From Florida to Georgia

At right, Mark and Danielle stand outside Tropical Smoothie Cafe in McDonough, Ga.

He Said

Matisyahu is the reason we found ourselves in Live Oak, Fla.

While at the Jewish ingenue's concert last week, Danielle saw a flyer for the Wanee Music Festival and decided that we should stop in Live Oak. On tap were the Allman Brothers, the Doobie Brothers, the Wailers (Bob Marley's backing band) and Jorma Kaukonen, the former guitarist for Jefferson Airplane, who is now with Hot Tuna.

A one-day pass for $50 or $60? Not a bad deal. A one-day pass for $105? A little too expensive. By the time we realized we didn't want to pay that much, we had already parked the car and borrowed bug spray from a couple (Mike and Kathy) and their friend Brian, who were all from Bradenton.

We quickly turned the car around only to be stopped by an overzealous Lake City police officer, who began frantically waving his arms in an attempt to turn us around. It appears we were trying to exit through the  entrance, probably the biggest — and only — infraction he had witnessed that day.

We soon returned to Lake City. Bessie, working the front desk at the Motel 6, was kind enough to refund our $40 after Danielle told her the cost of the tickets.

"Was it $105 for the both of you or $105 apiece?" Bessie asked. "$105 apiece," Danielle replied. 

We were out of the room a few minutes later.

I sat in the car and surfed the Internet using the motel's network as Danielle called her friends in the Atlanta area, where we now decided would be our stop for the night. Using Facebook, we both tried to find phone numbers for those friends who lived in and around the area.

We both grew impatient as we left messages, and friends who had promised places to stay turned down our petitions. "Let's just start driving north and I bet someone will call us back," Danielle decided.

Danielle's bladder caused us to stop just over the Georgia border in Adel (don't ask me why one person has to drink so much water). While in Adel, I began craving a Wendy's Frosty. While we waited in line, Danielle noticed a photo opportunity and asked me to run to the car for my camera. 

The opportunity? One of the employees was dressed from head to toe as Wendy, the young redhead who is the freckly face of the fast-food chain. The woman, wearing a coppery red wig, waved at the camera just after scooping a customer's fries. 

With Frosty in hand, we got back in the car. Danielle passed the boredom of the road by commenting on the sex- and religion-centered billboards common in southern Georgia:

"$TRIPPERS ... need we say more." And this is the Bible Belt? Directly underneath the stripper ad, against a white background in black block letters: "Do something good." Are these meant to be related? A few miles  later, she saw, "Be sure your sin will find you out."

Mark passed the time as the car's deejay, trying to guess the songs in his IPod that Danielle would like. She gave a thumbs-up to four of the first seven, with Mark keeping the tally on a "Pedro offers you his protection" Post-It note. 

She favored the voice of Emily Saliers over Amy Ray's, which Danielle described as "hard" and "violent." Of the Indigo Girls songs that I played, Danielle preferred "Cedar Tree" from the "Rites of Passage" album.

She also found herself humming to the Dave Matthews Band, particularly early stuff such as "A Christmas Song," "Blue Water Baboon Farm," and "I'll Back You Up," which is my favorite.

— Mark