TBT^4: Road Trip!

5 September 20242 September 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly had a pretty jam-packed summer with lots of time on the road visiting family, friends, and floozies. Most of that driving was spent on the soulless, boring Interstate Highway System, but I managed to get onto some backroads (including a stop at Old Sheldon Church earlier this summer).

Over the long Labor Day weekend I was keeping I-20 hot with babysitting duties and celebrating my maternal grandparents’ seventieth (!) wedding anniversary. No real backroads on those excursions, but I did get to drive through the lovely town of Camden, South Carolina, on way to dinner with a friend (she made meatloaf stuffed with mushrooms and bleu cheese; it was absolutely incredible).

But yours portly can’t resist the siren song of undiscovered backroads for long. I’m looking forward to discovering some more of forgotten graveyards, abandoned middle schools, tiny shops, and other highway bric-a-brac in the near future.

With that, here is 7 September 2024’s “TBT^2: Road Trip!“:

SubscribeStarSaturday: Hiking the Florence Nature Preserve

10 August 20248 August 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive. To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more. For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

On Saturday, 3 August 2024 my friend Ashley and I went hiking in the Florence Nature Preserve, accessible via the Upper Hickory Nut Gorge Trailhead, just outside of Gerton, North Carolina and down the road from Chimney Rock.

Ashley had proposed the trip a couple of months earlier, with the inviting question “do you like hiking?” I couldn’t respond to that query quickly enough, and within minutes we had planned the broad outline of our excursion to the trailhead.

We left right around 6 AM that morning in Ashley’s sweet 2021 Ford Bronco, which she was eager to road test on winding mountain roads, and after a couple of missed GPS turns due to the distraction of conversation, we made it to the trailhead around 10:15 AM. By 10:30 AM we were lathered up in sunscreen and on the trail.

By noon we were drinking in this beautiful view at Tom & Glenna Rock over some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches:

The entire trail is roughly five miles up and back, but there are various side trails and alternative routes available that can reduce the trek depending on experience level and time constraints. We opted for a modified version of the “blue” trail rather than the whole loop, which would have taken us pretty much the entire day to complete.

Here’s a map of our route (I’ve used the map from the Conserving Carolina website and added our route in pink):

According to some rough math based on the interactive map for the trail, Ashley and I hiked around 3.82 miles in total. Naturally, roughly half of that was uphill, so coming back down the trail was a bit quicker. We also paced ourselves heading up, as Ashley was documenting our hike via video for her mother. That deliberate pace was smart, because we did not wear ourselves out on the hike.

The trail is rated as “challenging” and/or “strenuous,” and after my “Summer of George” I was a tad concerned about my ability to huff and puff up a mountain, but yours portly performed admirably.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Chicago 2024, Part III: Pizza and Ice Cream

20 July 202419 July 2024 The Portly Politico6 Comments

After a busy day of scurrying all over northwestern Indiana and Chicago, my brother and I settled into our accommodations at the Palmer House Hotel and rested for a bit. My older brother is one of those guys who likes to have the television on constantly, and he had it tuned—bizarrely—to CNN (I guess he wanted to go for that “waiting-at-the-doctor’s-office” or “sitting-at-an-airport-concourse” feel). We were in Chicago right after President Biden’s disastrous glitching out during his debate with President Trump, and it was interesting seeing how desperate the CNN anchors and pundits were. The Democratic Governors met and announced their support for Biden, and it reminded me of how much work Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—the one who the FBI plotted to kidnap to pin it on Republicans—has had done.

I showered the grime of Gotham and CNN from my doughy body and put on my best (and, I’ll hasten to add, only) Mickey Mouse t-shirt, and we went to Pizano’s Pizza and Pasta for dinner, a short walk from out hotel room. Pizano’s obviously serves Chicago deep dish pizza, but they also feature “Chicago Tavern Style,” which I thought Pizza Hut made up as part of a recent advertising campaign (apparently, it’s real).

It turns out that Chicago Tavern Style is not just a clever marketing ploy by a formerly renowned national pizza franchise; it’s actually a Chicagoan innovation to pizza. Basically, it’s the happy medium between, say, New York Style and Chicago Style slices. The crust is a bit thicker, with a doughier quality than New York Style, but not so thick that it’s like eating a lasagna, a la Chicago Style.

Here’s a handy picture to illustrate:

Wouldn’t you love to wake up in the morning to this fat man serving you pizza?

My brother described the crust as “redolent of the oiliness of a Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza from the Nineties,” which is the perfect description. We ordered the “Jeweler’s Special” (the Loop is the old jewelers district in Chicago), which came with sausage and giardiniera. Giardiniera is the blend of various peppers and carrots that Chicagoans put on their hot dogs.

The pie was delicious, but too spicy. Keen observers will note the sheen of sweat on my massive forehead. That wasn’t just because of my excess portliness; the peppers were causing sweat to pour down my face.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Chicago 2024, Part II: Through Mordor and Onto the River

13 July 20249 July 2024 The Portly Politico3 Comments

After visiting Willis Tower my brother and I had to make a long walk across Chicago to a boat landing, where we would embark on a ninety-minute cruise of the river. The purpose of the tour was to showcase the incredible architecture in Chicago.

My brother is a bit of a Romantic—even more so than yours portly—and wanted to walk along the river for as much of our route as possible. I was fine with that, but in following our GPS directions, we realized that it would not be feasible to follow the river on the side of the street where we needed to be. I pointed out that we could cross back over the river and enjoy the river walk on that side, but that we’d be on the river for over an hour soon enough, so we might as well just follow the GPS.

Well, my brother’s Romantic wanderlust was right. My route took us along Lower Wacker Boulevard. Wacker is a multi-level street—it gets to as high as three levels—and the underside of the street is basically an underground tunnel. It’s full of steam pipes, service accesses, and darkness.

And a dead pigeon. When we emerged on the other side, my brother remarked that we’d been through Mordor.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Chicago 2024, Part I

6 July 20245 July 2024 The Portly Politico5 Comments

Whenever I tell people in the South that I am going to Chicago, there is inevitably a comment along the lines of “don’t get shot!” or “wear your body armor!” or the like. Chicago does, of course, have a very high crime rate, and homicides are frequent. But people act like I’m visiting Somalia or downtown Fallujah whenever I mention a trip to Chicago.

While I would avoid South Chicago, I would also encourage anyone to visit the Windy City at least once in their lives. Yes, it’s a cesspool of political corruption, but how much does that really affect a tourist? I wouldn’t want to live in Chicago, but it’s a great location to visit for its art, architecture, food, and vibrant street life.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

TBT^2: Touring the Solar System in Rural Maine

13 June 20249 June 2024 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Back in 2019 I learned about The Maine Solar System Model, a model of the Solar System stretched along Highway 1 in Maine. The planets are spaced proportionally as they are in the Solar System, with the Sun being part of an entire building. It’s a really cool concept, and it’s something I hope to see someday.

This model Solar System reminds me of what John Derbyshire calls the “old, weird America.” The United States is a vast country, with huge regional differences, even within States. Just look at barbecue, for example: there is no uniform way to prepare it in the South. By “barbecue,” I specifically mean pulled pork barbecue, and being from western South Carolina, we like a mustard-based sauce for ours. In North Carolina, its vinegar-based. Other States use—horrors!—ketchup-based sauces.

The point is not to get you hungry—although my mouth is watering—but to give one example of how even in the tiniest details, we Americans are an incredibly varied bunch. One major source of the American Civil War that is often overlooked is the sheer differences between Northerners and Southerners in their respective outlooks about the world itself, much less all the political and economic disagreements.

The Maine Solar System Model is a great example of that kind of weird, localized boosterism. It also harkens back to a time before everything was built to look like a Brutalist J.C. Penney’s.

With that, here is 8 June 2023’s “TBT: Touring the Solar System in Rural Maine“:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Universal Studios 2024

11 May 202411 May 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Last weekend my family made one of our iconic pilgrimages to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. I took a couple of personal days earlier this week (burning through the rest of them for the soon-to-end school year) and we enjoyed an extended visit. It was the first time since August that all of us were there—my parents, both of my brothers, my sister-in-law, my niece, and two nephews. Nine people in Universal Studios is fun and logistically difficult at the same time—ha!

As I’ve written on this blog before (and in my highly unsuccessful book Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Stories), Universal Studios is the proverbial “happy place” for yours portly. I don’t require much excitement, but there is something comforting about strolling through Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, even in painfully hot Florida weather. It’s also the one place yours portly truly cuts loose financially, where I allow myself some budgetary leeway and enjoy the fruits of my considerable labors.

This trip we tried something a bit different. My younger brother, the family’s “cruise director,” as I call him, has hit upon a unique strategy for getting the most out of Universal Studios in a limited amount of time via gaming the on-site hotel perks. It made it feasible for a large group of people during a busy weekend to experience most of both parks (Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure) in two full days.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

HOME!… and Back to Work

8 May 20247 May 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly has returned from his vacation, dear friends. I apologize for all of the super-short posts lately, but things should be returning to normal soon (hopefully by tomorrow).

Thanks for your patience and support!

—TPP

Vacation!

6 May 20246 May 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly is living the sweet life, taking a couple of days off of work to enjoy the sights, the sounds, and the smells of Universal Studios.

See y’all soon.

—TPP

Sunday Abroad

5 May 20243 May 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Yours portly is on a family vacation, so my posts will be quite short for a few days.

That said, please check out my seventeenth album, Four Mages. It is a collection of ten electronic tracks, all but one of which (“The Blind Prophet“) is color-coded. Each piece explores some facet of fantasy archetypes, weaving and casting a musical spell upon listeners.

Here are some platforms where you can listen: