There's a lot to love...

Tallahassee's been good to me. I've been here for about as long as I've been anywhere and I can honestly say that I've been happier here than any place else I've ever lived. I moved here from Seattle six years ago, and was worried at first that I'd have a hard time finding my place in a small town like this, but Tallahassee has a strange way of making space for you if you stick around long enough to let it. Like anywhere else, it's got its positive and negative points both, but on balance it's a beautiful place to live and is just chocked full of pretty great people, too. Ultimately, though, it's a small town, and unless you're ready to settle down (or have lived in a small town your entire life) it can get a little claustrophobic. It's the kind of place I can see myself returning to once I retire, but for now I've got to run off and do a little more exploring.

I have about three weeks to go before I set out across the country on my motorcycle, and before I leave Tallahassee for good I'm going to run around taking stock of the things I've grown to love about it. Like any great place, Tallahassee is made up of a patchwork of great things strewn amongst a garden of regular old stuff, so weeding out the things you like takes a little doing. What I'll write about before I go is the product of six years of snooping around, but I'm sure there are things I'll either leave out or never found for myself. If you have a suggestion or feel like I left something out that is glaringly obvious to you, let me know and I'll try to sneak it in at the end, pretending like I was hip to it the whole time.

In any case, the first and perhaps the most fitting - The Leon Pub.

The Leon Pub is the very definition of a 'hole-in-the-wall' sort of place to grab a beer with your friends. From the outside, it looks like the kind of place you're likely to get shivved in if you're not careful, but once you're inside you get to see pretty quickly how your first impression was wrong.

The place is small and friendly. Two pool tables only barely fit in it, and even then you'll have to ask the people in the bar to watch out now and then while you take a tricky shot. There is a dart board on one end and an old-school table Pac-Man game on the other. A 80's-era jukebox sitting adjacent to the men's room pumps out classic rock and New Orleans jazz. Unless you get there before 9 pm, a haze of cigarette smoke thick enough to curl up on obscures your view through the bar. The tables are close and the stools are rickety and there's a half-inch layer of dust on anything higher than six feet off the ground and anyone you meet in there is just as likely as not to be too drunk to tell you their name. However this sounds to you, the real attraction of the Leon Pub, its saving grace, even, is it copious and amazing beer menu.

Hands down the most extensive beer menu I've ever seen, anywhere. They've got about 40 beers on tap all over the bar, and about another 200 in the bottle. I counted them one night with a friend - really, there are that many. They sell beer in either pints or liters, and they accept only cash. They don't sell food or cigarettes or anything other than beer, wine and mead (they used to sell chips, but don't they don't anymore), so it's a good idea to either eat before you go or bring some nuts along with you. The diverse and eclectic beer menu draws a lot of people in, a lot of interesting people, so go prepared to chat.

I had a conversation there with the only man I've ever met who had actually had his toes cut off in an escalator as a child (I mean, you always hear about that but you never actually MEET anyone it's happened to, right?). All the toes on his right foot - gone. It looked like a duck flipper. My buddy and I were there once when a drunk old guy bought everyone in the bar a round with a bucket full of quarters. I got in a fight there once and got thrown out by the bartender - the same bartender who bought me a round the next time I came in. Sounds weird, but it's just that kind of place. I don't really go there very often anymore, but I'll miss that place like you wouldn't believe. Funny how you tend to forget to take advantage of some of the greatest things around you until it's almost too late.

I went there tonight for a beer, just to say goodbye, and noticed a poster in the men's room that read, "Please Drink Responsibly," to which someone had added in a shaky hand, "...or die trying." Heh.