So Piccu and I just finished up a successful trip to South Carolina to meet down at the lake house for Monster Movie Marathon (MMM). Last year's MMM was a success so we thought we would try it again.
I have to give mad props and big ups, as the kids say, to Mike and Amanda for giving us directions for an alternate route to get down there. It made a huge difference. Especially on the return trip. We shaved almost an entire hour off of our time. Of course we started our return trip at 11 p.m. EST Saturday night. We pretty much drove half way across the state of Kentucky and saw maybe 25 vehicles coming and going. That means fewer stupid people around to kill you. The only draw back was that the heat was out in my truck. Instead of heat it was more like cool which was just a notch above cold which was the temperature outside.
We made it down there around 5:30 p.m. EST Friday afternoon after leaving home at about 9 a.m. Central time. It's a trip and a half, but instead of heading to Nashville and taking I-40 all the way across Tennesse, we took an alternate route along the Cumberland Parkway toward London, Ky. and then headed south to Knoxville.
It doesn't sound like a very good idea since it is a little less direct of a route and adds a little north-to-south distance, but the lack of traffic on the Cumberland Parkway more than makes up for it.
After making it to SC we decided to make a trip to Spartanburg to the "world famous" Beacon Drive-in. Last year Piccu got screwed after he ordered the catfish and it came out fiddler-style instead of fillet-style. So this trip was the second chance because eating catfish fiddlers is too much like work.
Piccu went with a no-brainer and got a burger this time, but I saw that they had fried liver on the menu and every now and again you just get a craving for liver. At least we country folks do on occasion. So that is what I got.
Unfortunately when I sat down to partake of my gigantic plate of liver, fries and onion rings I picked up a piece of liver only to find out that I had received a plate of gizzards.
For those of you who don't know what gizzards are, no one else does either. They taste similar to liver, but not nearly as strong in flavor and they can be a bit chewy and tough depending how they are cooked. And getting a plate of them cooked right is like winning the lottery, it just doesn't happen.
The gizzards that I received were dog toy tough. Piccu picked one up to try and tried to take a bite of one. But biting off a little bit was useless, once you had one you had to commit and eat the whole thing at once. They aren't that big, but some are a little more than you want to take at once since you are in a public place and trying to show that you have some sort of table manners.
We also got screwed last year on the world famous Beacon Drive-In iced tea. It was the best lemon tea I had probably ever had, but I don't like lemon tea so it was a let down. I'm sure that many people say that you aren't "southern" if you don't put lemon in your sweet tea, but those people are in fact morons. Last time I checked the woods around my house, I didn't see one damn lemon tree. It would be different if the stinkin' lemon tree was indigenous to this country or even continent of North America. But it is not and it pretty much just grows in Florida where no southerners actually live unless you consider all rich old people southerners.
So that's strike two for the world famous Beacon Drive-in. I can appreciate it, but at the end of the day it's 0-for-2 in my book and I don't think they serve anything that isn't deep fried in God-knows-what and sometimes you want to take it a little easy on yourself.
I'm sure that Piccu will say something about the trip since this is getting long so I'll leave that to him, we had a blast as usual. The boat also wasn't broken so we tried to break it and I got to see the lake.
So Merlin and French Toast need to thank the rest of the family for us for having us down so we could have fun and see the baby. We call him Texas or Tejas. For the most part he seems to be a pretty happy go lucky kid when he's not projectile vomiting.
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Thanks to Wikipedia.org:
The gizzards of poultry are a popular food the world over. Grilled chicken gizzards are sold as street food in China, Taiwan, Japan, Philippines, Haiti and the rest of Southeast Asia. Stewed gizzards are eaten as a snack in Portugal, while pickled turkey gizzards are a traditional food in some parts of the Midwestern United States. In the Southern United States, the gizzard is typically served fried, sometimes eaten with hot or honey mustard sauce.
Aside from the foul food, sounds like you guys had a good time. Glad to hear it. I watched 'The Uninvited' on TCM, and also 'The Dark House' which both were vastly enjoyable.
Actually, Piccu and I spoke briefly about what part of the chicken the gizzard is. It's actually a small pouch south of the stomach that is used to help break down seeds for digestion. Some might call it the "craw". As in "That really sticks in my craw."
The problem with the gizzard is that in order to break down that gritty seed stuff it has to be really tough.
However, Orelinde makes them sound so exotic. All along I just thought I was eatin' innards.
My aunt used to work at a company which had a large quantity of latin employees. And they used to cook something that was soooooo delicious. When I asked them what it was they told me it was the gland of a cow's neck.
I have no idea what it really was or what else it was called. But it was quite yummy, yet disgusting in theory.
We had a good trip down and back and a great time just hanging out and watching scary movies. Well, some of them were scary. Dog Soldiers was an awesome movie and I highly recommend it. There aren't enough good werewolf movies out there, but this one is.
The not so scary were Friday the 13th Part 3. I have no idea why i keep thinking this is my favorite Jason movie because it is laughably horrendous. Fright Night was also kind of sucky.
On Saturday night we watched two great episodes of Supernatural on DVD, including the one entitled Scarecrow. Then we watched a French horror movie called High Tension. I have had it for a year but never watched it. I am an idiot. This movie was so great. There were plenty of holy crap moments and it was not as gory as I thought it would be for an unrated flick. Check it out sometime.
All in all another successful trip to the SC and I look forward to going back, but I don't look forward to the drive.
By the by, The Uninvited and The Dark House are two of the creepiest old school horror movies there are.
I will absolutly check out High Tension, thank for the heads up.
Each Friday, on TCM Rob Zombie hosts a show and talks about some of these classics. When I stumbled upon the airing of The Uninvited, tivo'ed everything after that because well hell. It is Halloween time.
Last night I watched Ed Wood's 'The Monster's Bride' which was something else. Good, bad...I don't know. But it is an Ed Wood movie, so you have to love it for that.
I wish I could find out when the Uninvited will air again, as I want to tape it.
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