A Long Car Ride, My Ipod and Some Newports

For four days during Spring Break, Hiram, Patricia, Alec and I went on a road trip to Jacksonville, Florida. One night, we had an overwhelming urge for some local seafood and drove around town looking for somewhere authentic. Hiram went into a gas station asking locals where we could find a great, down-to-earth fried seafood restaurant. After hearing several people praise “Outback Crab Shack” as a fantastic, cheap, “Po-dunk” seafood restaurant, we drove 30 miles down the coast and had a great meal and a memorable experience. Together, the four of us ordered $120 worth of fried seafood, completely absurd considering the low prices. I was also able to have a soft shell crab sandwich, which I had been talking incessantly about all day. Patricia and I split a 1/2 pound of fried shrimp while Alec and Hiram shared a motherload of fried seafood brought out on a cafeteria tray piled a half-foot deep with oysters, clams, aligator, shrimp and catfish. The waitress returned shocked at the sight of empty plates and cocktail sauce containers. After we finished, we let the meal settle while we played tetris, pinball and other video games out in the waiting area, watched by a fleet of mounted aligators. Viva taxidermy.