It was dusk as we entered Georgia and all the palm trees made me a little homesick for Vegas.  In the distance we could see black clouds being illuminated by lightning.  Every so often a bolt of lightning would break through the clouds in the distance.  

Driving into Savannah on the way to the Pony Pen, I was struck by the beauty of the hanging moss from the trees, and the old beautiful houses.  As we made our way through Savannah and down the street of the Pony Pen, Darren said "It's a house, so don't look for a sign, there won't be one."  I pulled up to the house with the sign that said "The Pony Pen" out front and we laughed.

Getting out of the car, the beauty of Savannah was displaced with such oppressive humidity I wanted to retreat back into the safely of the air conditioned car.  Thunder rumbled and the sky lit up but it barely spilled a raindrop.  

We drank some beers and bourbon, and loaded in.  Too humid for my cowboy suits, yet again.  

I played to a most appreciative crowd.  Even the scary murder stuff that drives yuppies out in droves went over big.  I closed with a cover of Slim Cessna's Auto Club's "Lethan Injection", and was able to pretty much stop and testify towards the end.  It's amazing what one is capable of when performing to an awesome crowd + the whole God-complex that arises during tour.  Everything I learned from performing night after night came out in the performance, I feel it was my best of the tour.  Darren went on after and was also quite amazing.  We had a wonderful time at the Pony Pen.  Afterwards we sat on the front porch passing around a guitar.  Joe, a large dreaded black dude played some amazing acoustic blues.  Jeff, a bearded white dude in a trucker cap played some incredible piedmont style acoustic blues.  They invited us to play Jacksonville on Wednesday, since we had a day off.  It will be an honor to play a show with these two great musicians.    

We went back to Diego's house with Jeff and Joe.  I was beat and kind of drunk so when they were suggesting we hop on bikes and ride out to Waffle House, I passed.  Seemed like a really bad idea to put drunk, tired Jared on a bicycle.  Instead I hung around the house and called Nora.  With one more week to go before going home, I was starting to get very road weary and homesick, and hearing her voice several times a day was helping me get through it.  As much as I love touring and seeing new places and meeting new people (and immediately forgetting their names because it becomes difficult to keep track when you meet a whole new crop every night) I was missing home just as much.  

I crashed out on the couch and they arrived home very very late.  I was out.  I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and such.  Joe and Jeff went for a bike ride and Darren and I had to deal with a Darren Deicide Asian freakout.  The boy needed rice, so off we went in search of an Asian Buffet.  We found one.  It was called Asian Buffet, I think.  It was really not that good at all.  But it was food and the Asian got rice so he was satiated.  

We went back to Diego's and when he got off work we went to see another band at the Pony Pen, and had a great late night bullshit drinking session outside on the porch after.  Home again to Diego's with the other band for more drinking.  Now it wasn't Diego, Darren, me, Jeff and Joe sleeping in a one bedroom studio apartment.  It was Diego, Darren, me, Jeff, Joe, and 5 others.  We drank until the floor was nice.  

The next day Jeff and Joe left for Jacksonville shortly after Diego left for work and I got to steal the couch for a bit before everyone else woke up.  I woke up with a bit of a headache and a very painful wisdom tooth.  Once the kids in the other band woke up they dicked around on any instrument they could find.  The noise!  I kept reminding myself they are kids barely out of high school and refrained from snapping.  But the noodling and drums were taking their toll on my sanity. I took secret pleasure in the fact that every time someone dicked around on the drums, they hit their head as soon as they stood up.  Karma for making my headache worse.  

They eventually left to wander and I got a bit of a nap in.  But back they came and the noise the noise the noise.  I liked these kids a lot but they were really trying my patience.  When they finally left for NC I secretly rejoiced.  

Darren and I found a Del Taco on my GPS and we went looking for that.  It wasn't there so we went to Wendy's instead, and we returned to Deigo's just as he was getting home from work.

We went down the street to a cookout and I was given a really nice slab of rare steak and a Colt 45.  The beer served to help my tooth feel a lot better but I was worn out.  When we went home they were talking about going out to play pool but I was too tired, and Diego was as well, so we all stayed in and watched South Park.  

The next day we got up and figured how much time it would take to get to Jeff's house in Jacksonville.  So we went to Tybee Island.  We grabbed a sixer of Corona, a lime, some cups and had our own little Corona commercial on the beach.  The water was amazing and warm.  The salt water soothed my sore tooth nicely and by the time we left the swelling and pain were pretty much gone.  I got a slight chill swimming when a dorsal fin poked out of the water, but it was attached to a dolphin that was chasing fish to eat.  There were 4 of them, and they came very close.  It was incredible to swim with dolphins.  It was kind of weird when I got to more shallow water to be hit by a fish jumping out of the ocean to escape the dolphins.  

We got back to Diegos with feet burned by the sand and showered and hit the road for Jacksonville.  Georgia was a wonderful time, I can't wait to go back.