C3Q II Daily Dispatches From The Road- 10/10/26

3 States: 40) Georgia 41) Florida 42) South Carolina

The penultimate day. We have 8 states to go and 2 days remaining to beat our own world record. We started our day at the Waffle House in Georgia which was our first time ever eating there and it was a pleasant experience because the food was better than expected. While we were finishing eating, I noticed a potential posting site inside the diner especially because it had been raining since Hurricane Isaias. Since we had not posted in Georgia, but we were expecting to do so in Elberton at the Georgia Guidestones once we were heading North from Florida, I have learned from these travels that it is always smart to take advantage of posting when the opportunity arises despite future plans. It is one of the rules I have established this time because you never know what lies ahead. (Which later on turned out to be a smart thing to do.)

I proceeded to get my first book of the Rebel Rodder and showed our waitress the posting I had done at a Denny's and asked if I could do one inside the Waffle House. She looked at the picture, looked at me then looked at the picture again and said, “OK.” So I proceeded to do my usual prep and spraypasted on the poster and applied it to a black plastic “A board” and moved the two rows of cones on either side to balance the composition. Framed just right I proceeded to video and photograph it while customers looked on wondering what the hell I was doing. 

Shortly thereafter we departed and headed south to Florida. In order to avoid the panhandle yesterday, we went east to avoid the storm and landed at a visitors center in Jennings Florida. Upon arriving at the parking lot area. I spotted a familiar outdoor welcome to Florida arch where tourists stood in line to take their photograph. It was the same type of structure from ten years ago but at a different visiting center. I made sure to park on the other parking lot row in order to have privacy to prep the poster using the trunk lid as a shelter from the rain. 

We went to the bathroom first before entering the visitors center. It was there inside that Zoraya pointed out our next photo and video opportunity of placing  one poster underneath the “you are here” floor map that outlined the state of Florida and its different tourist destinations. However, I wanted to leave a poster or two behind and not just temporarily place one for photographic use. So, I went back to the car and waited what seemed like an hour for the rain to pause or stop in order to proceed and pin on 2 palm trees instead of the two concrete pillars of the “Welcome to Florida” arch. I thought it would make an appropriate follow up picture from ten years ago with the car and palm trees in the foreground. After a long arduous delay we finally headed out of Florida and back to Georgia again en route to what was America's Stonehedge.

During the six hour return trip back we decided to research the Georgia Guidestones in preparation of what to expect at the site. Probably something we should have done earlier because we learned that there was to be no sign of it anywhere. Not the information pedestal, not the concrete groundstone nor any kind of remnants of the granite pillars. In fact, according to the pictures we found online, we would only find an overgrown field which indicated a return to the natural state for cows pastures. We went ahead anyways to see for ourselves and confirm the online information. We listened to the podcast called,  "Who blew up the Georgia Guidestones?”  in route to what was the site of that granite monument. However our GPS warned us it would be dark, rainy  and arrive by nightfall. Five hours later, we arrived, pitch dark and rainy. Zoraya and I investigated the ground with our mini flashlights and umbrella and we were able to verify the information on the internet. There was nothing. There was no evidence of it ever existing. Only the chain link fence to remind us where the dirt-gravel parking lot was. THe night was gloomy, spooky  and downright weird as we heard a slowly approaching sedan blazing Spanish banda music passing by us in rural north eastern Georgia. We also realized there was nowhere to spray paste posters making the waffle house postering in hindsight seem like a “genius move.” 

But what was truly genius was the anonymity and secret origins of the Georgia Guidestones monuments since it lends itself to such mythological and conspiratorial legends. We learned a lot through the podcast which told the story through the eyes of a Georgia native who always wanted to see the monument but regretted never seeing it and with the help and collaboration between The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) and Goat Rodeo told the origin story and the mystery behind the man who manifested a monument to a philosophy. However in their investigation told in the podcast, we learned of its possible sinister motives. It's a  shame because we had such positive feelings, experiences and memories at the site over the years. For me, it began in 2008 when I first learned of it through the now defunct Alex Jones infowars video, Endgame.  A year later I did my first guerilla art reconnaissance of the site with Zoraya's aunt and cousins where we explored the eccentricities of the landmark and even posed for pictures and video in the V for Vendetta Guy Fox costumes. During 2010-2011, I would begin creating the artistic concept for my next outdoor public site specific art installation in ten years, since the strawman project. The granite monument would eventually become the physical scaffold to my integral philosophy of artivism called the dynamic decalogue: the ten foundational pillars of integral neo-transcendentalism for radical evolutionary transformation. (Which you can find in the SUM, SUM II and the Dynamic Decalogue all in Volume II of the S3K Septet Synthology.) It was on May 8, 2011 that I executed the project  with some members of my old guerilla art crew from San Diego, Ca so it served as a festive reunion of members of S3K. The art project was even featured in the Elberton Newspaper and editorialized in a positive way by the publisher. Lastly, Zoraya and I viewed the 2017 solar eclipse at eh Georgia Guidestones along with other fellow eclipse chasers to bear witness of a celestial event. That literally brought tears to our eyes and dancing to our feet. So you can see why we felt a certain sense of sorrow and disappointment with such a controversial site that brought such joy to us despite what its sinister motivations might have been that we later learned in the podcast. 

However, the real horror began later that night. We were still experiencing the tail end of the monstrous Hurricane Isaias which created low visibility, high winds, flash flood warning, harsh rains and gloomy skies. As a defensive driving tactic I would draft behind a lead car in front of me to use their taillights as visual guidance to the path ahead of me.