Thursday, December 27, 2012
Confined to Quarters on the QM 2
A call to the medical center brought a young woman carrying a large red backpack. She took my temperature, my blood pressure, and measured my heart rate. Then, she gave me an injection that knocked me out for hours. Even after waking, I was so groggy I could hardly stand. All I wanted to do was sleep more. Late in the evening Kay ordered some chicken broth for me from room service.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Washington, D.C.
Were beginning to come full circle. Kay and I were here in Washington three months ago just before renting the Beast and driving off in the rain.
Kay and I love coming to Washington. Its monumental architecture and world-class museums are big attractions for us. Another is that, with its wide avenues and magnificent vistas, it is a beautiful city to walk around. We’re proud of Washington where we feel we are in the capital of a great and powerful country. If you’ve never been to Washington or haven’t seen it in a long time, we urge you to make a visit. It’s rewarding.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Charleston, SC – Hendersonville, NC
We’re on the road again. Hendersonville, North Carolina is in the western part of the state south of Ashville. We’d never come here before and wouldn’t be here now were it not that my friend Pat had recently relocated here with her husband from Chicago’s North Shore. Pat and Jim are now retired. They love to play golf and wanted to escape the harsh Chicago winters. Sound familiar?
Like other relationships I’ve written about in these chapters, Pat and mine is the story of a friendship interrupted. We knew each other as teens in small-town Onarga, Illinois where I was a cadet at the Onarga Military School. Pat tells me that I was her date for her high-school prom. I remember the excitement of sharing ideas about books and other cultural matters.
Forty years after Onarga, Pat and I reconnected via the Internet and have been corresponding regularly since.
“I had the blues so bad, they put my face in a permanent frown Now I’m feeling so much better I could cakewalk into town.”
A visit to Clarksdale, Mississippi, center of the region known as the Mississippi Delta, has been on my bucket list for a long time because for blues lovers the Delta is like Mecca. Once, in 1989, Kay and I set out to come here from New York. Unfortunately, our van’s AC malfunctioned and our vacation time ran out too soon.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Clarksdale – Vicksburg, MS
I pushed hard to get us on the road as early as possible. Vicksburg was 150 miles south, and we would have only today to visit the famous Civil War Battlefield and anything else that caught our interest.
If Route 66 is the most legendary highway in America, then Highway 61, especially as it runs through Mississippi, must run a close second. Not that there is so much to see along its roadsides. As Route 66 grew famous because of a song, so does Highway 61 owe its fame to music.
The spot where highways 61 and 49 cross just on the edge of Clarksdale is where legend has it that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in return for his preternatural ability to play the guitar. Then, there is Bob Dylan’s great Highway 61 Revisited.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Oxford – Clarksdale, MS
“I had the blues so bad, they put my face in a permanent frown.
Now I’m feeling so much better I could cakewalk into town.”
A visit to Clarksdale, Mississippi, center of the region known as the Mississippi Delta, has been on my bucket list for a long time because for blues lovers the Delta is like Mecca.
Clarksdale is an anomaly. Once, decades ago its downtown must have been bustling. Today, seventy percent of its shops stand empty. Its broad streets are nearly devoid of traffic, and parking is certainly not a problem.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Memphis, TN – Oxford, MS
Even if we are not or never were big fans of Elvis Presley, we have to acknowledge that he occupies a unique place in American Culture. More than Marilyn, James, or Humphrey, whose legends grow and whose images continue to surround us (Yes, even in Turkey), Elvis is revered in a special way. It’s almost like he never really died and only left the Earth and went to another place where his presence can still be felt. (Have you seen the film True Romance?)
I don’t want to make too much of Elvis’s demigod status, and yet, becoming conscious of just how many people in this country and abroad venerate him, I’ve wondered how and how come the apotheosis of Presley took place.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Oklahoma City – Tulsa – Bartlesville, OK – Bentonville, AR
As I stepped out of the Beast to go to the wash house before dawn, I felt the change immediately. Yesterday’s comfortably warm temperatures had plummeted. I was reminded that winter is not far off.
By the time Kay and I had showered, eaten, washed the dishes, unhooked the RV, and emptied the waste tanks, the sun was up and it was even colder. The wind, our companion for the last three days, was still with us.
Our principal destination was Bartlesville, Oklahoma in the northeast of the state. On our way we made a stop in Tulsa whose downtown blocks, according to what Kay had read, contain some fine Art Deco buildings.
This being Black Friday and still a holiday of sorts, driving in and around Tulsa was easy. As we approached downtown, we encountered a striking building.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Big Sur – Pfeiffer State Park – Pomona, CA
At 6 a.m. I stepped out of the Beast into cool air and the fresh smell of evergreens. We hadn’t realized it last night but we are camped in the midst of redwood trees that seem a mile high.
The unheated wash house was bone-chillingly cold and it took a long time for the heated water to flow in the shower. I write, “heated” because the water never became hot. We are camping after all.
Today has been a driving day, 350 miles, from the redwoods of Big Sur, along the California Coast to San Luis Obispo, then on Route 101 through the Central California hills, and onto to the traffic-clogged freeways around Los Angeles.
Along the way we made a couple of memorable stops:
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
This is Election Day. Finally, the long and acrimonious campaign has ended.
The Mt Shasta KOA is only a short walk from the pretty town of the same name. After registering and hooking up the Beast in an almost empty kampground, we took the walk into town to see what we could see.
Walking along Mt Shasta’s Main Street, we passed the usual array of professional services, gift shops, bookstores, and cafes. A sidewalk kitchen, improbably named Pancho and Lefkowitz, caught our eye. Behind the counter a sign read, “We do not solicit the patronage of hippies.” It was ironic as the owner who served us was himself an aging hippie. Although we weren’t terribly hungry, Kay ordered a dish of beans and rice while I ate one of the best hot dogs west of Chicago.
As we sat at an outdoor table in the warm sunshine, we watched the parade of locals come and go. They were a mixed lot: a working man shopping for a used truck on his smartphone, a bearded and tattooed hipster with a guitar slung over his shoulder, and various, oddly-dressed oldsters stopping for lunch or a snack.
