Author: tincantravels

11th – 15th Nov

‘Keep Austin Weird’ is the unofficial slogan for this kooky city in the heart of Texas. It isn’t small, having about a million inhabitants; it is the 11th most populous city, the second most populous state capital, and it is one of the fastest growing large cities in the USA. It is a little pocket of liberal blue in the otherwise conservative red blanket of Texas. It has food trucks and independent eateries as it tries to fend off the the march of global food chains. It has city parks and a lake in the centre of the city. It has cycle lanes, paths & trails, pedestrian bridges, pavements, buses and the car is not king. You can dare to be different here, and nobody cares. It has more live music than you can shake a stick at and BBQ to die for. In short, it manages to combine all that is wonderful about Texas, Texans and the USA without a lot of the negative characteristics of American cities. It was delightful.

Our positive experience here was in large part due to the place that we managed to stay.  This was a slightly shabby tree-filled city centre RV park, a stone’s throw from everything. It was mostly occupied by permanent residents in a variety of rigs from buses to old airstreams and definitely had an Armistead Maupin vibe going on.

We arrived at lunchtime having made an easy getaway from our carpark camp at College Station and it was a fairly short and easy journey into Austin. We set up and hot-footed it to the very nearby collection of food trucks for a very satisfactory lunch of fish tacos and Thai fried rice. From there it was an easy stroll to the nearby Zilker park, and the jewel of this area, Barton Springs Pool. This is a municipal outdoor natural swimming pool fed by a diverted thermal spring, keeping it at a constant 20-23 degrees all year round. It is about 3 acres of surface area and about 300m/900ft long. The water was amazingly clear and even during the ongoing unseasonably chilly weather there were some hardy souls doing some lengths. What a facility to have in the heart of the city, especially during those sticky Texan summers.  The outflow stream was home to turtles (what I would call a terrapin) basking on rocks and tree stumps and allegedly the eponymous rare Barton Springs Salamander, only found here. Didn’t see any of those.

The next day was freezing cold. Brass monkeys cold. Arctic polar blast cold. We stayed in with the heating on and didn’t emerge until about 3.30pm when we walked up to the nearby cinema to see a showing of Bohemian Rhapsody. I know some critics are disappointed with some of the artistic licence taken, but who cares. It was, to someone who grew up in a Queen-loving family, magnificent. Rami Malek was fantastic.  The cinema, in true Austin fashion was independent, had alternate rows of seats and fixed tables and waitress service of a fine selection of food and beverages. We had intra-movie beers and appetisers in lieu of afternoon tea and were happy as pigs in the proverbial.  We emerged into darkness of evening and scampered across the road to a very nice bar which has a renowned food truck stationed outside. Once you have ordered food outside, they will deliver it, and you can eat it inside. How civilised!

The next day was slightly warmer and we walked across the river/lake to downtown for a snuffle around. The highlights of the day were a visit to the State Capitol Building and an amazing cup of soup and a shared toasted sandwich for lunch. We are easy to keep happy! Later that day we cycled down to Congress Avenue Bridge to witness an Austin spectacle, the dusk emergence of nearly a million bats from their roosts under the bridge.

(This is a mural. Not a real bat…)

The colony, now the largest urban bat colony in the world, originally moved in in the 1980s when the bridge was renovated, creating slots in the underside of the deck that was the perfect size for a bat to hang-out. (Pun intended.) They are migratory, and winter in Mexico, leaving Austin in the first half of November. We had it on good authority that they were still in residence but after very cold 90 minutes stood on the bridge, dusk fell and not a bat was to be seen. I think Mexico had called, and I am not surprised. The small assembled crowd drifted away in dribs and drabs as this realisation hit and the hypothermia kicked in. We went home to defrost and eat.

If Barton Springs is the jewel of the city, its crown has to be the town lake, (named Ladybird Lake after the wife of Austin son, President Johnson) and the 12 mile multi-use leafy trail that runs around it. The lake is formed from a dammed section of the Colorado River that runs through the city, and provides facilities for boating, rowing, sailing, paddle boarding and kayaking and the trail is a magnet for walkers, joggers, cyclists and countless dogs. We spent a very pleasant few hours doing the loop the next day, marvelling at how these sorts of facilities completely change the feel of a city. It was a joy.  The fine day was capped off by a fine dinner. We walked half a mile to an Austin institution, Terry Blacks BBQ. We could see it was popular by the fact that the 30 min queue for the canteen style restaurant was snaking out the door into the cold. The waiting was assuaged by the fact that you could start drinking your beer whilst standing in line. Also civilised.  It was Delicious. I need say no more. No carry-out boxes for us. Ate ’til we we were groaning.

We were sorry vacate our little slice of Austin heaven the next day, but onward we must roll, further into Hill Country, Texas.

10th – 12th Nov

College football is a phenomenon here. It is televised and can get some pretty decent viewing figures, but the thirst and passion for the teams are more reflected in the colossal size of some of the home stadia.  Supporters are current students, alumni of the college, family and friends of current and past students, locals of the  home towns of the colleges and complete randoms. Like Us.

Going to a college football game was on our original list of things we would like to do on our USA travels. We wanted to go to a big one, to see a team with a massive stadium filled with crazy fans; and we wanted to experience true tailgating.

There were a few things to co-ordinate: knowing where we we going to be on our travels, a big game with available tickets, and finding a close-by campsite. We had spent an afternoon of intense multi-device research in early September in Connecticut and locked in our plan. We secured tickets to see Texas A&M (Agricultural & Mechanical) play Ole Miss at Kyle Field in College Station on Nov 10th. This stadium holds over 102,000 people. That is nearly double the capacity of Eden Park, NZ’s national stadium. It’s crazy. By capacity it is the 5 largest stadium in the world, after Rungrado (North Korea, 150,000) and 3 other college football stadia.  We also managed to book an RV spot on the campus, only a mile from the stadium, for 2 nights. This was essentially a gravel carpark with spray painted lines to demarcate the sites, so no facilities at all. The price did not reflect this obviously. But this was to also be our tailgating experience as it was to be the weekend home of about 100 other rigs, all armed with awnings, gazebos, chairs, BBQs, smokers, outside TVs, coolers of beer and tables groaning with meat, chips, dips and sides. Many of these people come only to tailgate and don’t actually go to the game.

We really had no idea what to expect when we pitched up at about midday on the day before the game. We were fairly early and one of the first to set up. (The place looked quite different about 5 hours after the photo was taken, by which time the place was heaving!).

We had some lunch then rugged up warm to walk into the central campus to buy some supporters gear. The balmy Indian summer had given way to an icy arctic blast. It was cold, cold, cold now. On our way out we got chatting to a nearby neighbour called Bruce. He had done a solo set-up of an epic tailgating outfit based around a large RV/horse trailer and was now happily sat watching football on the large flatscreen TV. His wife and their friend (both alumni) were joining him later, and they had 2 kids between them who were current students and would come by too. He was kind enough to extend an open invitation for us to join their festivities over the weekend, and we accepted straight away. How could we refuse?! This looked like a professional outfit.  We walked up to the merchandise store and both bought a body warmer in team colours, and I bought a woolly hat too. If the game had been last week we’d have been buying T-shirts. Madness! Then we walked across campus to a recommended bar called Dixie Chicken, which is a college institution and the sort of place that looks like nothing from the outside but was enormous and packed full on the inside. We did the sensible late-afternoon thing and shared 2 jugs of beer without eating and then rolled ‘home’. It was fully dark by the time we got back to Tin Can and it took us a while to find him amongst the new arrivals. The place was buzzing and noisy. Nearly every rig had a generator running to power the business of having fun. This was to be the soundtrack of the weekend. After some stomach-lining food we headed back out to join Bruce, wife Kenny Kaye and friend Kevin for drinks. They were amazingly welcoming and we had some top-tips for being true supporters for the game the next day. This included the gift of two ‘spirit towels’ from Kenny Kaye. She said we would find out what to do with them….!

The game was scheduled for 11am. The time dictated entirely by the TV networks, and the least favoured slot. Too early for pre-game tailgating. We basically got up, had breakfast, dressed in lots of warm layers and set off walking to the stadium by 9.30am. We managed to find a cup of coffee on the concourse and then took our seats.  For this we had to gain some altitude having deliberately booked seats as high up as we could. This would have given us some cover in case of rain, but mainly gave us a fantastic view of the whole spectacle.

The team is known as The Aggies (from ‘Agricultural’) and the entire A&M student body are known as The 12th Man. This originates from an episode in 1922 when the Aggies were playing an away game in Dallas against a much stronger team. The team suffered multiple injuries and potentially might have run out of players to field. An A&M student E. King Gill, who had been a Aggies player earlier in the season, and was a Dallas local, was in the stands that day. He was pulled from the crowd and asked to be on stand-by to play if needed, a 12th man. He willingly did so, joined the bench but in the end was not needed. The Aggies won the game despite being the underdogs and the day was cemented in A&M history. Now the student fans all stand for the entire length of every game, demonstrating their support and readiness to be called upon if needed. They constantly sing, or ‘yell’, lead by ‘yell leaders’, they link arms and sway to certain songs and they twirl their small white spirit towels above their heads. (Mainly to put off the opposition). Now we knew what they were for! We had a ball. A 3.5 hour chilly ball. And we won! A much needed victory after a few losses.

After the game we headed back to camp and joined our adopted tailgate again. There was a mouthwatering offering of freshly smoked meat on the BBQ, and a fantastical amount of accompaniments. Our offerings were worse than paltry in comparison, and didn’t even make it out of the bag, I don’t think.  There were a few more people to meet, including Cameron and Lane, the ‘kids’, who gave us the current student insights! The party was reasonably civilised and a bit curtailed by the cold and the long day, but we had a great time and very grateful to our new Texan friends for including us. It had been an amazing weekend.

The next morning we surfaced to an already half empty parking lot. Even Bruce had managed to pack up and leave before we got up. We did our easiest pack up so far, and set of west to Austin.

 

 

3rd -9th Nov

We left New Orleans on another lovely sunny morning, sailing above the swamps on more of the elevated highways.  Water is never very far away in the flatlands of Louisiana. It looks pretty, but something to be admired from a distance. Too many alligators, water moccasins (snakes) and mosquitos for my liking.

Lunchtime coincided with our tourist activity of the day which was to stop off at Avery Island.  Avery Island is one of the few elevated areas in this neck of the woods being essentially a dome of salt linked to the mainland by a short causeway, and it is home to the world famous Tabasco sauce.  All the sauce is still made here, to the original recipe, with peppers descended from the original seed stock and the company is still run by the same family. I love that. The factory complex was in some beautiful red brick buildings surrounded by gardens and the air was filled with the unmistakeable aroma of hot sauce. Having had a perfect, mildly spicy lunch sat on the veranda of the very pleasant restaurant we did the self guided tour around the visitor area of the complex. It was charming.  Chilli sauce and other interesting herbs and spices are so common nowadays, but I remember Tabasco from my youth in the UK: the most exotic ingredient in the cupboard. The Queen likes it too, from the looks of things.

Our next two nights had us in a small wooded site just on the outskirts of  a small town called Abbeville. This is known (mostly) for its annual omelette festival when the town has a weekend of fun, music, food and drinking, capped off by twenty or so exalted chefs creating a 5000 egg omelette in a 12ft diameter skillet over a log fire in the middle of main street and serving it out to the assembled crowds.

This is a custom imported from France, from which this area takes huge influence.  By sheer coincidence our visit coincided with the weekend of the 34th incarnation of this celebration. We arrived in still blazing sunshine on the Saturday and opted to stay in camp and enjoy the peace and quiet. We broke out the camp chairs, the BBQ and were entertained by the squirrels. Overnight the weather broke and the heavens opened. The campsite became a bayou and we sat inside awaiting news of ommelette cancellation on the Facebook page. Nope. The show was to go on. Happily the forecast was correct, the rain stopped and the town came out to play again. We cycled into town to observe the battiness.  We had beers whilst we marvelled at the scale of the task and I bought a commemorative fried egg necklace.

The omelette was more like a parsley frittata, but very edible. Abbeville was a sweet little town; I wonder what happens here on non-omelette days?

 

After Abbeville we slipped south towards the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. We were to see our 3rd coast of the USA, the southern one. (We saw west and east coasts last year, but I don’t think that we can count the Upper Peninsula Michigan on the shore of Lake Superior as a northern coast. Northern Alaska may be the tick in that box) This land is very flat, created by the sediment washing down from the Mississippi. The road was very straight, quiet and for the most part was set back from the sea by huge tracts of marsh land. Every now and then we passed through a small settlement with a beach, or access to the sea via a channel. These seemed to mainly be holiday houses with some permanent homes, but generally the place was deserted as it is now out of season. Despite the heat and humidity this area is busiest in the summer months when the hoards descend. The other thing that has completely defined and reshaped the human habitation of this coastline is the storm damage it has suffered over the past decade or two, and the constant threat of future events.  There really is nothing for miles to protect from storm surges. Those ‘homes’ are now mostly comprised of large semi-permanent RVs, the original cottages and houses having been turned to matchsticks in 2005 by hurricane Rita, and again in 2009 by Ike. There have been multiple hurricanes of note, but these are the two that the locals talk about. Some people have rebuilt their houses, high up on sturdy poles to satisfy new stringent building regulations, but the RV is king. Cheaper to buy than building a home, quick to move in and, more importantly, removable if the weather forecast is looking particularly dicey. To be honest. I think that a lot of people couldn’t afford to rebuild. In a small town called Cameron (small town, but biggest local conurbation)we had a  very satisfactory lunch stop at a roadside establishment called Anchors Up Grill.  We shared a cheesy spicy bacon and fat shrimp po’boy sandwich and crinkle-cut fries. The words ‘died’ and ‘heaven’ spring to mind…

For the princely sum of $1 a small vehicle ferry took us from Cameron across a small shipping canal so we could continue west along the coast. Our next stop was just for one night at a beachside village called Holly Beach.

This was a veritable ghost town with only a few permanent residents.  It was completely flattened by Rita in 2005 and it now is a town on stilts.

After the rain the heat and humidity had returned and the mosquitos were like rabid bats.  After total body applications of toxic levels of DEET we grabbed some beers and scurried through the clouds of the suckers to the beach for sunset, which was amazing. The distant oil rigs were a small taste of how the landscape would change as we travelled further west into Texas.

The next day, after another hour or so of travelling along the straight flat coastal road, we left Louisiana by means of a long bridge over another shipping canal and entered Texas. Fossil fuels and their conversion into useable substances are the heartbeat of this part of Texas. There are oil rigs, oil pipelines, LPG pipelines, tankers and refineries all around. Strangely handsome and impressive plants line the roads and canals.

There is work and money here. This oil and gas help fuel the USA’s huge appetite for energy. It makes you realise that changing attitudes and habits to consumption, and the development of renewable alternatives in this part of the world is a humungous task. I try not to feel too hopeless about the future of the planet. Anyway, we continued our journey in our 8.1L V8 petrol vehicle, long since resigned to our 9 mpg mileage, and wended our way along the Bolivar Peninsula to our second ferry crossing of this trip. Here the 20min crossing, costing an even more outrageous sum of $0, took us across the 7th busiest shipping lane in the world to Galveston Island. Despite the traffic there are a couple of pods of dolphins that live in this channel and we were treated to a fine display. Double win!

Galveston Island is home to Galveston, a beachside town with 3 piers, a long prom and the usual serving of hotels, restaurants, bars, fast food joints and urban/suburban delights.   It boasts a historic district which we didn’t quite get to and the greatest mini-golf course that we definitely did visit.

Our two nights here were at a beachside camp with a view of the sea from our back window. It was still very hot, 100% humidity and a constant onshore breeze. It was a very pleasant 10 minute cycle down the wide promenade to the nearest pier upon which was situated a restaurant with a sundowner deck.

That was a very agreeable place to spend our first evening.  The next day we found the mini-golf and played both courses. It was a fabulously gimmicky and we won a game each, with exactly level scores over the 36 holes. Still level pegging in the Hampson Trans America Mini Golf Challenge.  After a brief shopping trip by bicycle for necessities (drawing the usual perplexed looks from the car-bound) we beetled home in the shadow of a large dark cloud that was threatening to unload. It didn’t and we spent the afternoon faffing about before we were treated to another fabulous sunset from camp.

The next day we were on the road relatively early (for us) at 9.30am in order to get to the days entertainment: the Houston Space Centre. We left the island by way of a highway and bridge and headed north. The Space Centre was only about 40 mins away and although we arrived only 10 minutes after it opened it was already getting busy with school groups.  The enormity of the carpark indicated how popular this can get as a destination. There are a couple of training jets on poles at the gate, and as you pull up to the main visitor centre building you just can’t miss the life-sized mock-up of a space shuttle piggy-backing the actual transport 747 that used to ferry them about. Pretty amazing.

We started our visit with a tram ride around the Space Centre complex. This took us to the Mission Control building where we were able to see into the training room.

This is set up exactly like the room that flies the International Space Station, but uses simulation to train the operators. It is apparently so life-like that the real operators can’t tell the difference. Next was the building where they build mock-ups of the capsules, vehicles and equipment etc to train the astronauts. There were robots and stuff too.

A big boys (and girls) toys dream world. Finally there were a few old rockets to see and most impressively, a shed containing a real-life Saturn V which was massive. Photo does not do the size of it justice.

Back at the centre we went through the shuttle (surprisingly small) and the 747, and some of the shuttle and moon landing exhibits.  We left before the school children numbers reached critical and thrashed through the traffic laden mega highways of the Houston southern ring road before rush hour even considered starting. By the time we arrived at our roost for the night in Katy we were definitely frazzled. This is the worst side of American road tripping, the overwhelming concrete monsters of highways and the stupid driving that often accompanies them.

Katy is really just an extension of the Houston metro area. This was a single night stay to put us within easy striking distance of a significant destination, College Station. Home of Texas A&M University and the location of our first and likely only college football game.

Bring on the fun!

 

 

29th Oct – 3rd Nov

New Orleans is a city of many facets. It is built on a swamp and much of the outlying areas are poor, damp and still recovering from the chaos caused by hurricane Katrina 12 years ago.  It has a nondescript modern CBD and ‘burbs, an area called the Garden District which has streets and streets of impressive old character homes, and it is crisscrossed by a spaghetti mess of flood-resistant raised highways. But of course it is best known for its French Quarter. The small,  historic, low-level district built on a grid, packed full of classic old buildings with balconies, stoops, alley ways and intrigue. It is also packed full of the tourists, the musicians, the bizarre, the drunk and the intriguing. We were here during the crazy town’s second most crazy time of year after Mardi Gras, Halloween.

Our journey into New Orleans took us via another large plantation home along the banks of the Mississippi. This one was called Oak Alley, for a fairly obvious reason. The  tour around the house itself was a bit half hearted, but the grounds were lovely and there was a small kiosk selling mint juleps on the veranda. We bought one to share but it was so strong that I had to drink most of it as Nick was driving. I was subsequently reasonably merry. Bring on NOLA!

On the outskirts of the French Quarter, a mere hop and a skip from its mayhem is the French Quarter RV Resort. It looked like a gulag from the outside with a high cinder block perimeter wall topped with spikes and electronic security gates, but inside it was a beautifully kept and spacious park with gym, club house, pool and hot tub. We arrived with a sigh of relief having ‘white-knuckled’ it through the frantic urban highway traffic and within 30 mins we were padding across the tarmac for a soak in the pool. The unseasonably hot weather was ongoing and this was going to be a great place to hang-out for a few days.

The next morning we ventured into the French Quarter. The best known street of them all, Bourbon Street was an awful sight. By night this is a no-holds-barred party street. The music is loud and the drinking is hard by blitzed revellers, young and definitely-old-enough-to-know-better alike.   The clear up from the usual boozy night before was in full swing with bar workers hosing the vomit from the pavements and sweeping up broken glass. It reeked of stale beer and regret. To add to the mess there were extensive roadworks. We headed to a restaurant called Court of Two Sisters for brunch. This was in a beautiful courtyard shaded by the most spectacular wisteria vine, with live jazz playing. Very civilised, although half of the music that the band played was individual serenades of ‘Happy Birthday’ to about eight different tables. It is obviously the place to go for birthday celebrations.

We took our full stomachs for a stroll around the quarter, taking in some churches, the waterfront, the French Market and Frenchman St. It is a bit surreal to be surrounded by so much french-ness again having spent our summer in France. (C’est très bizarre, mais nous l’aimons, MC!)  The steadily increasing heat sent us scurrying back to the sanctuary of RV Gulag Resort and the coolness of the pool for the rest of the afternoon.  That evening we partook in very popular activity peculiar to the French Quarter. The walking tour. Lots of these are ‘ghost tours’, taking in the haunted and spooky corners of the district. We chose a less supernatural one which featured more general history, unsolved and notorious crimes, some film locations, interesting architecture with only the occasional ghost story thrown in.  It was busy evening for tours and seemed that half the humans in the Quarter were sporting a tour sticker, holding a skull fan and trailing around after a loud voiced, steam-punk garbed, twenty-something guide. It was actually a great way to spend a couple of hours, especially as it was sultry, still evening, having a drink in hand was entirely expected and the place has some seriously interesting history. In the day and age of digital information exchange it was great to see that verbal story-telling is still so popular. We finished the evening with a few drinks far from the madding crowd at a cocktail bar on the way home.

The next day we took the old bone-shaking street-car up to the fancy Garden district and spent the late morning sauntering the streets, ooggling at all the lovely and enormous old homes.  This area was originally a large plantation, was sold off to a property developer who sold plots to the great and good who built their town houses to impress their friends and neighbours. Some things never change. In the middle of the district is one of those large old walled cemeteries filled with impressive but crumbling mausoleums and graves. All burials are above ground in New Orleans. If you dig a hole in the ground in this town it soon fills with water.

We came, we saw, we lunched and we took the street-car back to the FQ. This took longer than planned as there was a film crew cluttering the place up whilst filming a Jamie Foxx movie. We didn’t get the name of the film, but another crew was filming  a new series called Shadows elsewhere in the quarter. It seems that mostly film crews spend their time eating and drinking. We base this on our analysis of the number of catering vans parked in environs of both these filming locations. I don’t know how they get any work done.

Having had great and grand plans to dress up for our Halloween evening in New Orleans, in the end we did not. We contented ourselves with the admiring of those that had make the effort, and there were plenty of very imaginative and inventive costumes. It was nuts out there. I particularly enjoy watching people in crazy costumes doing very normal things. Without irony. Like these mermen and mermaid on a walking tour earlier in the day. All three were only wearing stars over their nipples.

After dinner at a place called The Gumbo Shop we headed out into the fray. The streets were filled with pirates, scarecrows, cats, zombies, witches  and the like. The whole district was abuzz (ie drunk) and Bourbon Street, as expected, was already carnage by 11pm. I can only imagine was 2am looks like around here. We found sanctuary in a side street bar and made it home without being thrown up on. Quite an achievement in this neck of the woods.

The heat and humidity eventually produced an impressive thunderstorm overnight. Rain on our roof is very noisy so sleep wasn’t very forthcoming. Happily it had dried out by late morning the next day and we walked over to the National World War II museum in the neighbouring Warehouse District. This has been ranked as the 2nd best museum in the country, and was personally recommended by Mr J Armitage (I think he was particularly impressed by the fact that it had an on-site bar that had a happy hour running during his visit). It was a very good museum. Obviously very American-centric (Little mention of 1939-41), but great exhibits, and some cool interactive stuff. It is massive, and they are still adding new buildings.  We did as much as our attention spans would allow, and after museum fatigue set in, (unfortunately long before happy hour started at the bar) we left.

We strolled back along the waterfront to another French Quarter institution, Café du Monde. The only place to have café au lait and a beignet or three. It was co-incidentally exactly afternoon tea/coffee and beignet time when we arrived, so we did. Flagging bodies revived, we headed back to  Casa Tin Can to spruce up for our fancy dinner that evening at Arnauds Jazz Bistro. Well worth the spondoolies.

Our last day in New Orleans had to include that other classic Louisiana experience, the bayou airboat tour. Today the heatwave was gone and an icy wind had replaced it. Just the day to sit in an open boat and blast around the water at 30mph.  We dressed for it, incredulously pulling jumpers, boots and coats out of their storage lockers. The shuttle bus collected us from the gulag gate, scooped up a few others from various hotels and drove us out to the airboat dock. What an operation! There were about 100 of us all together on various tours, all leaving a the same time. We were all ‘processed’ within 20 mins: names checked off, credit cards swiped, coloured wristbands applied. We were encouraged to view the captive albino alligator in a small pool in the back of the shop. It looked sad, if that is possible. The shop did a raging business selling their branded hooded sweatshirts to those under-dressed punters who were already freezing just waiting in-line for the bathroom. And then we were off. We were in a boat skippered by a gnarly chap called Rich. He was a full blown bayou born and bred hunter-gatherer who definitely brought his own brand of wisdom to our tour. More focus on how much you can earn as an alligator hunter than on the ecology of the environment. Interesting nonetheless.

We saw a few mid-sized alligators, who were lured closer to the boat with marshmallows. ‘Gator crack’ he called them. Not sure they can be very good for them. An alligator with tooth decay is a problem. The bayou was beautiful and man, those boats are LOUD!

We returned to base only partly hypothermic and were shuttled back to town. We spent the rest of the afternoon gathering our thoughts, doing the weekly laundry and generally sorting out for moving on the next day. New Orleans was great fun, really interesting and it was amazing to be able to stay in such a great RV park so close to all the action. We will be sorry to leave, but the Tin Can must continue its travels!

 

 

28th-29th Oct

There is plenty to see that is a bit bizarre in America and in truth we do actively seek it out. I know that there is oddness and quirk everywhere in the world but it seems that here it is found on a scale that surpasses anywhere else that we have been. (Let it be known that we have not yet visited Japan.) There is an excellent publication called Atlas Obscura (atlasobscura.com) which details global oddities for the reading about, or the searching out, depending if you are living a normal responsible life or escaping reality and wafting around aimlessly in a Tin Can for months on end looking for focus and direction.

It was from Atlas Obscura that we learned that every Sunday in October the inmates of the largest super max prison in the USA, Louisiana State Penitentiary, put on a rodeo for the public. We had bought our tickets months ago when we realised that we were going to be in the area at the right time. This was not to be missed

The prison is known as Angola because it is located on the site of an old plantation that used many slaves who originated from the country of Angola. It is also still a working farm of 18,000 acres, hence its other nickname: The Farm.

It houses over 5000 inmates, mostly in dormitories rather than cells. Despite the excruciating heat and humidity of summer air conditioning was only fitted in the 1990s. A death row facility was completed in 2006, without aircon. About 75% of the inmate population is black, about 71% are serving a life sentence and about 1.6% are on death row. The last execution was in 2010.

The rodeo started in 1965 as a small internal event as a reward for well behaved inmates. No public were invited. Now it is a sellout ticket-only event with over 10,000 visitors each event. The inmates have since built a rodeo stadium and the farm raises the horses and bulls.  There is also a large arts and craft fair selling all sorts of things like paintings, carvings, leather work, jewellery and garden furniture.

There was a 90min traffic jam to get through the gate. 90 minutes of ever-filling bladders, no bushes and the beginnings of discussions of what receptacles we had in the car that would be suitable. I nearly caved but we arrived and parked up just in time. We have never been so pleased to see a porta-loo. Ever. There were a lot of rules associated with attending an event inside a super-max prison: No phones, no cameras, no alcohol, no drugs. No bags over a certain size and all bags had to be transparent. I took only one essential item. A lip salve. Hampson took the money.

It was boiling hot despite being the 28th of October. I cannot imagine what it is like down here in mid-summer with 100% humidity. Sweaty, sweaty, sweaty is my guess.  We cleared the security into the fenced area on the edge of the farm.  There were lots of stalls and lots of eateries. All were manned by inmates, overseen by a large guard presence. The guards dealt with all the money. These inmates were obviously the good ones.  There was another area where the inmate artists manned their stalls from behind a 10ft fence. These were obviously those who were less trusted and they did look a bit edgier. We didn’t buy anything except lunch and an unfeasible number of bottles of water. Then the rodeo began.

Now, our previous rodeo experience is limited to one small town event in Michigan last year, but this did seem a lot more gung-ho than your average event.  These guys were not doing this for money or fame, just for the pure escapism and personal achievement . Most of them have no background of rodeo or horsemanship prior to incarceration, but what they lack in skills they sure make up with pure guts. It was odd knowing that amongst the performers were violent offenders and murderers. Sometimes the bulls seemed to feel the need contribute to the punishment. It was carnage out there. One of the events was called The Poker Game. This involved 4 inmates sitting at a poker table in the centre of the ring, ostensibly playing cards. Then they added an angry bull with a tight strap cinched around its nether regions. The winner was the last person to leave the poker table. Some ran. Some were removed by the bull. Madness.

We have no photos, obviously, but trust me, it was a visual feast. Performers and crowds alike. We headed off before the end as we couldn’t face being stuck in traffic to get out too. Exiting was a breeze and we soon found ourself pulling into our accommodation for the night, the nearby St Francisville Inn.

St Francisville was only about 30mins away and another very cute historic town choc-a-bloc with preserved homes. The Inn is a small 10 room hotel in perhaps the most lovely of the old buildings. The front lawn was picturesquely shaded by huge old oak trees draped in Spanish moss. It had recently been bought by its new owners who were reeling with the extent and costs of renovations, which had begun in earnest. It will be utterly gorgeous (and three times the price) by the time they have finished with it. Our night’s accommodation included happy hour drinks in the sultry heat of the courtyard and a very delicious and fattening breakfast. Adding these extras to a very enormous and comfortable four-poster bed made this a very worth while night on ‘dry land’.

Before we headed off the next morning we took a stroll around the well signposted walking tour of the old homes of the town. Most are privately owned and beautifully kept. I think this would be a nice place to live, for nine months of the year. Summer is just too hot to imagine.

 

 

 

24th – 28th Oct

On the way down to our next stop at Natchez we took a bit of a detour to see a place called Windsor Ruins.

A rich plantation owner, Smith Coffee Daniel II (what a name!) built an enormous house on his 2600 acre plantation. It took 2 years to complete and was finished in 1861. It was the largest Greek revival antebellum mansion in the state of Mississippi.  Tragically he died only a few months after the house was completed at the age of only 34.  His family lived in the house until it unfortunately burnt down in 1890, leaving only the columns.  Having survived the ravages of civil war it was a stray cigarette that saw the house’s demise. The ruins were gifted to the state of Mississippi by one of the daughters after her mother’s death. Valiant efforts are being made to try and stop it falling down but I fear that this is inevitable.

Natchez itself is a beautiful spot. Established on a bluff it is another historic riverside town and boasts to be oldest settlement on the Mississippi. Named after the native tribe of the area, it has previously been in the hands of the French and Spanish over the years and was the site of the principle port for the export of the cotton and sugarcane that was grown on the fertile land of the river basin. It was a rich place, funded by the proceeds of vast plantations and slave labour. Huge antebellum homes were built built by wealthy plantation owners who needed to impress their equally puffed up neighbours. This makes for some great modern day touristic ogling.

The pre-industrial method of transporting people and their wares was on foot and by horse and Natchez is the Southern terminus of an ancient forest trail called the Natchez Trace which extends up to Nashville, TN.  The advent of motorised boats made the river the primary transportation route and the Old Trace became less important, eventually being completely superseded by road and rail. The route has been preserved as a National Park and ‘The Natchez Trace Parkway’ is a wonderful 444 mile stretch of beautifully sealed roadway which follows the route of the original trail. It is closed to commercial traffic and has a 50mph speed limit making it quiet and a dream to travel along by RV, car, motorbike or bicycle. We joined it about 50km north of Natchez making our arrival into town very scenic and serene.

Our camp site was just across the river from Natchez in a town called Vidalia, which is actually in Louisiana. The park was one our favourites so far. It was between the levy and the river and really well kept, large and spacious with mature trees and lawned areas up to the river bank. It had a nice pool and hot tub and a huge clubhouse. The place was awash with squirrels. It was like a squirrel safari park with dozens of the blighters seriously busy with the important task of collecting acorns. One morning we found one sadly in its death throws near the back wheels of big Dave, making it look like we had run it over. (Framed by a squirrel for a crime we did not commit.) It must have been a less agile individual that unfortunately didn’t land a leap. We knew it needed a ‘coup de grace’ but were too soft to deliver it ourselves. We found a man with a rake and more resolve than us. RIP Nutkin.

There was lovely paved walking path that went through our park and down the riverfront for about 2 miles. We broke out the bikes for an explore and found a hairdressers at the other end of it meaning we could book our long overdue haircuts whilst we were here. Hampson was starting to look like a cross between Crusty the clown and Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Hair crisis averted.

Although Natchez was only about a mile away over the bridge there was no safe way to get across on bikes or foot. There was all this money and effort put in to paths and trails on both sides of the river, but no link between the two. Bonkers, but not unusual. So Big Dave was liberated from his burden of TC again and, having driven the short distance across the busy narrow bridge, we spent day exploring Natchez on foot and decided that it was a thoroughly nice town. Lots of well preserved beautiful historical homes, good eateries and drinkeries, shops and a great riverside park that was a fine place to promenade and watch the river traffic. We then drove out to do a tour of one of the fancy antebellum homes.  There is a whole trail of them, but we decided one would be enough. We chose one called Longwood.

This was started just before the Civil War and built as an impressive 6 story octagonal home. The shell and lower level were completed in a speedy 18 months but the onset of the war meant that the tradesmen returned to their homes in Pennsylvania, arresting the build. Anticipating a speedy resolution to the war, and a recommencement of work within months, the family of the fabulously wealthy plantation owner, Haller Nutt (another cool name), wife Julia, and 8 kids moved temporarily into the lower ‘basement’ level of the home. Unfortunately fortune did not favour them.  The war dragged on and on and on. Despite being Unionist supporters who had been promised that their plantation would be protected by the Northern army, it wasn’t. It was destroyed, the valuables looted and the fortune was lost. Haller died of pneumonia in his late 40s soon after being ruined although his wife was convinced it was a broken heart that saw him off.  She was left with no money, eight kids and a shell of a home. She valiantly raised her family on peanuts and lived another 30 years in the lower level of the unfinished house, passing it to her children on her death. None of them ever had the money or will to complete the house and it eventually fell into disrepair and lay empty for 30 years. It was finally sold to its saviour, a philanthropist whose name escapes me, who restored it to how it had been when the family lived in it and gifted it to a local garden club to run and maintain.  His only stipulation was that it remained in its unfinished state. It is an amazing place made all the more atmospheric by the history that comes with it.

The next day we went back up to the Trace Parkway and took the bikes. There was a 4 mile walking trail just off the road that was a part of the original Old Trace trail. We performed a logistical manoeuvre and left the bikes at the end of the trail and drove back to the start so we could hike to the bikes then bike back to the car. Brilliant. And it was. The day, and the walk were beautiful and there were no other souls to be seen. In places the path is sunken well below the forest floor, worn away by hundreds of years and hundreds of thousands of feet and hooves. I love feeling part of history. The short bike ride back down the Parkway was equally lovely. We were passed by only two vehicles in 20 minutes. Where was everybody on such a gorgeous autumn Saturday afternoon??

We spent our last afternoon doing the usual faffing that all RV and boat owners will understand. We scooped TC up again, cleaned and racked the bikes, drained the waste tanks and did some small maintenance jobs. Now we were all ready for an early-ish start in the morning. Tomorrow we were off to an event that we booked months and months ago. The Louisiana State Penitentiary Inmate Rodeo.

Oh, and we just couldn’t resist driving the Chevy to the levy. And Yes. It was dry.

 

 

 

19th – 24th Oct

Our day’s journey took us onward to the riverside town of Vicksburg. Here the terrain changes with disappearance of the flatlands of the delta and the river cuts through rocky escarpments.  The Mississippi really is a cargo highway and powerful tugs push huge rafts of laden barges (slowly) up and  (much more quickly) down the river.

Vicksburg is also another important Civil War site. The Confederates held the town, aided by the topography and saw off numerous attacks by the Union army. After multiple failed attacks, high losses and no apparent way to breech the town’s defences, the Unionists changed tack and decided to lay siege to the Confederates. For forty two days during a hot and sticky Mississippi summer the Confederates, and thus the townsfolk of Vicksburg were subjected to a near constant barrage of artillery fire, near starvation, malaria and dysentry. On July 4th they surrendered, coinciding with the victory at Gettysburg to the north. The town has done another great job of preserving the battlefields, around which you can do a 16 mile self drive auto tour and they are dotted with over 1500 monuments and memorials.

We booked five nights here in another casino RV park, the Ameristar. The casino is built right on the river’s edge and made to look like an old paddle steamer. There was a 24 hour shuttle bus provided for the 300m journey between casino and RV park to facilitate the money spending. We did utilise it one night, losing only $30 in the slots before our nice steak dinner.

The park was about 3 miles from the town’s historic downtown and I cajoled Hampson into walking there one morning. It wasn’t the most scenic of strolls as it passed through a slightly down at heel neighbourhood but there was one house with the most spectacular halloween decorations I have ever seen.

Town itself was a bit over-hyped as a destination, but we found a mediocre coffee and sat and watched the world go by for a bit. Then walked home again. Beer and dinner earned.

The next day we liberated Big Dave from TC so we could explore a bit further afield. We drove up to the battlefields and did the driving tour. Now we could see first hand why the battle for Vicksburg was so protracted. Lots of hills. It was not quite as impressive as Gettysburg, but a lot more intimate and much quieter. The tour took in the preserved steam powered paddle ironclad ship, the USS Cairo. This was part of the fleet that helped supply the Unionists up and down the Mississippi but was unfortunately sunk by a mine. When it was looking for mines. Very unlucky and ironic. Pretty cool restoration housed under an impressive tent.

Despite the battlefields being owned by the National Parks Service it had no dedicated walking trails and the only real option for walking was to follow the road route. The next day we went back and finished the last four mile loop that we hadn’t driven the day before on foot. It was lovely and quiet with only a few cars passing us. We got to see lots more cannons and monuments of bearded officers in frock coats on plinths up close and personal. Unsurprisingly, no other walkers.

For lunch we drove out to a place we had been recommended called The Tomato Place. This was an unprepossessing food stall on the side of a duel carriageway at first glance, but through the back had a great little cafe doing a variety of local dishes and old faves.  We shared a plate of fried catfish and fries and a fried green tomato BLT. Mmmm, mmm, mmm! Think we might have undone all our good work with the walk through.

On the way home we took the opportunity to wash Big D whilst he was unfettered. It knocked the worst of the dirt off, but despite a ‘prewash de-bug treatment’, a ‘hot soap wash’, and a ‘jet wash rinse’ he couldn’t really be described as clean. We wonder how all the other trucks and buses in the RV parks stay so shiny. He is generally the filthiest wherever we go. And of this we are secretly proud.

On our return to camp we threw a sponge over TC too and reloaded. All ready for the off again in the morning.

15th – 19th Oct

The city of Memphis is jammed into the south west corner of Tennessee and the urban sprawl spills over the border into Arkansas to the west, where it becomes West Memphis and into Mississippi to the south, where it becomes Southaven. We headed south a few blocks and within minutes we crossed into Mississippi, and so began one of our most anticipated sections of this year’s  journey. The Mississippi Delta.

After all the excitement of the past few days we needed a bit of down-time so we only drove a leisurely 35 miles to the town of Tunica, and booked two nights at the only type of RV park that exists in this town: one attached to a casino.  Tunica used to be one of the poorest towns in the USA until someone had the bright idea of building six or seven casino hotels nearby. These are legal in Mississippi as long as the land of the casino borders the river. Now Tunica is no longer so poor. The casino RV parks are cheap, well maintained and very handy for gambling, eating and drinking. The one we chose, The Hollywood, had the added bonuses of being less than 1/3 occupied, it bordered a nice golf course, had the use of the hotel’s indoor pool and most importantly: had a fabulously cheap laundry. Sometimes it’s the little things….

Two nights became three as it was so peaceful and we had time to kill. It rained a bit. We swam. We did 27 loads of laundry (give or take). We only lost $50 in the slot machines. Once it stopped raining we went for a wander. There was nothing to see except another casino hotel with its own RV park. We concluded ours was better and came home again. Our route brought us to the edge of a cotton field. It is such a familiar material but I had never seen it up close and growing before. Just like cotton wool. Who’d have thunk it?

Fully rested, fully clean and with savings mostly intact we hit the road again and continued south. This was a rare day. A day that I managed to wrestle the drivers seat from Hampson and be captain of the ship. It’s not that I don’t enjoy driving or that I am no good at it, it’s just that Hampson is an insufferable passenger. He gets bored, and is overly ‘helpful’ with the process of driving. We usually stick to our strengths. He drives and I let him.

We spent the day wafting down Highway 61 and then the the old Highway 1. It was flat as a pancake, and surrounded by fields and fields of cotton in various stages of harvest. There seemed to be more churches than homes and a level of rural poverty that we haven’t seen up until now. The history of  slavery marinates this area and after a century and a half since its abolition, its descendants live with its aftertaste. The Delta gave the world the Blues, born from the songs the slaves sang to ease their misery. Considering this road follows the Mississippi fairly closely we didn’t clap eyes on it once all day. This is because it is hidden behind  a massive levy. 1927 saw a catastrophic flood of tens of thousands of square miles of land bordering the river, the level of which rose to 10m above it’s usual level.  This saw a massive movement of refugees and was the trigger for a lot of the migration of black people up to the northern cities like Detroit and Chicago. The levy, and lots of subsequent tinkering by the Corps of Engineers, has helped prevent a flood of this magnitude happening again.

Our journey took us through a town called Clarksdale, a hub for a lot of music, but still a poor town with its associated problems. We quickly bailed on the idea of stopping for lunch here after turning down a dodgy back street looking for a diner, coming up against a low bridge and having to escape via a smaller dodgier street. So much for trying to eat local.

Our next roost was at a park between the towns of Greenville and Lelend. It was a residential trailer park which had a few spaces for touring RVs. As we pulled in we hurriedly decided amongst ourselves that we would only stay one night rather than the planned two. It felt a little odd. Not rough. Just a bit odd. Also, it was in the middle of nowhere with no options for walking or biking anywhere. Of course it was fine. The park was quiet and orderly and the bathrooms (always a good barometer of quality) were lovely. But the next day we rolled onwards.

Now Leland is ‘famous’ for one thing. It is the birthplace of Jim Henson. Creator of one of the biggest influences of any American or British human born in the 60s and 70s who had access to a TV, The Muppets.  He moved away from here pretty early in his life, but Leland has labelled itself the ‘birthplace of Kermit the Frog’ and even has an unofficial museum to commemorate this moderately fabricated fact.  When I say museum, I mean it has a small wooden building at one end of the town, filled with some photos of Jim and numerous Kermit effigies, manned by a slightly batty (but very pleasant) lady who insisted we had our photo taken with the frog himself. We didn’t argue.

About 10 miles down the road from Leland is the town of Indianola which is firmly on the tourist map by virtue of the fact that it was the birthplace of, and now the site of the eponymous museum of Blues legend, BB King.  This is a fabulous place with its exhibits intertwining the history of slavery, the civil right movement and history of Blues music with BB King’s own life story. He truely was a son of Indianola, returned every year for 40 years to perform a free concert for the townsfolk and was a great benefactor to local causes. On his death, at nearly 90 years of age, his funeral cortege travelled from Memphis back to Indianola to lie in state. Highway 61 was closed to all other traffic for the journey and his body lay in state in an old cotton gin where 5000 people paid their respects. This gin (a big shed where cotton was historically processed to remove the seeds) was the first place BB ever worked as a teenager, and is now the site of the museum. His grave site is also here. He was a supreme talent and seemingly a thoroughly nice bloke. With a greater appreciation of the Delta and the Blues we hit the road again.

Just north of our next stop, Vicksburg, we stopped at the Winterville Mounds. There is a whole trail of these up and down the Mississippi and they are mounds. Built by various generations of native tribes to live upon, and around. Handy if you live in a flood prone swamp. Some are big, some are small. Some are preserved and open to the public. Some are overgrown with trees and shrubbery and are on private land. One was mildly interesting. We don’t need to see any more.

And so to Vicksburg.

 

10th – 15th Oct

Our journey continued west to take in Nashville and Memphis. These two cities are only about 200 miles apart, both in the same state of Tennessee, of similar sizes (pop 650-700,000), but are very different in their character.

Nashville: mostly white, thriving, expanding at a rate of 100 people per day, home of Country music.

Memphis: mostly African-American, still struggling economically, home of the Blues.

For this portion of our trip we were joined by Lori, our good friend who lives near Seattle. She had arranged to fly into Nashville and out of Memphis and come along on our adventures in between. Tin Can, although spacious enough for two, is very cozy for three and we decided that we wouldn’t inflict 5 nights of communal living on Lori.

Having examined all the various options for some nights on dry land in Nashville the best compromise in the end was booking two rooms in a medium quality airport hotel. This gave us affordable accommodation (Nashville is surprisingly expensive), close enough to town to make getting around by Uber very easy,  with plenty of parking for the rig (or so we had assumed).

We arrived mid-afternoon to the hotel which did have plenty of parking, but  mostly either underground or around the back which could only be accessed under a 11ft archway. We are 12ft tall. After a tense 15 mins of shuffling around the small area at the front of the hotel a solution was found. We could park next door in the petrol station. It was wasn’t ideal, but at least there were plenty of security cameras and we were pretty confident that we parked far enough from the pumps that the pilot light on the gas powered fridge wouldn’t cause a moderate petrol explosion.

We chilled out for a few hours and then just as we were planning to head out for dinner, the heavens opened. There was a half decent restaurant less than 1km down the road, and of course we walked. The expression ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen…’ should be altered to include: ‘…try and walk anywhere in the USA where the car is king, there are no pavements or pedestrian crossings across 4 lane highways, and it is dark and raining’. We arrived a little damp, but intact, and had a lovely, albeit oversized, meal and drinks at a very packed family owned restaurant. Very worth the minor adventure it took to get there. The walk home was drier, but no less exciting. Lori didn’t get in until late, long after we were abed, so we caught up with her at breakfast. This was a fiesta of disposability: cups, cutlery, bowls and plates. A buffet-style affair that fulfilled its primary function of breaking our fast, but without any frills.

We had two full days in Nashville. We started day one with the first of many Ubers and headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame. This is to Nashville like the Sagrada Famillia is to Barcelona. A cathedral of country music worship, a site of pilgrimage for the faithful, (although it is finished, so my comparison is imperfect.) We had a guilty secret as we walked through the hallowed portals of the main entrance. None of the three of us actually liked country music. We kept quiet and kept moving. By the time we left two hours later we were much the wiser and had a new found appreciation for the genre. I think it’s the miserable, warbling-type of country that we dislike. It was a very good museum with some great displays. Well worth the visit. After the Hall of Fame we wandered up to the madness that is Broadway. This is the party street of Nashville and is about 4-5 blocks of nothing but restaurants and bars, interspersed with a few cowboy boot and cowboy hat shops. Almost everywhere had live music all day. It was 12.30pm and already buzzing. We found a cool place for lunch (without music), Acme Feed and Seed, and then escaped the tourist craziness by wandering up to the state capitol building. It still amazes me that these are open to the public and you can just wander in and look at all the chambers. Mid afternoon we headed back to the hotel for a recharge and change, then headed back to town for the evening.

Now, we had made grand plans to join the crowds and do a ‘crawl’ through some of the well known and popular drinking, eating and music venues of Broadway. You know. Suck it up. When-in-Rome and all that. But what we ended up doing was spending a very grown up evening in an out-of-the way venue called ‘Skull’s Rainbow Room’. This is a legendary and iconic Nashville establishment located down a back lane called Printers Alley. It is a stylish atmospheric place that over the years has hosted big names such as Elvis, Johny Cash, Bob Dylan and Etta James on its small central stage. We secured a rare table and ended up doing our drinking, eating and listening to live music without having to move. And our second guilty secret? The live music was jazz.

The main event of day two was tickets to The Grand Old Opry that evening. Now this really is a Nashville country music institution. It started 93 years ago as a radio show featuring multiple country artists recorded in front of a live audience. Except for scale and venue it is essentially unchanged to this day.  Most big country stars past and present have trodden the Opry boards at some point in their career.  It was to be a true test of our newfound appreciation of country music.

The Opry, which used to be hosted in an old theatre just off Broadway called the Ryman, now has its own purpose built ‘Opry House’ out of town. This is flanked by a big shopping Mall and cinema complex, ‘Opry Mills’, and the most enormous hotel and conference centre called ‘The Gaylord Opryland’. This is one of the largest hotels in the world with more than 3000 rooms. The central courtyard areas, 9 acres of them, are covered with huge glass domes giving the place a bit of a Disney type vibe.  The whole area is home to numerous other hotels and the usual entertainment options. The Opry is a phenomenon.

We started the day by introducing Lori to the fabulousness that is mini-golf. She whipped our behinds. Mind you, she is a proper golfer and has been receiving lessons from our favourite golf pro, Cal. We ignored her glorious victory and, as I beat Hampson, we are now 2:2 on the overall mini-golf scoreboard.

Second activity of the day was a trip to the cinema to watch First Man on IMAX. Quite amazing that all that happened with 1960s technology. If it happened at all…….

Next to the Gaylord and a late afternoon drink and early pre-show dinner. Our waiter was an ageing hippy from Hawaii who was charming but very forgetful. He seemed happy though, probably for all the usual hippy reasons, I imagine.

And so to the Opry. We went prepared to be bemused by the whole thing, but it was fantastic. We deliberately chose seats high up to get a good view of the whole auditorium and do some people watching. There was a disappointing lack of cowboy boots and fringed leather. Each of the acts did 2 or 3 numbers, including a bona fide Hall-of-Famer, the octogenarian Charley Pride. They were all very good. No-one did any depressed warbling and we loved it. It is still a live radio show and the acts were broken up with the MC doing announcements and adverts for the benefit of the listeners. You can find it at opry.com if you are interested.

The next day was road-trip day.  We reclaimed the truck from the Shell garage (all in one piece, no explosions), packed our bags and Lori into the back seats and headed to Memphis. Unfortunately it wasn’t the most interesting of drives to share with Lori. The two cities are linked by an interstate highway, door to door. We did, however, introduce her to the delights of a couple of truck stops along the way. Three hours, two coffees, a Subway lunch and a bag of sweets later we arrived in Memphis. Here we had booked an RV park which had a self contained cabin for Lori next to our site.  The park was about 10km from the centre of town, but only 2 blocks away from Graceland, a place we were definitely going to visit. There are two RV parks in this part of town: The park which is actually at Graceland, co-located with the Graceland hotel and enormous visitors centre, with security and part of the Graceland ‘machine’, and then there was the one we were staying at. Ours, chosen because it had the cabins, was a bit more ‘rustic’. It backed onto some dodgy looking housing and had no security. Graceland aside, this area of town can be rough but Lori was very brave and still went running in the mornings having been advised that she would be fine as long as she didn’t stray off the main road. She didn’t.

We had two nights here. The first evening it rained cats and dogs, but we hung out in Lori’s cabin and cooked dinner. It was very cozy and we sorted out most of the world’s problems over some wine.  The next day we took an Uber into town and started with a visit to the Nation Civil Rights Museum. This incorporates the original Lorraine Motel which is the place Martin Luther King was killed. It was amazing, blending the events surrounding his assassination with the history and overall timeline of the civil rights movement in general. It was sensitive and incredibly moving and I left with a hugely improved understanding of the situation. I took two main things away. 1. Civil rights in the USA have come a long, long way, but issues of colour still divide this country. In the major 25 metropolitan areas there are more racial divisions today than when in the 60’s. 2. Martin Luther King was a rare human being. His murder (50 years ago this year) robbed the world of a great leader. It left me thinking that the world could really use a few of his calibre right now.

We emerged sombre in mood to a sombre sky. The cure? Lunch and cocktails, of course. We found the place, ate and imbibed and then, in much improved spirits, wandered down to the river for our first glimpse of the mighty Mississppi. They were right when they called it that. Blimin’ massive.

Our next stop on the tourist trail was the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. For some reason this fancy-pants hotel has an ever-present flock of about 5 ducks which sit around in the fountain in the main foyer/lounge/bar area. Each morning they are escorted down from their home on the roof by a  uniformed doorman. They travel down in the lift and waddle their way along a special ducky red carpet to the fountain where they float around all day, posing for photos. Then at 5pm they go back up to the roof. Bonkers.

And so to Beale Street. This is the Blues version of Broadway, Nashville. Bars and live music all the way. Except not at 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon, we were a few hours ahead of the wave. The only place with live music was BB King’s place, so in lieu of afternoon tea, we had a few beers sat at the bar, soaking up a live set by a very good band. Now we were Blues fans too. We headed home late afternoon and later had dinner at another local institution, a BBQ joint about 1.5km from camp called Marlowes. It had a courtesy shuttle in the form of a pink stretch Cadillac limo, which we ordered, which went to the other RV park and which then sailed on past us when it couldn’t find us.  We walked, a bit anxiously, through the twilight but arrived without incident. After eating our own bodyweight in delicious pork we did manage to get the limo home.  ‘Don’t stray off the path’ the driver warned us as he dropped us off at the gate. We didn’t.

Lori’s flight home was mid afternoon which gave us the morning for Memphis’s main event: The Graceland tour.  Even as non-Elvis fanatics, this was a must. We walked the 10 minutes down the road to the welcome centre, got our tickets, and joined the throng. Now this really is a pilgrimage site. You could tell the super fans. They were wearing their Elvis T-shirts. They were bristling with anticipation. They had probably paid the eye watering $170 for the full VIP ‘experience’.  We stuck to the plain old mansion tour, collected our iPads and headphones and waited to get on the shuttle bus. This took us the short distance across the road to the house where we got off the bus and waited to get in the house. Once inside we joined the slow shuffling line that snaked the very short distances from front door to lounge, to dining room, to kitchen, to party room, to basement TV room, to billiard room, to garden, to raquetball court to memorial garden. Amazingly, considering he was ‘the King’ it was quite a modest home. This concentrated the crowds and made it irritatingly busy. Out of respect for the family, the tour did not include the upstairs at all. This is obviously the location of the bathroom where he died, at aged 42. Hard living and prescription medications caught up with him far too early. It is sobering. He is buried in the memorial garden with his parents and grandma, and near a small memorial stone for his stillborn twin brother. Just think. There might have been two Kings. Oh, and we now like Elvis a bit more too.

A shuttle bus took us back across the road and we walked back to TC. Lori collected her things and headed off to the airport. It was great to share a small slice of our life on the road with her, even if it wasn’t all shiny and perfect. This few days has been all about the music and a few important people of this country. Urban USA is very different from small town USA and the vast swathes of wilderness that we have seen and crossed. I know which I prefer.