Updated on occasion.

Got up as soon as my alarm went off at 6am this morning. Finished up packing before the shuttle arrived at 7:20am to take me to  Newark Airport. Had a really good run across, once there I caught the Airlink (Monorail) to the car rental terminal to pick up a car.

They only had two types of car available, Dodge Neon or Dodge Journey. I went with the Journey as it was a little bigger. It’s one of those half van half sedan type cars. Didn’t have too much trouble adapting to driving on the other side of the road, the New Jersey roads were another matter. The GPS never steered me wrong but I frequently faced a scenario were I was supposed to turn right but there were 3 right turns all within 30 metres of each other. After a few wrong turns I eventually got the hang of it, I just needed to focus on highlighted street on the GPS as approaching intersections.

It took less than an hour to reach my first stop in Red Bank, New Jersey and Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. Red Bank was a really nice area, lots of trees with houses on big blocks with heaps of space. I was a little early as the store doesn’t open until 11am, so I headed down the main street looking for some breakfast. Stopped in at No Joe’s Cafe which seemed like a nice little place. Grabbed a “Heart Stopper” wrap containing Egg, Bacon, Sausage, Onion, Cheese and Potato. It was as full on as it sounds, but pretty tasty. Had a regular coffee too which was bigger than most mugs you get back home.

After breakfast I went down to the store. Upon entering the guy behind the counter told me if I needed a hand with anything to find someone else cause he didn’t care. I said “Ok” and started browsing. After a couple more snarky exchanges with the guy I realised that he was putting it on trying to give me the “Clerks” experience. After chatting with him for a while he turned out to be a pretty nice dude. Lot’s of cool stuff in the store, particularly all the comic and movie statues. After picking up a Ranger Danger t-shirt and the new “Evening with Kevin Smith” DVD, the guy handed me a piece of paper with directions to the Quick-Stop Convenience Store where “Clerks” was filmed. I thought it’d been sold off and torn down, but armed with the knowledge it was still out there I had to check it out.

Managed to decrypt the directions and enter them into the GPS. Arrived at the Quick Stop in around 15 minutes. The area looked nothing like I expected after seeing the films, although the building itself looked as I imagined. It’s almost on the side of a hill and there’s a pretty major road just to the right hand side. Went inside, grabbed a bottle of water then hit the road again.

Upon arriving in Philadelphia I found a 24-hour parking lot across the road from the Khyber where “Local H” were playing later in the night. The location was really good as everything I wanted to see was only a few blocks west so I didn’t need to drive around.

I had an hour to kill before my Independence Hall tour so I went to check out the Liberty Bell first. The bell was located at the end of a long hall which chronicled it’s history. After that it was on to Independence Hall .

There were two main rooms the tour took us through, one was a Courtroom and the other was the Assembly Room. The Assembly room was where both the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution were drafted and signed. The room contained little of the original fixtures and furniture except the for the main chair where George Washington sat when he was in town.

I had a wander around the streets taking some photos of the old buildings and gardens. The old section of Philly is quite a pretty area and just standing there you can feel it significance. It’s a lot more laid back than New York with fewer people and no one hassling you.

For dinner I went to Campo’s on Market St as I’d read they had the best Cheesesteaks in town. It was nice but very sickly, I think it’s the cheese they use that makes it this way. They use some kind of processed cheese sauce, and a lot of it.

Still having 3 hours before the bands started I went to the only cinema in the area, a little arthouse place called the Ritz. There wasn’t much of a selection so I decided to catch “Rachel Getting Married” which I’d recently read some favourable reviews of. It was pretty decent although the director spent far too much time trying to make the audience feel like they were there at the wedding rather than spending time with the main characters they’d invested in.

By the time I got back to the Khyber it was time for the bands to begin. First up was “Fall On Your Sword” a 3 piece electro rock outfit from New York. They weren’t really my cup of tea using synthesized voices more than singing themselves.  Next up was “Local H” the reason for this side trip. In the 10 years since I last saw them they haven’t lost any of their intensity. They played a 5 song 45 minute set, with a lot of extended jams in between.

There was a bit of “entertainment” in the crowd too thanks to this one guy with black curly hair and a leather jacket who kind of looked like Leo Sayer. He was being a dickhead jumping around knocking in to people. He eventually jumped into the wrong guy, an Irish looking fellow in tracky dacks and a Philly Eagles top, knocking over his beer. The guy took one look at him then laid him out Leo in one punch as the crowd cheered him on.

I watched the first couple of songs from the last act “Electric Six”, but really needed to hit the road. I was feeling pretty tired and wasn’t too sure how I’d hold up on the couple of hours drive back to Newark Airport.

About halfway back I could feel the eyelids getting heavy so I pulled over at the next rest area for a power nap. I set the alarm and giving myself 45 minutes. I was ok when I woke up so I got back on the road and continued on my way. Arrived at Newark Airport at 3am a couple of hours before my flight to Phoenix boarded.