October 20

Drove down into Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Stopped at a diner in the middle of nowhere and ate grits.

Kitty Hawk is a long, beachy peninsula which at some points is so narrow that you can see sea at either side of the car. The highlight was certainly getting wasted in the hotel bar - The Peppercorn. The Peppercorn will always occupy a special place in my heart. It was full of elderly people practicing line dancing, pummeling the faded, brown-green carpet with slo-mo shuffles and geriatric two-steps. The bar tender was an ascerbic 40-something writer called Patrick who was visibly thrilled to be waiting on people younger than him. There was also a shifty dropout called John who recited Ginsberg poetry to us and talked for a long while about his life. John and Patrick went back and forth, battling for our souls and talking to us about any old bullshit. They both hated and loved America. It was funny because they're both stuck in Kitty Hawk. Forever.

My friends invented an as-yet-unnamed cocktail. It's one-fifth pepsi or lemonade, four-fifths good whiskey and three cherries. The three cherries are apparently very important.