Our enigmatic heroes start their journey in Key West, the "Island of Bones," not to mention tourists, drag queens, Caribbean sunsets, and Ernest Hemingway's six-toed cats. Modern development has taken a toll on the native eastern indigo snake, so a friendly reintroduction is in order. A new generation of hawksbill sea turtles are also spawned to clear the coral reef of sponges.
Welcome to Miami, city of fast living, Art Deco, high fashion, and lots of neon. The city's venerable bottlenose dolphins make a cameo and end up with more space in which to frolic.
Deep in the Everglades lurk the primal forces of nature, including cherubim, various beasts, and Giuseppe the man-servant. The Lady of the Swamp reigns over alligators, eastern coral snakes, Florida panthers, sandhill cranes, red-bellied cooters, and more as airboats encroach on her territory.
The veil between worlds is lifted in Charleston, South Carolina. The social trauma and contradictions of the area's history shines through, but an offering of healing is presented: sugar, football, sweet tea, and the enduring presence of Mark Twain and Halley's Comet are invoked to resurrect the fabled canebrakes of the Deep South and the always sagacious and keystone gopher tortoise.
An itinerant hustler plies his trade in the Appalachian Mountains, selling various kinds of snake oil, including the devastating scam of mountaintop removal. The locals band together to thwart his siren song of plunder and egomania. Meanwhile Old Lady Golden Nails preserves the rocking chair legacy of the Highlander Folk School.
Stopping for bourbon in the Bluegrass region of sweet Kentucky, home to horses, tobacky, karst caves, UFOs, and psychic big shot Edgar Cayce. The legendary alchemical Bourbon of Destiny lies within.
Can't visit Nashville without some rowdy foot-stomping and playful havoc. Portraits of Loretta Lynn and Johnny Cash faithfully abide, while celebratory outlaws run amok, only to be outclassed by silent film star and animated trump card Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.
Memphis has it all: the blues, Elvis impersonators, the Mississippi River, and limitless pork products. Beale Street is fortified with police to keep the tourist money flowing, and a devilish dashboard trinket awaits those who order the Mystery Hot Link Special. Featuring a gateway decorated with occult blues symbolism and a hall of pork history, with respect paid to the extinct passenger pigeon and American chestnut tree upon which both it and hogs fed.
St Louis, city of progress and innovation, also boasts an old-timey charm. Future and past combine into a hybrid celebration of both in the classic American diner. Beasts of the river include the Gulf sturgeon, alligator gar, Mississippi paddlefish, and blue catfish. Meanwhile the descendants of proletarian dropouts from the 1904 World's Fair survive in a cavernous favela, honoring the also-subterranean southern cave fish, northern long-eared bat, grotto salamander, and Salem cave crayfish.
Celebrating the democratic process in rustic Iowa, the land of corn, soy, ethanol, butter cows, and presidential straw polls. A confrontation ensues between a quintessential reactionary using plain English and a forward-thinking alternative deploying ancient Enochian.
Bands of neo-Kaiserist land pirates rove across the Great Plains, and our heroes pay the requisite toll for passage. Their female companions of the reconstructed House of Hohenzollern are flown in while the outlaw tribe spreads the glory of neo-Salé, inspired by the legendary north African pirate utopia. Prairie dogs keep the grasslands alive and the American bison makes a comeback.
Revolution is in the air in Spokane, Washington following a prison break by interred striking workers. Various sectors of society organize from the ground up and launch a sweeping overhaul of the local power structure in an attempt to create a stateless and classless anarcho-syndicalist federation. The homeless population recreates the iconic Garbage Goat of Riverfront Park as an unstoppable force while flat bill hat-wearing skateboarders get politicized and honor the salmon.
Our journey ends in Seattle, with free drinks and a Charles Fourier-type celestial alignment. Beverages of the self-enlightening kind cheer up the population and straighten out myriad psychic imbalances, culminating in a pilgrimage to Puget Sound, where hungry Southern Resident Killer Whales are invited to gorge on a constant stream of Chinook salmon.