The Disclaimer

I am not skilled at cameras. For the most part, I've avoided cameras, especially being captured by them, most of my life. As such, I make no promises to the quality of the photographs or videos I took along the trip. I've also learned that when doing videos, I want to look the speaker (in this case me) in the face, which means my eyes keep looking away from the camera lens. I do try to be more conscious about it, but looking someone in the eye is a hard habit to break.

The Back Story

Life can be pretty hectic, especially during 2020. I've worked through a lot of stuff over the years, keeping my head down to survive and hopefully better my situation through pure stubborn bullheadedness. One of the consequences of which is I've been unable to travel back tothe West Coast when I lost family. As such, there are a few bequeathed items that have been waiting in someone else's care for going on twenty years. Specifically a marble mantle clock from my paternal great-grandmother's family and my maternal grandmother's antique hand-made rocking chair.

The Plan

2020 has SUCKED in so many ways even as a writer I don't have enough words to do it justice. Writer's block, job problems, health issues, and oh, you know, a pandemic. We lost our conventions too, divorcing us from our tribes and locking us down in our little boxes. As for me, I've spent most of my life moving around, and not being able to move around has been uncomfortable. I've lived in many states and visited 47 of the 50 United States - still need Maine, South Dakota and Alaska.

Still, I don't like just throwing my hands in the air and giving up. At the end of 2020 I sat with a month's worth of vacation days normally used to attend conventions. My dayjob has a use it or loose it policy, so November seemed like a really good time to cross the country and fetch those heirlooms. I reached out to you guys, without telling you why I was asking, and got a list of places you thought I should visit around the country. Those that could be routed along my way were added to the trip...a bare outline with a few landmarks remeniscient of the way I write novels.

So let's get started....

Day 1

The goal for the first day of this trip was to visit a place I'd heard about - Game Galaxy Arcade in Smyrna, Tennessee, the same place I recently went to celebrate the completion of Guns of Underhill 2: Mettle Kingdom. The day went south from early morning, slowing me down but not stopping me. 

I totally underestimated the scope of this arcade. I figured I would take a few pictures and then play an hour or two. Even after filming 20 minutes of walking around looking at games, I'd totally missed an entire room full of pinball machines. My phone was low on charge, so I took a few pictures instead (though I do have a new video of the pinball room from my more recent trip)