distance(ing) — Jen Ireland

“because (s)he had no place (s)he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars…”

-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

When I was little, I wanted to be everything. One week, a teacher, the next week a paleontologist. I wanted to be a doctor, an astronaut, a film editor, the President.

Now that I’m older, I want to be everywhere.

However, we can’t have it all - I can’t be everything and be everywhere and expect to be happy. Mick Jagger said it best, “You can’t always get what you want.”

They say tragic flaws will cause a tragic downfall. If you were to ask me what is my tragic flaw, my reply would be insatiability. Somehow, I can never find a way to be fully satisfied in my life…and I bet most of you could say the same. With social media disrupting our views of others lives and always sizing ourselves up, it’s hard to be content with what we have. For me, I had yearned for something more than my cozy little life in a small college town and knew I was meant for greatness. I needed something different; a big city, a good job, my own place, adventure around every corner, a purpose. I wanted to be everywhere and everything.

After a lot of soul searching and tears, I finally had the chance to make those changes. I finally would have the big city, the good job, my own place, adventures coming around every corner, and I did - for a little while.

For over three years, I lived by myself, 900 miles away from everyone and everything I knew. Although it started out as a fun adventure, it got lonely after the year of firsts; first train ride into town, first late night out meeting new people, first trip home for the holidays telling everyone how great Austin was. After my “new home” turned into my “home”, I started to miss my family, my friends, and question what I was doing so far away from it all.

With the loneliness I felt, I had also put a shell up around me that didn’t let anyone else in and I found myself turning into a very selfish person. My motto became “it’s just me, myself and I” and I only did what I wanted. It was nice, but it didn’t make my life nice. I loved being on my own and having my own place, but I didn’t love the person I was becoming in the process. When the world shut down in March 2020, the loneliness intensified as I remained in my apartment, with just my cat and my things for weeks on end. It took being that lonely to realize what I was missing: purposeful connections.

In the fall of 2020, I took the opportunity of remoteness that the pandemic gave us and decided to put some distance between what I knew and move back to who I used to be. I left my apartment, sold most of my possessions (what’s left remains in a storage unit) and drove back to my home state of Florida. For eight months I have been a wandering couchsurfer, but it’s been great to be home. I now see my parents everyday, where we are a family again. Between going to dinners and happy hours and the beach, I’ve been able to see so many lifelong friends who still live in the area. I’m learning now that it’s not the things I am or have that are important, but the relationships and people I share moments with in my life.

In the spirit of wanting to be everywhere and everything, I decided to shake things up a bit. After months at home, I’m setting out for a new adventure, but one less lonely. I’ll be traveling up the east coast, making stops along the way to see friends and explore new places. So follow me here, as I stop in new cities, giving a run down of my experience as I close the distance between the people I love and increase the distance of the world I see.

saturday | may 22

stop #1 - groveland, fl

Oh boy did we have a great time celebrating our mama-to-be, Courtney! My trip started in Groveland, FL, just outside of Orlando. I only saw a little bit of this tiny orange grove town, but there wasn’t a lot to really see outside of the new developments being built. The town happens to be the home of “Florida’s Largest Winery” and also my friend Courtney, who’s expecting her first child in the summer.

To make my life on the road even better, my best friend Chelsea joined me for the first leg of the journey. She flew into Orlando and we met up in Groveland to shower our friend with gifts and great memories. Courtney’s mom pulled out all the stops for the shower, including delicious food, lots of wine, and baby games such as the “Poop Shoot” and bottle bowling. It was great meeting the people in Courtney’s life and being able to celebrate her baby boy who’s due in June.

After opening gifts, taking pictures and eating way too many sweets, Chelsea and I hit the road for our first stop together, our old stomping grounds, Tallahassee, FL.

sunday | may 23 - friday | may 28

stop #2 - tallahassee, fl

Oh the places you’ll go… and then come back years later to experience the same things, but as a different person. That’s what happened when we stayed in Tallahassee for six days.

I had been staying between my parents’ house in Orlando and my boyfriend’s house in Tallahassee for the past 8 months. But now I had Chelsea and her boyfriend Kris to go back to where we all met and experience the city as 30 year olds.

Our favorite restaurants:

Gordo’s (Cuban)
Pho Me (Vietnamese)
Bella Bella (Italian)
Roboto’s (Hibachi)
Kool Beanz

Our favorite bars/happy hour

Bella Bella
Liberty
Bar 1903
Proof Brewing
Ology Brewing

gordo’s | may 24 | veggie cuban and fried yucca

bella bella | may 27 | bubble bread for happy hour

bar 1903 | may 27 | two old fashioneds and two bees knees

kool beanz | may 27 | black bean cakes, pork belly and conch fritters

It was great enjoying our old city with friends. We ate and drank our way to all the greatest hits. After a week of working together from home and taking in the college town, we packed up and left for Jacksonville Beach on Friday for Memorial Day weekend.

friday | may 28 - monday | may 31

stop #3 - jacksonville beach, fl

Memorial Day weekend was spent at the beach, under the Florida sun with sand in our toes and Publix Subs in our hands.

Our Airbnb was titled “80 feet from the water” and it was not exaggerating… we really were just a short walk from the beach. It was a little small, but it did the job for the weekend.

We arrived Friday night and sought a place to eat dinner and get some drinks. Because this is a little beach town community and everyone is coming out of a pandemic, a lot of the restaurants closed or stopped serving food early. But we walked a few blocks from our Airbnb and found the Landshark Grill (like Landshark the beer). We sat at the bar, ordered some delicious banana beach drinks and I got the fish tacos, made with blackened mahi-mahi.

After some good food and a game of Exploding Kittens back at the house, we went to sleep and got up on Saturday to spend the day at the beach.

Saturday morning, the four of us walked the few steps from our Airbnb down to the beach and set up camp, but not before stopping at Publix to get some Pub subs, snacks and drinks for the day. It was a fun time just sitting, playing games, going for walks and relaxing by the water.

At night, we went to Neptune Beach which was just a mile or two north from where we stayed. We ate at the Flying Iguana and we all agreed that it was the some of the best Mexican food we’ve ever had. The queso was very creamy and had little poblano peppers in it and was served with soft flour tortillas. We also tried the guacamole and street corn. For my meal, I got the seared scallop taco and the “junkyard” taco, which had chicken, sweet potato, bacon and queso. They were both out of this world.

junkyard (left) and seared scallop (right) tacos

street corn and aron’s steak (left) and junkyard (right) tacos

After Flyer Iguana, we walked around Neptune Beach and over to a local dive bar called Pete’s Bar, where we drank and watched people play games like pool and ping pong.

Sunday came around and we did the same thing as Saturday: got our Pub subs and headed to the water.

After a second day of soaking in the sun, we packed up and headed back to Neptune Beach for dinner at Hawker’s, a cool Asian Fusion tapas restaurant.

chelsea, kris, george, drew, me and aron killing time at ragtime piano bar

Once we got a table at Hawker’s, we immediately ordered three plates of their Roti, which is a Malaysian bread (like a lighter naan) and curry sauce. It was absolutely amazing and probably the best thing I had the entire time in Jacksonville. Aron and I also shared the spicy chicken bao buns, chicken dumplings and the “yaki udon” dish.

spicy chicken bao buns, dumplings, an old fashioned and “malaysian mule”

Dinner was amazing again and afterwards we tried to go to several other bars but most were closed, so we got Lyft rides home. Monday morning rolled around it was time to pack our things up again and leave the Airbnb. Chelsea and I dropped Kris off at the JAX airport and we continued our drive up to Savannah, GA.

monday | may 31 - thursday | june 3

stop #4 - savannah, ga

Savannah is such a lovely, romantic and fun town. Chelsea and I had both been here together a few years ago and we had very fond memories from back then. This time, we stayed right in the heart of the city, off Bay St. in a beautiful Victorian apartment. The location could not have been better, as it was right next door to the famous Treylor Park restaurant and just a short walk to everything else. After lugging our stuff up the steep steps and seeing how great our place was, we decided to stay an extra night in Savannah and not stop in Columbia, SC on Wednesday.

long hallway with both bathrooms off to the sides

When we arrived, we could not go to our apartment yet, so we walked around Broughton St., got lunch and went to Chippewa Square, where Forrest Gump was filmed.

After some walking around and getting settled in the apartment, we went out for an evening on the town. Our first stop was next door at Treylor Park, where we had avocado “fries” and a cocktail.

The bartender gave us several recommendations of places to eat and drink, so our next stop was one of them - Emporium and Peregrin. We passed these bars when we walked to Chippewa and saw there was a rooftop bar on top of the hotel, so we were pleasantly surprised to be back and go up to the top. Emporium is the wine bar and lounge on the bottom floor of the Perry Lane Hotel and Peregrin is the rooftop bar. The view from up top was amazing, so we stayed for a while enjoying it.

The sunset was beautiful and we ended up getting our drinks for free due to misunderstandings with the staff. By this time, it was time to eat dinner, so we walked to another one of the recommendations, Sorry Charlie’s. The bartender mentioned that his recommendations would have the freshest seafood, and we could taste it at Sorry Charlie’s! When we walked in, there was an hour wait, but we snagged some seats at the oyster bar and didn’t have to wait at all. We split an appetizer of fried green tomatoes with crab salad on top. Chelsea ordered herself an oyster and crab leg and then we split the crab fettuccine, which was amazing, considering I don’t particularly love seafood.

Monday night ended out on the river as we bar hopped to some of the places we visited the last time we were here.

On Tuesday, we both worked during the day from the apartment and we split a delicious breakfast sandwich from a little French cafe across the street. During our lunch break, we went to Orange Theory to work out.

seasoned scrambled egg and brie croissant sandwich from cafe m

When the work day was over, we headed out to get some more seafood, this time at Savannah Seafood Shack. A lot of places in town are closed Monday-Wednesday, so it was a little difficult finding a highly rated seafood place again. But SSS has been featured on Food Network, the Cooking Channel and the Travel Channel, so we figured it must be good… it was better than good, it was amazing! Again, I’m not a huge seafood person but the fish tacos I ordered and the crab pie we split was so good. The fish used on the tacos was swai fish, which neither of us had heard of before. It was described to me as a cousin of the catfish and very mild. It tasted very mild, not fishy at all and was almost buttery. I highly recommend these tacos and the restaurant in general.

fish tacos, hush puppies, crab pie and shrimp basket

After stuffing our faces with some of the best seafood either of us had had, we went out for another night on the town, stopping at a cool underground speakeasy, AlleyCat. This place wasn’t really a “speakeasy”, but it gave off those vibes since it was pretty well hidden and they had a huge selection of crafty cocktails. It was also really cool that their drink menu was on a newspaper and had different little stories scattered among the drink descriptions, like the history of the Moscow Mule and history of the building. We had our drinks and then walked a few blocks to a place we went to when we first came to Savannah years ago, The Congress Social Club and ended the night dancing to a great DJ at The Tree House; all songs from the 80’s and 90’s with music videos playing in the background.

the literal alley where alleycat is located

mexican firing squad drink on top of alleycat’s menu

Because we both loved the breakfast sandwich from Cafe M across the street, I walked to get breakfast on Wednesday morning. It was a very cute little French cafe tucked away among the cobblestones and scenic views.

cafe m located behind the green umbrellas and the lock bridge to the right

Earlier in the week we decided to try something different and do a haunted walking tour of the city. I found an “experience” on Airbnb called “History, Haunts and Hops” where for $50 we walked through some of the most haunted squares in the city, while stopping at 3 bars along the way for drinks.

The tour started at 7:30, so we had time to grab dinner beforehand. Yet again, we reverted back to the bartender’s recommendations and tried Savoy Society. This was my favorite restaurant we tried in Savannah. The food was fresh and moderately healthy, the vibe and space was very much my classic meets modern style and the music they play is all on vinyls. While here, we each got a cocktail and split a cheese board, roasted vegetable salad and “mega toast”.

cheese board with a horseradish white cheddar, truffle manchego and triple cream brie

“mega” toast (whipped goat cheese, tomatoes, arugula, crispy ham and balsamic) and roasted vegetable salad

We were in a bit of a rush to get to our tour, so we had to eat our salad and toast hurriedly and walk very fast to meet up with the group in Ellis Square. Chris, our tour guide, was very friendly and knowledgeable of the history of Savannah. We learned that Ellis Square was one of the first main squares where everything happened when people came over and off ships. It was also where slaves were bought and sold and Chris did a good job explaining the history of blacks and how they literally built the city. We appreciated his transparency and honesty.

the corner of ellis square where Chris said the slave trade happened

The first stop on the tour was a bar near Ellis Square where we got our first drink (beer or margarita) and we made friends with a recently married couple who were on their honeymoon. After the bar, we walked to several other squares around town.

Along the tour, our tour guide Chris told stories of murder and haunts. One I found interesting was that the squares have live oak trees, but some of them do not have Spanish Moss, which usually grows in those trees. According to the haunted history, Spanish Moss doesn’t grow on the squares where innocent blood was shed… spooky.

We continued through some more haunted squares and outside the haunted Marshall House to our second bar, a speakeasy found behind a bookcase. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the second stop. Here, we had champagne and visited for a few minutes in the cool atmosphere.

After the speakeasy, we made our way through a few more haunted squares and stopped at Chippewa Square, known best for being where Forrest Gump was filmed on his bench (the bench isn’t actually there, it was a prop in the movie). Chris took some time here to go through one of the greatest movies of all time and I really liked his perspective on it. He said the movie is all about “the combination of coincidence and fate.” He described how Lt. Dan had a fate of dying on the battlefield, but through coincidence, was given a second chance at life. Jenny personified the feather that’s floating at the beginning and end of the movie; she was always on the move. There were other characters he discussed too, and I really appreciated this part of the tour because growing up, we always had Forrest Gump on and it’s one movie that my entire family enjoys and can relate to in ways.

From Chippewa Square, we walked over to the last bar, Edgar’s Proof & Provision, inside the DeSoto hotel, which was funnily across the street from where we began the night at Savoy Society. Here, we got Moscow Mules before heading out to the final destination, Madison Square.

Madison Square is known as the “most haunted” of all the squares for a series of tragic events that happened at Sorrel Weed House, which involved the death of a child and a woman falling to her death from the top floor. After we were all thoroughly spooked (and buzzed), we took a picture with the group and then Chelsea, myself, the newlyweds and Nick, a tour guide in training, walked over to McDonough's Irish Pub for some live music, wings and drinks. Here, we danced and laughed for a while before going our separate ways. From here, Chelsea and I walked back to where the tour started near Ellis Square and went to a bar that had a live band. They played 80’s and 90’s covers and were really really good! We danced quite a lot before calling it a night and heading home.

moscow mule at edgar’s proof & provisions

After going hard and having one of the best times in one of the funnest cities in the South, we packed up our things, lugged them down all the stairs, got one last egg and brie croissant and hit the road on Thursday morning to go to Asheville!

the note i wrote in the guestbook when we got home wednesday night

Since our original plan of stopping in Columbia, SC didn’t happen, we decided to stop there for lunch on the way. We found a legit Mexican food truck in a gas station parking lot (and it was legit because the menu was in Spanish before English and it didn’t have a sign, so I have no idea what the food truck was called). Coming from Austin, it is hard to impress Chelsea and I with tacos, but these did more than impress… they blew us away because they were SO. GOOD. I got a chicken taco (it was very spicy) and a veggie taco, which had rice, beans, avocado, cheese, sour cream and onions. This was authentic to the extreme and we scarfed the tacos down while sitting from the back of my car in the parking lot.

chicken taco (left) and veggie taco (right)

thursday | june 3 - sunday | june 6

stop #5 - asheville, nc

“i’m only as strong as the cocktails i drink, the hairspray i use, and the girlfriends i have.” - rock outside the JAX BnB

the gang (sam, me, ana, malena, anushka, rebecca, chelsea, jessamine, katie & lacey), outside catawba brewing

The drive to Asheville was beautiful, through the mountains, fog and windy roads. It was also filled with excitement as we were so happy to be finally be celebrating our good friend Rebecca’s bachelorette, since it was postponed from last year due to COVID. Ten of her closest friends came together in a cabin in the woods to have the best time laughing, eating, drinking, bonding and celebrating our friend.

The Airbnb was massive to accommodate so many people. It was about 15 minutes from town, up the side of a mountain and down a dirt road. We were very secluded, which was nice because we were loud the entire time (and not sorry about it).

just a part of the massive kitchen and the view of the mountain… don’t worry, we didn’t drink ALL that alcohol

Not pictured is the whole downstairs, where there was another living room, a foosball table, two bedrooms and another bathroom.

Everyone arrived on Thursday at different times, Chelsea and I being the second group to get there. We scouted it out, claimed our room and visited with Rebecca and others. We ate pizza and other snacks that night while also playing some games before turning in a little early… we had a big day ahead of us!

Friday was probably my favorite day of my entire trip because I got to spend it with several of my closest friends doing what I love most in this world - tasting wine. A van picked us up from the house at 10 a.m. and took us to Hendersonville, NC, where a lot of wineries are located. The first winery of the day was St. Paul Mountain Vineyard, where we sat outside at a long table and served ourselves our tastings from test tubes.

All of us had a great time trying the wines and I bought a bottle of the Chestnut Gap. When we were done, we loaded back into the van and were taken to the second winery, Burntshirt. I asked one of the employees if there was significance in the name and she told me a story of a farmer years ago who was out in the fields and his shirt caught on fire. After that, he had a great harvest and started the winery. Now, every year they have a festival where they burn shirts. It sounded like a pretty good tale and reason to name the vineyard that!

entrance to burntshirt - such a gorgeous day for wine tasting

The view of Burntshirt was better than St. Paul’s, and the wine was equally as good. I did a tasting and bought a bottle of the rose. I don’t typically love rose’s, but theirs was exceptionally good… not too sweet or dry. We also ate lunch here - our driver picked us up sandwiches from a local place called Dandelion. Everything was delicious and very fresh, so I highly recommend it.

the wines i chose for my tasting (rose in the middle)

There was one more stop on our wine journey and I don’t think any of us were prepared for where we were headed. I think we all wished we had more time to spend at Marked Tree winery. The views were phenomenal and the style of the tasting room was very eclectic and modern. Honestly I can’t tell you how good the wine was, but I did buy a bottle of their petite verdot.

chelsea and i - i like to joke that this what the beginning of a wine tour looks like…

and this is the end of the wine tour (lol)

the gang outside marked tree and very happy off wine

After our day full of wine and lots of pictures, we got back in the van for the last time to go home, eat and get ready for a night on the town. We had Italian food delivered to the house while we were away and it was amazing (and so much food that it sustained our late nights on Friday and Saturday). Dinner consisted of Fettuccine Alfredo, chicken parmesan, bruschetta and greek salad. After enjoying our food and freshening up, we went into town to go to Battery Park Book Exchange, a champagne bar and bookstore that had Rebecca’s name written all over it.

sitting outside the champagne bar/battery park book exchange

The drinks on the menu all had champagne and were based off authors of the past, like Hemingway and Edgar Allan Poe. They were also served in fancy crystal.

After a drink at the book exchange, we walked a few blocks to a place someone had been before called Ben’s Tune-Up. It was actually a big, mostly outdoor bar that had craft brewed sake on tap (of course… only in Asheville will you find sake on tap). When we arrived, the sun was still up and it wasn’t very crowded, but shortly after, a lot more people arrived and it became a huge dance party.

downtown asheville and the pretty sky at dusk

inside of ben’s and near the dance floor we made

After dancing our hearts out at Ben’s and getting some recommendations from the bartender on where to go next, we headed to Asheville Beauty Society because the bartender’s friend was DJ’ing there. Turns out, ABS is a gay bar and we had so much fun! The music was great and so was the atmosphere. Afterwards, we headed back to the Airbnb where we stayed up and played card games. Ana, Malena, Sam, Jessamine, Chelsea, Rebecca and I started off playing “Up the River, Down the River”, which is a drinking game that I think we all had played in college. After a few games of that, we got really rowdy playing “Horse Races”. I was the “announcer” for the Queen cards who acted as horses and everyone was cheering on their “horse” to win. It was a blast and I lost a lot of my voice yelling the entire game. Little did we know then, that this game would be a constant throughout the rest of the weekend.

Originally, our Saturday plans were for me to teach a class of yoga and then go tubing down a river. However, we were all doing a little rough in the morning and we realized the water would be way to cold to get in, so we decided to take it easy and eventually made our way into town again to visit some of the many breweries.

Our first stop was Wicked Weed Funkatorium, one that a lot of different people had suggested trying. They had a nice outdoor area and surprisingly also made wine! I decided since I’m in Asheville, I need to drink some beer, so I got the only non-sour beer flight and Rebecca and I split the tomato salad. All the food I tried was really good and the beer was good, but nothing special. I believe the beers on the flight were a Lager, some sort of wheat beer, their famous Pernicious IPA and a watermelon dragon fruit burst beer (somewhat sour).

After the Funkatorium, we walked a little bit to Burial, which was another brewery someone had mentioned was good. They did have a cool hippy van in the outdoor space that had the inside taken out and replaced with benches to sit in. We had to wait in a long line to order our beers and none of their selection sounded good to me, so I tried their sparkling mead, which wasn’t very tasty. I only drank about half of it and went back up to order a frozen wine… much better. Here, we decided it was a good place to play a game of Horse Races and about half way through, we were told to be quiet by the staff. I guess we were just having too fun!

After our games and a drink, we moved along to the third brewery, Catawba. I recognized the name and texted my brother if he’d ever been. He said yes and to please get him a crowler of their peanut butter and jelly beer. We all came to this brewery for that beer, but unfortunately it is only brewed in April and they don’t brew any more until the next year, so they didn’t have any to try. Instead, I ordered their coffee blonde. It wasn’t really “blonde” in color or flavor, but it was good.

To our pleasant surprise, there was an employee outside where we were sitting who overheard us talking about the pb&j beer. He ended up going in the back and sneaking one of the last beers out so we could all try a sip. This flavored jelly was strawberry rhubarb and it was actually really good and different, I wish we could’ve had more!

The last stop of our downtown trip was to a taco shop called White Duck. This restaurant reminded me a lot of Torchy’s Tacos in Austin - they had very different and unique flavored tacos, like a pork belly taco and Korean bbq taco. I ordered their Tikka Masala (of course) taco and the Thai Peanut. Both were really tasty and had great flavor. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the Thai Peanut over the Tikka Masala (if you know me, you know I love Indian and Tikka). We sat and enjoyed our tacos and queso and then left to go back to the Airbnb.

thai peanut (left) and tikka masala (right)

I think we arrived home around 7 p.m. and decided to go into the Airbnb’s hot tub. We all crammed into it with drinks in hand and played a game of Cheers to the Governor.

Once the bugs started coming out and the sun set, we went inside for what was honestly one of the best nights I’ve had in years. Although all these women were Rebecca’s friends, I felt so close to them and had so much fun. We cleaned ourselves up and gathered in the living room for some last night activities.

It started by going through a little “How well does the groom know the bride” game that Katie, Rebecca’s sister, had orchestrated with the groom, Zan. His answers made us all laugh and that spiraled into a long night of some of the deepest belly laughs and tears of happiness. It felt so natural to sit there with who were actually mostly strangers and become what felt like true friends. We must’ve been in the living room for hours, just talking and telling story after story. After some girls decided to go to bed, Sam, Chelsea, Rebecca, Malena and I went downstairs to play some foosball. Rebecca and I were on a team and let me just say, playing foosball after a long day of drinking is really hard… and we lost. Somehow, we ended the night with a late night yoga session since we didn’t get to do it earlier. Rebecca, Sam and Chelsea followed my guidance through a short flow and it honestly put the cherry on top of a phenomenal day and trip.

The theme of the weekend was showing just how special our friend Rebecca is and how she clearly has really good taste in friends, since we all got along and bonded so quickly and effortlessly. I know she was very grateful for that and I feel grateful to have her, and now some of her friends in my life. One last constant throughout the weekend was the saying “that slaps” (iykyk), which is just the perfect term to sum up a great bachelorette/girls trip in the mountains.

Sunday morning came too soon and we all had to pack our things and leave the Airbnb. I was so thankful that I wasn’t going home, but was following Rebecca, Jessamine and Sam to Nashville! It made saying “goodbye” a lot easier knowing I’d see them in just a few days. So Chelsea and I loaded my car for the fourth and final time and headed west on I-40, through the windy mountain roads and into Tennessee.

Since I’ll be in Nashville for a month, see my separate blog post titled “nashville”.

distance(ing).

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