looking at the map, we discover we’ve been in 14 states and 2 countries, cursing ourselves once again for screwing up the North American hat trick. Dan declares that Detroit always keeps it real and that D.C. never keeps it real and never has.
Mix #61 Walking the Gauntlet
Maker: Jeremy Date: 10/01 Begun: 4:16pm Ended: 5:50pm Miles Covered: 81
St. Clairsville, OH – The highway takes us through Wheeling, WV, which looks fascinating from the road. It’s got a nice bridge, cut rate liquors, houses on the hill and a lovely tunnel. If only we had time to stop. Dan suddenly gets real excited for Pittsburgh and shouts "Fuck Louisville!" He follows that up by badmouthing St. Louis and its lame fans. At this point we’re both tired and weary and craziness is seeping in.
Pittsburgh
Making our way through the street festival traffic, we make our way to Kevin and Beth’s. This is the last planned stop on our trip and we’re ready to make it count. We walk to Dee’s Bar where Jack and Kara meet us for cheap pitchers of beer. Everyone wonders how the trip is going and if we’re ready to kill each other yet. We try to tell the encapsulated version of our journey to everyone, focusing more on the cities and parks we stopped at rather than boring them with the minute details of each mix tape. They know we’re nerds and don’t need a long story to prove it to them.
We eventually head over the Tiki Bar, which is described as a kitschy, fun little place. Well, it certainly was little but it was more of a meat market than anything else. We all pay the $3 cover to pass through the giant stone head and enter the sweating, writhing masses, packed like sardines in a crushed tin can. After finding nowhere to sit, we end up on the dance floor, which is almost completely empty at this point. Four factors lead up to an evening of dancing. 1. Comfortable with our friends. 2. Not caring about the lunkheads in the bar. 3. It’s horrendously crowded. 4. Excessive amounts of alcohol. Dan finally realises his dream of becoming a dancer as he boogies like a maniac on the dance floor. Jeremy pogos wildly, pulling a muscle in his thigh. The music is a great mix of old school rap and pop dance hits, like "Jungle Love" which Jeremy is surprised to learn Dan knows all the words to. 45 minutes is long enough on the increasingly jam-packed dance floor and we venture back out into the night, sweating and sore.
