Cum see what inspired me.

We were all in the middle of discussing it -- everyone was discussing it over New Year's, I'm sure -- on the drive from Charlotte to Cashiers, North Carolina when we began to see the familiar shape of Tiger grow larger and larger in the distance. It was a billboard, on the opposite side of the highway, with a giant photo of a golfer. He was admiring his shot, which would have ended up somewhere near the Virginia border if the photo had been made to scale.

It really looked like Tiger.

"There he is!"

Surely everyone has taken down their Tiger ads by now, I thought.

"No way..."

A few seconds pass, and the billboard gets bigger.

"Yeah, you're right," another person said.

"Oh man that would have been so hilarious if someone still had a huge Tiger billboard up right now."

(One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand...)

Wait for it.... wait for it..........

"HOLY SHIT!"

One person screaming but an entire car full of people coming to the collective realization.

"IT IS HIM!"

The collective realization that the man admiring his golf shot on the billboard ahead was the man himself.

And the subsequent collective realization that he is inviting us to come see what inspired him, (so long as we click on the box affirming that we are in fact 18 years of age.)

And of course my camera was buried in my bag as we flew past it on the interstate.

"Oh man, that was such a perfect opportunity for Bayless to start writing in his blog again, too!"

"Like rain on your fucking wedding day," I said.

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Scene: the other car, being driven by Tom, with Martha and Lizzie as passengers.

(P.S. Tom told me when I was waiting for him to pick me up in Martha's car at the airport that he would be driving a "green Toyota thing," when in fact, it was a black 4Runner.)

"Hello?"

I was on the other end of the line, and I was trying to convince Tom to turn around and pull a U-turn, so we could get out and take a picture. Tom later claimed that Martha had predicted his phone was about to ring with this exact request from me.

"If we see a place to turn around in four miles," Tom said, to an almost immediate chorus of boos and protest from the two girls in the car, "we'll turn around," before quickly amending his promise because of the boos and protest.

"Two miles," he said. "Two miles."

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I got to work writing all of this down, so we would remember where to pull off on the drive back to Charlotte should we not find a place within two miles.

PETER GUICE MEMORIAL BRIDGE
"See what inspired me."
TIGER BILLBOARD
Exit 59
FUCK!

The reason I wrote the last word in my notes is because, as I was writing my notes, we passed the exact, same, billboard. The exact same billboard, within 10 miles of one another on US-64. And still, my camera, buried in my bag.

"DAMNIT!"

Exit 59 immediately became seared into my brain. We were going to turn around on the drive home.

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Scene: the drive home, New Year's Day.

Wes was just as excited as I was to get a photo op with the billboard.

Some would say even moreso.

The children whose father had pulled over during a road trip for the ole, side-of-the-highway-family-snowball-fight didn't seem to notice us.




But I guess they're just not as focused as we are on the important things in life.




Like making sure I have things to write about on my blog.


"ATL Airport - wish i had better camera - the top says "thinker" and bottom says "doer" - guess which one id be pointing to if we could get another clearer pic for the blog" - text message from Wes today, with attached photo