A while back my friend B hit me up with a proposal.   He needed to pick up a piece of furniture for his wife from her grandmother’s house in Macon, Georgia.

“Why don’t you ride with me to go get it?” he asked.   “We can spend 2 days driving down there, then 4 days driving back doing what we love to do.”

Hmmm…  a six-day-long barhopping adventure?   How could I possibly say ‘no’ to that?!?

We set out on Veteran’s Day — November 11, 2010, for a six-day journey that would include our first-ever frisking by a bouncer, learning what it takes to make a woman feel like an eclair, discovering a ten pound beefsteak sandwich, and being accused of being both cops and robbers within a 10-minute span of time.

Though we didn’t make it to as many bars as we normally might (the two Georgia-centered days slowed us down considerably), we covered a great deal of territory by drinking our way across 5 states during our journey.   And many of the bars we found will be etched in our memories for the rest of our lives.

We began around 7am on a dreary, rainy Thursday morning.    B picked me up at my downtown Kansas City apartment in his wife’s minivan, and we set out across the state.

The rain as we headed across Missouri sucked, and at a couple of points in Saline and Cooper counties it was downright brutal.   But, finally, as we approached St. Louis the weather began to clear and we’d end up with great weather for the entire duration of the trip.

This is probably the least traffic I have ever seen passing through downtown St. Louis…

Crossing the Mississippi…

With our arrival into Illinois, it was time for our adventure to begin.  Continue at the links below to read about our journey…

• Day 1: Illinois & Kentucky
• Day 1: Clarksville, Tennessee
• Day 2: Macon, Georgia
• Day 3: Atlanta, Georgia
• Day 3: Northern Georgia and South-Central Tennessee
• Day 4: Nashville, Tennessee and Hopkinsville, Kentucky
• Day 4: An Evening In Diana
• Day 5: Crossing Illinois
• Day 5: Quincy, IL: A Dive Bar Mecca
• Day 6: Epilogue