Buffalo Brews Podcast

Road Trip: Mission Valdosta

Jason and Bri sit with Bri's son and special guest, Kieran, who lives in Valdosta, Georgia. Jason flew to Georgia and drove back to Buffalo with Kieran. All in a matter of 40 hours. A discussion opens about the destruction of Valdosta by Hurricane Helene which struck as a Category 4 in September 2024. A review of CookOut Restaurant, Five Guys in Terminal C of the Atlanta airport (which serves breakfast sandwiches), and Sheetz. And we ask the question, what's in your Canadian care package? Featuring Dank Little Things and Tropical Little Things from Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, CA.

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Jason:

The Buffalo Brews Podcast.

 

Bri:

You're listening to the Buffalo Brews Podcast. Buffalo Brews Podcast out of Douglas, Georgia. Because Georgia is on my mind.

 

Do you love my southern accent?

 

Kieran:

I like the fourth wall break. The fourth wall break was the best. It's just a fourth wall break to the camera.

 

What, me looking at the camera in disappointment?

 

Bri:

Just... Why? You don't love him?

 

I do.

 

Kieran:

This is why she got banned from narrating audiobooks.

 

Bri:

I never, or did I, narrate audiobooks.

 

Jason:

Opening her mouth and grasping her milky... We're going to take this in another direction. Jesus, mother.

 

Bri:

Why?

 

Jason:

You. This episode of the Buffalo Brews Podcast, Road Trip. We're talking about the...

 

What would we call this? This is a rescue mission? Road tripping.

 

A cross-country journey.

 

Bri:

It's not a cross-country.

 

Jason:

We discussed this as a cross-country journey.

 

Bri:

Why is it cross-country?

 

Jason:

Cross-country does not require east to west coast.

 

Kieran:

It can be technically north to south. We went up almost the entire northern seaboard.

 

Bri:

Or eastern seaboard. Well, I guess I never thought of it. Every time somebody thinks of cross-country, they just think of California, whatever.

 

Kieran:

New York, California, whatever.

 

Bri:

East to west.

 

Kieran:

We went up almost the entire eastern seaboard. Technically, I mean...

 

Jason:

Seven states, you counted? Eight? Seven?

 

Seven states. All right. Yeah, I mean, 20 minutes more north, we're in Canada.

 

So, maybe... How close would you think we are to the Gulf of Mexico? What do you think?

 

Bri:

Like 45 minutes? About... About 45 minutes.

 

About an hour and a half.

 

Kieran:

Oh, an hour and a half? Probably almost two hours. Because it's about an hour and a half to Tallahassee.

 

Okay. So, another 30 minutes to the beach.

 

Bri:

Okay.

 

Kieran:

Okay. So, it's about 40, 45 minutes to the border of Florida.

 

Bri:

So, you're really kind of in the center of southern Georgia.

 

Kieran:

If you go 75 south, you'll hit the border of Florida in...

 

Bri:

Pretty quick.

 

Kieran:

In minutes.

 

Bri:

But I guess you're like... Yeah. So, you're like really square in the middle, then, if you have to go that far either left or right.

 

At work, on my screen, it's about...

 

Kieran:

Probably about 30, 40 miles.

 

Jason:

So, we classified this as a cross-country journey.

 

Bri:

All right.

 

Jason:

18 hours, 20 minutes, 1,040 miles.

 

Bri:

Oh, that was your total?

 

Jason:

That was our total.

 

Bri:

Wow. That's cool.

 

Jason:

Yeah. It was... Averaged about 59 miles an hour.

 

I mean, it worked. What was the MPEG? Did you measure the MPEG?

 

Oh, I have to do that math still.

 

Kieran:

We could have kept resetting it, because I have a little onboard trip thing on my car.

 

Jason:

Well, I can do it based on the amount of gallons that we had, based on what you had in the car to begin with.

 

Kieran:

It's math. Based on where you're at now. Math is hard.

 

Jason:

Math is hard. It's so hard. It's okay.

 

I just... Yeah.

 

Bri:

Well, that's cool. So, snacks, fun.

 

Jason:

Yeah. We started at 4 a.m., and then rolling in just a hair after... Well, no.

 

It was 10 after 4, when we officially went wheels up. And then... It was about...

 

10.30, when we... Yeah. About 10.30, 10.40, when we rolled in.

 

Bri:

Yeah. A little earlier, because you said ETA 10.37, and you were walking in my door before then. So...

 

Well, I think so.

 

Kieran:

All right.

 

Bri:

Well, before we get into it, do you want to crack a beer for us?

 

Jason:

Yeah. While you were out in a boot... Boot in a boot?

 

Yeah. Got a hold of the new Sierra Nevada Little Things IPA pack. So, there were two of them out, and the big difference was what?

 

Dank versus...

 

Bri:

Yeah. There was two special edition ones in the new pack, and you could pick the pack that would have the exclusive Dank that was in the one, and then the other one was the exclusive Tropical. But this one was the Tropical and the Dank pack that we got, but the other difference was is the one with the exclusive Tropical also had a Cosmic little pack.

 

Jason:

Oh, Cosmic. That's right.

 

Bri:

Which was the double. And I kind of want to try that one, too, but... Yeah.

 

You know.

 

Jason:

You were looking for Peachy Little Things, which is the...

 

Bri:

Oh, yeah. I still can't find it.

 

Jason:

Can't find that one yet, but we're going to keep looking here. So, you have the Dank. I have the Tropical.

 

Yep.

 

Bri:

Oh. I was behind you.

 

Jason:

It's okay. A little ASMR. There you go.

 

Bri:

Ooh, mine's getting a lot ahead.

 

Jason:

Yeah, she got a chance to warm up a little bit. A little bit ahead. My God.

 

Bri:

I know.

 

Jason:

It's okay.

 

Bri:

I think I poured it a little too fast.

 

Jason:

That's all right. But you got this great IPA glass that I picked up literally yesterday in Valdosta, Georgia.

 

Bri:

Yeah, we'll wait to take a sip of that until that goes down a little.

 

Jason:

Fourth of July. Because they were open on Fourth of July.

 

Bri:

Yeah. So, Jay caught a flight out at the Buttcracker of the Dawn on Fourth of July. And I was shocked anything was open.

 

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, looking into it, they had a food truck that was supposed to be there at five o'clock, and then they had music that was going to be later that night. The location's great.

 

I got to do a little research on them, but the place that we're talking about is Georgia Beer Company, right? Am I got that right?

 

Bri:

As you turn the glass.

 

Jason:

I have to. Georgia Beer Company.

 

Bri:

What did you abbreviate it as?

 

Jason:

It is on your mind.

 

Bri:

GBC. GBC.

 

Jason:

Yeah. So, it's the only brewery in Valdosta, but beautiful location.

 

Bri:

Well, and because Kieran, it was so funny, because Kieran said, oh, that place is so far away. And then I looked it up and I said, well, it's eight minutes away from the airport. So, if you're going to drive all that way to collect Uncle Jay from the airport, maybe you can stop in and get some beers.

 

Jason:

Right. Yeah. So, 6 a.m. leaving Buffalo, then I guess when I picked out my seat, nobody was sitting next to me. And then they were trying to tell us, it's a full flight, which made me look at the seating chart and go, there's like 45 seats to open on this plane. So, yeah, that's a little peculiar. But there was a couple that sat next to me, kind of pretentious.

 

You could tell they had money, but not enough money to want to sit in first class. So.

 

Bri:

Right.

 

Jason:

Yeah.

 

Bri:

Whatever.

 

Jason:

Well, they didn't want to sit next to me. So, before we even pulled away from the gate, they were like, you can have the row to yourself. And they sat in the row behind me.

 

Bri:

Yeah. That's fine. That's cool.

 

That's fine.

 

Jason:

I was filming social media content while I was sitting there.

 

Bri:

Well, it was so funny because we were going to fly Uncle Jay out and I said, well, how do you feel about going on a holiday instead of Saturday? Because why?

 

Jason:

Way cheaper. Yeah.

 

Bri:

Way cheaper, believe it or not. Right. Nobody wants to fly at 6 a.m. on the 4th of July to Valdosta, Georgia.

 

Jason:

And then what do you got over here? You've got the.

 

Kieran:

Yeah. What are you drinking, Kieran? The Clear American Cherry Limeade.

 

Jason:

Yeah. From Walmart, right?

 

Kieran:

Yeah. What about Buck 50? Clear American, brother.

 

Bri:

Buck 50. They're like 79 cents a piece. 89.

 

Jason:

Well, let's give a big old toast here.

 

Bri:

All right.

 

Jason:

We'll do a little three-way toast.

 

Bri:

I'm having the dank and you're having the tropical.

 

Jason:

Yep. From Sierra Nevada. All right.

 

Cheers. Oh, yeah. This is delicious.

 

We'll do a little squishies in there in a second. Yeah. It's 77 degrees here in the studio.

 

It is 90 degrees outside here in Buffalo, New York. It seemed to bring the heat back with us. Yeah.

 

Good job, guys. Yeah. Yeah.

 

That's pretty damn hot down there. Went to Georgia Beer Company, got out and was like, this isn't so bad. I thought this was like walking around Disney and then got out at your house and like Satan's butthole.

 

Like instantaneously, I opened the door and you went, everybody back in the car. Buck 03 down there.

 

Bri:

Well, I never believed it when Kieran was saying like how terrible it was. Because when did we drop you? February, right?

 

When did we have to? No. Wait.

 

When did we drop you off?

 

Kieran:

You dropped me off late August.

 

Bri:

Oh. Well, you must have been leaving way early in the morning where I never noticed.

 

Kieran:

We got there late in the night.

 

Bri:

Yeah.

 

Kieran:

And you guys left pretty early in the morning. Probably about noon at the latest.

 

Bri:

Yeah. So I didn't really get to feel the Valdosta heat. I only hear about it from Kieran.

 

Kieran:

And the rain. The rain. He didn't get to see the rain.

 

But I did show you the video a couple days prior.

 

Bri:

Right. The rain comes down in buckets. This is a golf area for you because technically it's kind of in the golf area.

 

I mean, I guess. All right. So let's talk quick too about the fact that you guys were saying while you were also having a visit in Valdosta that you could still see all the hurricane damage.

 

Jason:

Yeah. Coming down, I flew from Atlanta to Valdosta. What was it?

 

What would you say? Like some Delta regional plane, right? It was an Endeavor Air.

 

Okay. Regional. I'm going to yield to the expert at wearing a Cessna hat.

 

And I'm a big fan of Top Gun. So the planes I always defer to you on. But yeah.

 

One engine on the tail.

 

Kieran:

T-tail. Little regional jet. I think you were on a CRJ 700 ER if I remember right.

 

All right.

 

Jason:

Two seats on my side. Two seats on the other side. Had that row to myself too.

 

Except for on the other row there was an older lady who was asking me, I was like, have you connected to the Wi-Fi yet? And I said, no. And it doesn't look good.

 

Bri:

I don't know what to tell you. I wasn't going to use the Wi-Fi.

 

Jason:

Right.

 

Bri:

You're like, we're on this plane for 30 minutes. Like how long was that flight?

 

Jason:

You landed so early. I don't know. We were so fast.

 

Kieran said we didn't have any air traffic. So air traffic over Georgia was pretty straight line from what I saw on the flight tracker.

 

Kieran:

So there you go.

 

Jason:

We got up to, because we couldn't do anything until the light went off. The light goes off. I tray table down.

 

Notebook out. Start doing some podcast writing. I go to do some podcast writing.

 

I'm 10 minutes into it. They're like, all right, seatbelt signs on. We're descending into Valdosta.

 

What the hell?

 

Kieran:

So a 20 minute flight. I'm pretty sure that you didn't even spend much time on the ground. Cause I was kind of stalking you in the ground at Atlanta.

 

It looked like there wasn't too much of a line. No, we were second in line.

 

Jason:

And we literally, we, you know, when you like you taxi out and then normally there's that breaking scenario while you wait for the clearance on the plane that just took off in front of you. We literally came around the corner and just as it lined at the plane lined up, it just accelerated gone. We were, we were in the air.

 

Yeah. As we're descending down into Valdosta, you can see Hurricane Helene.

 

Bri:

Yeah. When was that?

 

Jason:

All that was a healing, right? I believe last year, all that.

 

Bri:

Yeah.

 

Jason:

It was a September of last year.

 

Bri:

Yeah. So almost, almost coming up on a year later. Right.

 

Cause we're already in July and you could still.

 

Kieran:

How many days were you out of power? Almost 15, almost two weeks without power.

 

Jason:

But I mean, you're still, when you're driving around, you can just see how much damage there still is. I mean, just trees on houses and the houses are just like, we're not rated for hurricanes in Valdosta.

 

Kieran:

Like the power lines are still above ground made of wood. So there's dozens of power lines down probably have not lines, individual lines. I think there's probably hundreds of lines that went down across the entirety of Southern Georgia.

 

Bri:

Wow.

 

Kieran:

That was wild. And that was with the help of both power companies that serve the area and bunch of contractors that got out from across the country. It took them 15, I think it took them a total of almost a month to get everybody's power back if I remember right.

 

Bri:

Wow.

 

Jason:

That's crazy. I mean, the only thing in effect is like when we were supposed to go to Asheville, we had to cancel that, that trip. And that's how we ended up in Hocking Hill, Ohio.

 

Bri:

Which is how you're like, wow, you think you're safe in the mountains of North Carolina.

 

Kieran:

And then the mountain comes down on you. Right. That storm went all the way.

 

Bri:

That was from that storm.

 

Kieran:

That storm went all the way through Georgia and ended in Dayton, Ohio. Yeah. Because Dayton, Ohio actually dealt with the rest of the, it was a severe thunderstorm by the time it reached there, but it downgraded from a tropical storm.

 

I think as it was leaving the Carolinas.

 

Bri:

Yeah. All of that torrential rain that that brought with it is what destroyed the mountain.

 

Kieran:

Yeah. Cause if I remember right, it hit North Carolina as a tropical storm.

 

Bri:

And what, what was the city that was just demolished? We were supposed to go to? And then what was the other thing that we were going to?

 

That was like that little town.

 

Jason:

We were supposed to go to like the area like Chimney Rock, Williamsville.

 

Bri:

Chimney Rock. That was the thing. We were like, it's gone.

 

Kieran:

Yeah. Just a couple of months ago, I saw on the news that the Army Corps engineers are still working on tree removal, recovery and efforts about a month ago. And it's been...

 

The mountain came down.

 

Bri:

Yeah. It was... It's crazy.

 

The roads were gone.

 

Kieran:

Unreal.

 

Bri:

So I can't even imagine like when it was the eye going through Valdosta.

 

Kieran:

We were... The eye was right over us. I have a picture that I took.

 

The eye was directly over us. Like...

 

Bri:

I know. I was watching it like a crazed mom that I was so worried. I was pacing in my house because there was nothing I could do.

 

Kieran:

They're saying some weather sensors were... Nothing. It was a degree four, I think, because it beeline directly through the armpit of Florida towards us.

 

It was supposed to kind of hit Tallahassee and remain west of us, but it just... Its path shifted right over Valdosta.

 

Bri:

Yeah. That was crazy.

 

Jason:

That's like what happened like in 92 when Andrew went through Homestead. Oh. Was that 92 when that happened?

 

The instrumentation maxed out with the technology they had at the time.

 

Bri:

I just remember being young and being there and just remember watching like they showed the pictures and it was just flat. There was nothing there. It was gone.

 

Jason:

Everything was gone. There was nothing there.

 

Bri:

It was gone.

 

Jason:

And you're tasked with... Gone. Taking what's left of the commissary and what's left of the troop support and like, okay, we're going to box all this up so that we can give it to the people.

 

It's like digging under rubble. Yeah. It's gone.

 

Bri:

It's crazy. Anyways, yeah. So you're driving around Valdosta and still seeing remnants of that storm almost a year later.

 

Jason:

And Valdosta, I mean, you've been there for how many years now? Four. Going on four years.

 

Kieran:

And it's a poor city. Unfortunately, the hurricane did a lot of damage to a lot of stuff that they were trying to build up and did even more damage on stuff that still has been fixed. There's billboards still destroyed.

 

Houses still destroyed. Unfortunately, there's a lot of poverty and a lot of people who can't afford to fix all the housing. So there's a lot of houses that just either have trees through them.

 

People just abandoned the building or the tree maybe didn't go on through their house. So there's just like branches on roofs and people can't really fix it.

 

Jason:

Just seeing trees that fell on houses and that's it.

 

Kieran:

It's heartbreaking.

 

Jason:

And they're just sitting there.

 

Kieran:

It's just there.

 

Bri:

That is really heartbreaking.

 

Kieran:

And I wish I would have taken pictures when we actually drove out to a gas. It was like two, three days after the hurricane and it just looked like the world ended.

 

Bri:

You know what happens though is you don't think to like take actual pictures, but you will never forget it.

 

Kieran:

No, I remember.

 

Bri:

It'll be like mind pictures. And that's when you forget to take a picture with your camera because you're just so like flabbergasted almost like in awe, like, oh my gosh, like just shock where you don't even think like I should take a picture of this. You just, your mind is taking it.

 

Kieran:

I will never forget when we drove onto Bemis from our subdivision. Trees that were originally there gone. There's a lot of places which I should have told you that there's a lot of places that are just like, like empty fields that were just filled with trees or like places that had a tree line, don't got a tree line anymore.

 

Jason:

Well, that was one of the wild things descending into Valdosta was watching just entire swaths of trees, like they were all just like the same way leaning or, or toppled and it's just entire, you know, wood lines that are just gone. Crazy.

 

Kieran:

Yeah. Tons of down trees, absolutely wild tons of destroyed buildings. And I just remember also seeing somebody's double wide just got blown away.

 

And I remember just seeing just what's left of somebody's living room. This is just sitting in the open.

 

Bri:

That's so sad.

 

Kieran:

It's very, very heartbreaking.

 

Bri:

It's like when you see the tornadoes blowing through, like all these like tiny, tiny towns and like, you know, in tornado alley where they just rip through this town. No one's ever heard of in Kansas or no one's ever heard of in, you know, Arkansas or Iowa or whatever. And now you've heard of them because they're gone.

 

Jason:

Stuff we've glorified in movies. And then you see it in real life, like the great Norman tornado, just, you know, just people's lives uprooted.

 

Bri:

It's so scary that nature could just in one second. I mean, this is why people are all flocking to Buffalo, right? It's costing a fortune here because everybody's like, Oh, well you can just shovel snow.

 

Kieran:

Let's move there. A lot of people are theorizing that with, you know, this possible climate change at the great lakes region is going to be like the last bit of normal area in North America.

 

Bri:

Although we have a very large increase in tornadoes recently.

 

Jason:

So yeah, this is a wild couple of years. Tornado touching down in downtown Buffalo. I saw the video.

 

Bri:

Right.

 

Jason:

Yeah. It wasn't that wild. And the funny thing is like right there in that, that nine, that one 90 interchange there, you get off on Niagara street and it's, you know, there's, I know people who own businesses right there and it's.

 

Yep.

 

Bri:

I can't imagine in Buffalo, downtown Buffalo coming out of work and my car is upside down because of tornado.

 

Kieran:

I mean, technically a tornado could spawn anywhere.

 

Bri:

Well, I, yeah, but I just got, I guess I believed it to be here.

 

Jason:

Go back to 19. It was a 1987 right down the road here. The old, there used to be like a showcase.

 

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

 

Yeah. Restaurant. And then there was a putt putt golf course that was across the road where the bank is there.

 

Well, it's a dispensary now. Welcome to New York.

 

Bri:

Yeah.

 

Jason:

But yeah, I mean, touchdown right there. It's one of the busiest areas, the gallery of malls right there. I don't think the mall was there yet in 87, but maybe it was being built or something.

 

But yeah, right. Touched right down there on one of the major intersections over by Walden Avenue. It was like craziest thing.

 

And then they just had one a couple of weeks ago down in Franklinville.

 

Bri:

Yeah. Yeah. And when we went, when we went down to Ellicott, you, oh, and yeah, so I didn't know that's where it was.

 

So we're driving to Ellicottville and I said to Jay, I said, wow, that right there looks like a tornado went through it because everything again, leaning it's like it was spread apart. Like something went through it. And then, you know what Jay said?

 

Oh yeah. They just had a tornado here. Cause I just remember seeing it from growing up.

 

Like you would see where the tornadoes would like hit the ground.

 

Kieran:

Usually don't get too big around here when they do spawn.

 

Bri:

Well, they didn't.

 

Kieran:

Both of those we just mentioned were both.

 

Bri:

Yeah. And they didn't get too, too big. Like, I can't remember the one that came in the back of our house that like took out our pool, ripped up the deck.

 

I want to say that was like a one or a two. Like it wasn't anything that tore our roof off or anything, but pool gone deck, like damaged, messed up. Um, the neighbor, they lost all their windows, like on the back of the house.

 

It just blew out all the windows. I'm shocked. It didn't ours.

 

It must've just been the way it was kind of like turned where it like took out everything behind us. But then like the people behind us, all their windows exploded on that side of the house. And so it was crazy.

 

Jason:

Like technically I'm an, I'm a survivor. I'm a survivor of the 87 super breakout. There was like this like unstable system.

 

It was like central Ohio all the way up through including, and I don't know if I don't know if that, if the one down the road here was Memorial day weekend, but it was all the way up into Western New York. And I just remember my dad with a one 10 camera.

 

Bri:

Yeah, that story.

 

Jason:

Yep. Oops, sorry. Standing out there taking pictures of this tornado going between us and the neighbor and just tearing everything up between us.

 

Well, that was me. We were all supposed to be in the bathtub and I was like, I want to go see.

 

Bri:

Yup.

 

Jason:

That's how twister got started, man.

 

Bri:

Yeah. But when you write a script about a girl who you're a kid, you have no fear and your mind has like no concept of fear yet. Right?

 

Like you have fears, but you don't have the fears you have as an adult because you don't quite understand everything. Right. So like I, my curiosity, just like, just like how we talk about how I grew up, like living in the Gulf of Mexico, practically.

 

Right. I had zero fear. Now you're like, I mean, I don't really want to go in there because there's things that can eat me and sting me.

 

Jason:

Same reason I don't go to Australia.

 

Bri:

Right. So like you develop these adult fears, but anyways, so circling back to road trip.

 

Jason:

All right.

 

Bri:

I mean, you leave in the morning.

 

Jason:

Yeah. I mean, what's there to say?

 

Bri:

We're on a tangent. So where was the places that you guys ate snacks? You had, I heard, I mean, we loaded up on snacks before we, I heard Jay brought fizzy cola as your favorite.

 

Kieran:

Oh yeah. Cause did I tell you about what happened to mine from Disney? No, they melted in the car.

 

They did. So I, from Disney. Yeah.

 

So we left them in the car, everything, which by the way, I'm not, I didn't even drink the diet Coke. So I'm like, if the gummies melted, the diet, the fake sugar, the, uh, the aspartame turned to formaldehyde, definitely in the diet.

 

Bri:

So no, you could have thrown it in the fridge. It would have been fine.

 

Jason:

Oh, you got to put that touch of full Maddie Heidi in the full flavor.

 

Bri:

It would have been fine.

 

Kieran:

But I, uh, yeah. It's been probably like five hours in the car, right?

 

Bri:

Yeah.

 

Kieran:

So then when I got back and I was like checking them out, they're just, yeah. Oh, giant gelatinous heap.

 

Bri:

Oh, that sucks.

 

Kieran:

So I chewed on it for a couple of days until I'm like, yeah, the same. I was just going to say, so you ate the giant gelatinous heap? he did try to.

 

Yeah.

 

Jason:

Yeah, he did.

 

Kieran:

It's not the same.

 

Bri:

No, no. Well, good thing you bought two bags and you, you ate one already.

 

Kieran:

Oh, we didn't. That was the one that combined two giant gelatinous heap. The other one turned into a kind of a heap, but they're all now stuck together.

 

Bri:

Oh, okay.

 

Kieran:

So it was kind of like a semi heap.

 

Bri:

They probably in the center. Well, then good thing you brought them.

 

Kieran:

I mean, they were good.

 

Jason:

I don't think I've ever had those before.

 

Bri:

You never had the fizzy cola?

 

Jason:

No, I don't think he's ever had happy cola. Happy cola. Oh, he's happy.

 

Yeah. I love happy cola. I like the, the problem is like every time I'm always worried about buying happy colas because how long have these been on the shelf?

 

Cause they're not anybody's favorite. They're my favorite. Right.

 

So I always, so I always, if I go in some, I'm like, Ooh, I pinch them. I pinch the package to see if they're softer, too firm. And if they're too firm, I won't get them.

 

Bri:

Yeah.

 

Kieran:

Cause it's just going to be, they're going to hurt your jaw. The good thing about the fizzy ones, since they're covered in sugar, I feel like anything covered in sugar sometimes lasts a bit longer than it's like just whatever powder. So that's my secret to longevity.

 

Bri:

Well, cover myself with sugar. Disney must get them on the rag because they're always at the Germany pavilion.

 

Jason:

Yeah.

 

Bri:

So wherever they get them from, they get them shipped to Disney, like on the regular, that's where Kieran fell in love with them. And that's where Kieran eats them every single year.

 

Kieran:

On the road trip that like when we were going to Disney every year, we got them because they didn't sell Haribo products for maybe the gummy bears back in the early or sorry, late 2000s.

 

Bri:

Not the colas.

 

Kieran:

Yeah. But they never sold anything else, but just the regular gummy bears. So like, I think it was like fast forward, like 2012 is when they started selling them in some stores in the U.S. and stuff like that.

 

Bri:

I don't know, but Josh and Kieran were all about it.

 

Kieran:

We love them because they're delicious.

 

Bri:

All about it. So funny. They'd be like, can we go get the candy at Germany?

 

Yes, we'll go get the candy at Germany.

 

Kieran:

And they stopped selling fizzy cola for a while too, even at Germany. Yeah. So recently is when we found them.

 

Jason:

Yeah. Uh, yeah, we did. Um, yeah.

 

Like, like, like, like, like I guess we said back at the beginning, it was kind of like a four, four 10 AM start. Um, a lot of backwards driving to get up to, because we had to get to Augusta to meet up with the interstate there. And then, uh, a ton of deer, um, possum, baby possum, armadillo.

 

And my first encounter with a wild armadillo, pretty wild, like derpy little things, little derpy little thing.

 

Bri:

I know they're so cute.

 

Kieran:

They stink. Do they stink?

 

Bri:

Yeah. And don't they carry disease?

 

Kieran:

They carry leprosy.

 

Bri:

Yeah. There you go. Oh, good.

 

Kieran:

They're dumb. They stink. And they carry leprosy.

 

Good. We have a lot by my work.

 

Jason:

One actually has a little disease that nobody sings happy songs about.

 

Bri:

Oh, did you, did you try?

 

Jason:

Oh, I never tried the dank here. This is the tropical little switch ski. We got, we got on a big old talk about things.

 

Kieran:

And we, uh, we have a armadillo that lives right outside our work and his little burrow hole. And you know, he's there. I could smell him.

 

Bri:

Oh, that's gross. They're that stinky.

 

Kieran:

They're not dangerous. I mean, just don't touch them or pet them or get near them, but like, they'll run away from you. It's like a possum.

 

I was just like, hiss at you.

 

Bri:

when we were in Ellicottville, we found, we saw the stuffed armadillo and I thought it was so cute. I was like, let me take a picture of it.

 

Kieran:

Should've, should've bought it. I know it was for babies, but it's adorable.

 

Bri:

Cause there's so many armadillos there.

 

Kieran:

I go like, it's a little armadillo. I mean, They're cute. Just, you know, can't touch them.

 

Bri:

It was cool. It was like this thing that you're supposed to heat up in the microwave or whatever. Was it microwave?

 

Jason:

Microwave it. And then it's heavy. So the baby can't like, pick it up in the crib.

 

Bri:

So you can put it in and it gives them like warmth. And then, yeah, it's like heavy.

 

Jason:

Baby's like, it smells like rice.

 

Bri:

And then like, so if they run into it, right. It's not going to fall and suffocate them. Yeah.

 

It was a cute, it was a cute idea. I was like, interesting. Only in New York.

 

Jason:

Death by armadillo. Not a great idea. Death by fluffy duck.

 

Bri:

Oh my gosh. Wouldn't say no. Right.

 

You're going to die by fluffy duck.

 

Jason:

Die by fluffy duck. Yeah. Well, you know, that's, that's for another episode.

 

Bri:

But yeah. Oh my gosh.

 

Jason:

Revenge of the ducks.

 

Kieran:

I have a formal apology that I have.

 

Bri:

Where did you guys eat?

 

Kieran:

So we didn't actually eat anything until we reached North Carolina. We got more snacks at Waynesboro. Waynesboro, Georgia.

 

Bri:

Waynesboro, party time. That's what we said.

 

Jason:

Waynesboro, Waynesboro. No. It's just going to be me singing.

 

Bri:

Excellent. I started the song. It's fine.

 

Everything's fine.

 

Jason:

Yeah. Waynesboro. I think that was the one where the lady's like, I'll be there in just a minute.

 

And then she's like, where are you guys going to? Buffalo. I was like, how far is that?

 

At that point, it was like 929 or 30 miles. About 1000. And she was like, all today?

 

Yeah. All right.

 

Kieran:

Well, clearly they don't get a lot of outsiders from outside the state because they're confused. Right. To see a bunch of New Yorkers in their tiny little Southern town.

 

To be fair, Waynesboro is pretty much in rural Georgia. Like, there's not a lot of, there's no major cities close to Waynesboro. But I appreciate you.

 

Jason:

260 gas down there. That was, that was, that was nice.

 

Bri:

Well, yeah, because minimum wage is still $7.

 

Jason:

What's the matter with it? Why isn't it running? Ain't no gas.

 

Ain't got no gas. Ain't got no gas in it. Yeah.

 

We got that. And then we didn't, we didn't stop until North Carolina. You slept through a fair part of South Carolina, which you needed because you were apparently up all night.

 

You know, that's fine. It's fine. It happens.

 

It's fine. Night shift. Yeah.

 

Well, that in your neighborhood was a war zone.

 

Bri:

So where did you, so where did you guys stop after Waynesville party time? Excellent.

 

Jason:

Oh, that was so Fayette. Uh, no. What was the name of that?

 

I text, uh, I texted you the name because we were in somewhere in North Carolina. That was where the cookout.

 

Bri:

Yeah.

 

Kieran:

Restaurant.

 

Bri:

You guys went to eat.

 

Kieran:

It has a unique name because apparently it was rated. I don't know if you saw the sign. you probably pay attention to the road, but the sign said it was rated an all American city, like two separate years and two separate decades.

 

Jason:

Well, that's a, that's a pretty prestigious award. I would say. I know.

 

I remember saying like, cause I told, I think I would text you where we were at. And then you were like about nine more hours. Which one?

 

Kieran:

Oh, Charlotte. That's where we passed through.

 

Jason:

Yeah. Charlotte after, before it was, uh, after Charlotte, it was after Charlotte, North Carolina.

 

Bri:

We found it this exact time.

 

Jason:

Yeah. Statesville, North Carolina. The idea was that we were going to stop in Columbia, South Carolina.

 

We were going to go to, uh, Whataburger, but.

 

Bri:

Whataburger.

 

Jason:

Sleepy, Sleeperton over here. So we blew our window on that. But I was going to, but that's fine.

 

I mean, still have another trip to go. She was grabbing and go, I got it.

 

Bri:

That's all right. When you take him back.

 

Jason:

Um, okay. So cookout. So, uh, interesting little place here and seems to think it's a, uh, you know, like a Southern, like a Southern independent, uh, franchise thing.

 

Kieran:

It's kind of, I've been told by people who grew up in the South that it's kind of like the in out burger. okay.

 

Jason:

So, yeah, they, you know, burger, um, quesadillas, fries, like they got quite a few things going on there and then they do some barbecue. So. They did what was called the cookout tray where you got the sandwich, the two sides.

 

So I got white cheddar, cheese bites, and fries. Mm. Fries are life.

 

That's what you taught me. And then cheer wine, which I'd never had in my life. I'm surprised because they sell it around here.

 

Bri:

What is it?

 

Jason:

Uh, some cherry Dr. Pepper ish kind of soda.

 

Kieran:

It's, I think, I don't remember what they used exactly as crowded as, but it is. Cherry is the biggest.

 

Bri:

Oh,