An amusing episode – “Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?”
As an aside, we thought this was a funny episode after the Grand Ole Opry. You know, country music makes one get the munchies… Okay, going through a drive through is easy, isn’t it? Not when you’re going through one for the first time, it would seem. When we pull in, one of my companions (okay it was Sharon, for those of you who know her) gets out of the car to read the menu. Sorry? The attendant comes on the speaker and asks, “What would you like to order?” “Can we have a moment, please?” Silence. The newbies then...
… and, we’re back
End of the road(trip) 2012 So, after an overnight flight, we arrived back in cold London. Well, colder than Houston, anyway! We saw a lot of things, ate a lot of good food, heard lots of good music and sampled some decent local beers, too. Although, somewhat ironically, the one most prevalent seemed to be Blue Moon from Denver! After unpacking, redistributing clothing, food items and various souvenirs (and trying not to fall asleep) started looking at the hundreds of photos and realise I have some work to do! We drove 1,589 miles, saw countryside ranging from mountains to beach...
How time flies…
Well, it’s over. Almost two weeks on the road, hitting the highlights of the musical south and we’ve reached Houston. It’s our last night, so we’re going for a steak and a beer. Leaving New Orleans was tough – it would have been easy to stay! I guess we’ll just have to come back. Scratch that, we’ll definitely be coming back! On our way to Houston today, we did stop (however briefly) on the Gulf coast. I don’t know that I’ve ever been to this coast before, and I’m sure my companions haven’t. It was a nice place to stop;...
Turn out the lights… Elvis has left New Orleans!
So, Monday wasn’t worth reporting. ‘Why’ you ask? We spent eight hours in a mall! No, don’t ask, my mind is still boggled. So today, we had coffee and beignets at Cafe du Monde, a coffee house and bakery that’s been there since 1862, pretty old for the U.S. Good coffee and great beignets! Then we went Uptown to meet Gaither Pope, a friend of a friend I met via Facebook, a painter and teacher at Nichols State University. We met at the gallery that shows his work and went for a Cubano sandwich, a mixture of pulled pork, ham...
Wrasslin’ gators and meeting Swamp People
We met a real Cajun, today, “Captain Earl”. He threatened to leave us all in the swamp when none of us admitted to having watched Swamp People. But. He did let us all have a go at holding his cute little alligator, “Fluffy”. Anyone who has an 18 inch long alligator called Fluffy can’t be all bad. “Don’t strangle my ‘gator – if I don’t come home with Fluffy, my wife’ll kill me.” At times it reminded Me of the safari I did in Africa, when all the swamp boats clustered around a group of gators – much like they...
River Queen, take me to Mother’s
And the heavens opened… We decided to go to New Orleans landmark Mother’s today for breakfast – great idea, shame about the weather. Debs and I set out early, just wanting to get out of the hotel, and found ourselves outside the Plaza d’Italia building. “I worked on a project based around this plaza,” I said. And I had. While still at University of Colorado, one of my instructors was partial to the Piazza, and constructed a project around it. I don’t remember doing very well, but it stuck with me, as evidenced by my reaction today. It’s been refurbished...
“I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees”
Well, today’s been a long day. We set out early from Memphis, aiming to get to Clarkesdale, Mississippi at a reasonable time to visit the Delta Blues Museum, grab some lunch at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Club and get on the road to New Orleans. Sounds simple, no? We made good time and found the crossroads where blues musician Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil in return for musical talent. When I say ‘found it’, I mean drove down Highway 61 and there it was. We got out and took the obligatory photos with the sign and...
More travels in my home country
We left Nashville yesterday, driving through Jackson, Tennessee, on our way to Memphis. You may not know this, but Jackson, Tennessee is the home to Casey Jones’s Village – a museum and shops dedicated to the memory of Casey Jones a railroad engineer killed trying to save the train and passengers on his train, the Cannonball Express when it collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night. We stopped, had some good ole down home cookin’ and experienced a bit of America none of us had seen before. Then today, we started with...
News from Music City, wrong side of the pond
Well, I have to say Nashville’s been nothing like I imagined. I never imagined that you can’t throw a cat in this town without hitting a musician… I’m travelling with my English wife and two of our English friends, and they all enjoyed it too. Tonight we went to the Grand Ole Opry – hey, it’s Nashville, what else are you going to do? – and the experience was pretty good. It was one of the radio shows they do there every week and highlights the talent that is the membership of the Opry. The headliner was one Alan Jackson...
