Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

For 2023 it was time at last to venture to the Carolinas, the only southern states we hadn’t yet visited, with a focus on the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Considering how many battlefields we’d toured over the preceding years, the home of Fort Sumter was an inevitable addition to our experiential collection…

After the overlong Kentucky leg, only Tennessee stood between us and the Carolinas. Our first hotel of the evening would be in a rather charming city where we previously stayed for a convention and had hoped to revisit someday. Same as the first half of the day, the drive took far longer than we would’ve liked, though this time road construction wasn’t to blame.

Tennessee seemed in competition with Kentucky to boast the Most Charming Welcome Center. We’re cool with any such rivalries, especially if the competition inspires them to maintain cleaner bathrooms.

Next stop: Knoxville! Last time we hung out there was in 2017 for Fanboy Expo Totally Awesome Weekend and a spot of sightseeing that included the Sunsphere, as seen on The Simpsons. This time was merely a stopover, but the meals we had in town were hearty.

Before we could enjoy ourselves there, once again fate dropped major road blockage in our path as we merged from I-75 onto I-40 shortly after 6 p.m., only to find traffic at a near-standstill and diverted to the leftmost lanes. We later found out a mattress had fallen off a truck, went under a semi and knocked a fuel line loose, causing it to catch fire and burn all the way down. We’d missed the part where the road was at a dead stop for twenty minutes. We were too late to witness anything incendiary in progress, but we laid eyes on the remains after firefighters were done with their part.

Our hotel for the evening was nestled in a business district alongside several other lookalikes. We were exhausted and not in the mood for long-range roaming. Thankfully it wouldn’t be needed: fate had carefully placed our hotel a few blocks away from a sandwich joint that spoke to us with an imaginary megaphone — Bit Burger, whose dishes were mostly named after various pop-culture IPs and items, and whose lobby was packed from floor to ceiling with toys and collectibles from decades past. It was like an old TGIFriday’s that ripped all the sports equipment off their walls and let a Gen-X-er and a Gen-Y-er take turns putting up items from their own childhood bedrooms.

Predictable ’80s hits welcomed us over the P.A. as we walked in. We’ve been to plenty of places that were more entertaining than actually tasty. To our relief, the food was pretty great by our modest standards. Burgers with happy fun names included the Mega Man (bacon, cheddar, caramelized onions, white barbecue sauce), the Bowser (Boom-Boom sauce, jalapenos, pepper Jack cheese, onion, lettuce, tomato), the 1-Up (mayo, lettuce, Swiss, shredded goat cheese, sauteed white wine/garlic mushrooms), the 256 (their meatless Impossible Burger), and so on.

Anne had the Von Kaiser, which was just their reuben, but with her customary modifications (no dressing, add pickles). They also had a line of decadent shakes with various large objects perched on or dunked in them. Anne opted for the visual simplicity of a butterbeer shake.

Thankfully the three blocks back to the hotel didn’t ambush us with more road construction or exploding street racers. Anne was struggling with the physical discomforts of plantar fasciitis and needed the downtime even more than I did. We had walking plans on our itinerary — lots of ’em — and were really hoping she’d be okay. She was happy to see the hotel TV options included Showtime (which we don’t have) and settled in for a tale about a very different fire-related incident — the first part of their recent miniseries sequel Waco: The Aftermath. She’d already seen the preceding Waco miniseries while making the most of our Paramount+ subscription in between seasons of Star Trek: Picard. Thus we drifted off into the night accompanied by the bluster of a morally outraged Michael Shannon.

DAY TWO: SUNDAY, June 25th.

I’d been concerned our pet-friendly hotel might turn noisy at night, but apparently we’d shared the place only with very good doggos. We left early and grabbed breakfast from Maple Street Biscuit Company, a mostly Southern chain out of Jacksonville dating back to 2012, now with a few dozen locations. (The closest to our house are a couple in the Cincinnati vicinity.) Country music welcomed us over the P.A. as we walked in.

Naturally I had no choice but to try the Squawking Good, as seen in a season-2 episode of Food Network’s Guilty Pleasures. Behold a biscuit topped with fried chicken, goat cheese, and pepper jelly, served with their “smashbrowns”. I paired that with a caramel toffee crunch latte, though I usually dial down my caffeine intake on vacation so we don’t have to stop for restrooms so often. Yep, I’ve gotten that old.

Anne’s sandwich is barely visible in the background — the Iron Goat, topped with spinach and goat cheese, plus a side order of maple bacon. Each customer was given a random object in lieu of an order number to be called out, even though there were nearly none of us in the house. Our order number was “WALNUTS!”

Afterward we had to make one last stop in Tennessee: Anne totally forgot to pack a hairbrush. I stayed in the car while she ran inside the nearest CVS to grab one. She had fun chatting with the cashier and another customer who was filling a cooler with ice. All three of them were middle-aged women, looking at that cooler and swapping jokes about menopause. Yep, we’re that old now.

Then we were ready for our first foray into the Carolinas. To be continued!

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