a boring day

the drive from Memphis to New Orleans on highway 55 was immensely boring. Very tall green trees lining the road on either side - for miles and miles and miles. Whatever cute or odd or ugly buildings, towns, houses might have been out there, well, we never saw them. Just trees.

After about 5 hours of this (really!) we neared New Orleans and all of a sudden we were looking at swampland, or bayou. This was cool! This was interesting! The roadway was raised - really a bridge for about 35 miles - with water, swamp, trees, and an occasional house (how?) on either side of the road. Rylan and I looked for alligators but they are not easy to see when you are zooming past at 70 mph.

Made it into the French Quarter and man, it's more than I expected. The streets are narrower than I thought - really one car wide with a lane of parking down one side. All streets are one way - this is a good thing, since two cars could never get past each other. The wrought-iron railings are everywhere and the buildings feel like they lean in on the street. It's Saturday and the streets are packed with tourists. Bourbon Street was wild - I thought Nashville's Broadway with the honky-tonks was wild, then I thought Memphis' Beale Street was wild but clearly I didn't know what wild is! and this is at 5 p.m. - just wait until night time!

And it's really really humid. Really. Supposed to rain tomorrow, too.

rock and roll history lesson

okay, so there's this old-fashion public bus, and we get on and take a seat. and there is this guy sitting in the front facing us with a guitar. and he hands out tambourines and shakers and bongos. do you think richard and rylan were thrilled with this? nothing like a participatory tour bus! with only 6 customers on board, the guitar player/tour guide and the bus driver took us on a 2 hour tour of the music history of memphis.

yes, he sang and played guitar. a lot of the time - and we were expected to play tambourines along with him. we did! he was excellent - he played old blues, elvis songs, johnny cash songs, a lot of early soul songs. all in keeping with where we were at any point in memphis.

what did we see? well, there was the Sun Recording Studio where we went in and stood in the studio where Elvis recorded his first ever song, as did Johnny Cash (and many others). we drove past the apartment Elvis lived in when he was 13, and right down the street was the apartment BB King lived in when he was 19 - at the same time as Elvis . . . just a few years later they became friends down on Beale Street.

we drove past the apartment that Johnny Cash lived in when he first came to Memphis. we drove past Stax Records studio. We drove past (and sort of slowed down) the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was killed. (we came back later in our own car, parked and got out to take photos. it is really EERIE to stand at the motel parking lot and look up at the walkway where he was shot.)

It was a great tour. the guide was really knowledgeable about Memphis and music history and i learned a lot. i don't know anyone who might be going to Memphis, but if you are - I highly recommend this tour! even if you have to play a tambourine while you ride in the bus.

Later, we visited the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum, which was more of the same. Not to say it wasn't interesting! We learned even more about Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, plus people we have never heard of but who were influential in the music world.

all to say that Memphis played a huge role in modern music. The blues, soul music, and rock & roll all grew out of here, from gospel, country, jazz and the songs of sharecroppers.

thursday - a music day

we started by going to the Gibson Guitar store, just two blocks from our hotel and one block from Beale Street. here we admired guitars and then took a half-hour factory tour. this was much more casual than the Corvette tour, we kinda wandered around and were allowed to take photos. we saw the guitars all the way from flat pieces of wood, shaped, assembled, holes carved, necks added, paint and lacquer and then electronics. the tour guide told us that to work in the electronics section, you had to be a guitarist. while we were there, a couple of the technicians tested their guitars by playing some incredible blues riffs! rylan wants that job.

then we did what you have to do in Memphis: we went to Graceland. it was not at all what i thought. I thought it would be really crowded, i thought it would be a huge house, and garish and tacky to boot. it was kinda over the top in terms of decoration (animal fur couches and giant ceramic monkeys) but it also felt like someone really did live there. the highlight, i guess you can call it, was Elvis's grave. I'm not a big Elvis fan so I didn't get overwhelmed by it, but it was interesting to hear the people around us. one woman sat down and called a friend on her cell phone. "Wendy," she said, "I am sitting at Elvis's grave." Her voice lowered and she said, "Yes, I know. I know." and she shook her head and put it in her hand.

tonight we will possibly go hear more music - the blues at BB King's nightclub, or else just sit in the park and listen to the free concert that is going on all night.

the eatin' is good

to make your mouth water . . . here are some highlights of what we've had to eat so far:

chicago: morton's steak house: ahi tuna with ginger-miso sauce
also chicago, adobo grill: huachinango (red snapper) that richard said was the best he had ever had. i had pork medallions with a deep black mole sauce that was strong, intense and really good.

nashville, at Bricktop's (recommended by Taylor Swift and Kellie Pickler!): bbq chicken flatbread that was so good, the three of us sucked it up in seconds. i had a filet that was mouthwatering tender and the guys had sea bass with a ginger sauce.
nashville at Boundry: this was a tapas place, but we didn't go crazy. we did, however, have delicious shrimp and grits (holly! they were calling out to you!), and delicious pecan crusted trout.

memphis: rendezvous bbq place: bbq pork ribs with a dry rub, then add your own bbq sauce in hot or hotter.
memphis for lunch - a tacky little place with great fried catfish (not at all greasy) and hush puppies.

chickasaw, shiloh and beale street blues

We left Nashville on the Natchez Trace parkway, a highway built along a Chickasaw trail from Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi. A pretty drive with lots of green trees and a few turkeys, but no other wildlife (we kept looking!) and we stopped at a house built in 1805 on the border of the US and the Chickasaw nation.

then we went on to Shiloh military park - where a major Civil War battle was fought. over the course of two days the rebels pushed the union army back to the Tennessee river, then the next day, the union army pushed back and defeated the rebels. it was a really big park that we drove through and stopped at markers to show which general was standing where, and which direction the cannons were pointed. pretty cool for the first 8 stops, a little repetitive for the next 8. still, it brought the idea of the civil war alive for rylan.

next, into memphis. great hotel right off Beale Street and we immediately went to have bbq at a famous place in town. excellent bbq! we walked down to Beale street where it was closed off and lined on both sides of the street with Harleys. I don't know if it's always like that, or if this was a special night - we will find out tomorrow. anyway, I thought the honky-tonk-lined street in Nashville was crazy - this is crazier! MORE bars, MORE bands, plus bands who set up between buildings and play for free. These guys are all playing the blues and rock (lots of Jimi Hendrix imitators) and they are, to a person, incredible players. Real virtuosos on guitar. very crowded streets, guys yelling out to get you into their bars, the musicians, the harleys. a wild night!

tomorrow the Gibson guitar factory and Elvis's Graceland.

oh - and i was disappointed not to hear much in the way of southern accents while in Nashville, but now that we are in Memphis, i'm hearing plenty!

corvettes and country music

what an odd day! first we overslept, just kept sleeping and sleeping this morning. then we drove around Nashville to find a restaurant for breakfast but just couldn't, so we hit the road. the plan today was to drive BACK to Bowling Green (about 60 miles) and visit the Corvette museum. I have to explain why: Richard's brother-in-law, Bill, has a 1981 Corvette in perfect condition that he doesn't want any more - he's kept it for years - and he wants to give it to Rylan. Yikes! we have to think about it - where to store it, how much it will be to insure when we take it out of storage. not to mention how fast it goes! but it was a serious offer and we have to think about it seriously. anyway, that's why the museum became of interest. but BETTER than the museum was the factory! turns out that Corvettes are assembled in Bowling Green and they give tours of the factory. It was fascinating, we walked right through the assembly line, watched steering wheels being put on, welding done on the frame, seats put in, the body placed onto the chassis. all kinds of things. it's just so cool.

however, all this took longer than we thought. we got back to Nashville in time to change our clothes, get an early dinner and then head to the Grand Ole Opry. I have to say that all three of us went into the Opry with trepidation. none of us like country music. i wouldn't say we came out loving country music, but we came out with a huge appreciation for their musical talent. And there were some incredibly great performances. Jewel (remember her? used to do pop music?) Now she's country and she's great to listen to. Plus she sang an old folk song that had yodeling in it - and that girl can yodel! it wasn't silly or weird, just quite incredible. We also especially liked a bluegrass group called Cherryholmes - a family of two teens, two in their twenties, and the two parents. Best of all was the Charlie Daniels Band. i thought they would be tacky and dumb. they were the best thing! lots of energy (Charlie must be in his 70s) and amazing guitar and fiddle-playing. plus he played a song i actually love: "the devil went down to georgia."

yes, so that was our day - from corvettes to country music, plus one bad meal (Wendy's) and one good one (a tapas bar).

chicago to nashville

impressions after a seven hour drive:

Indiana has a big big sky, lots of cornfields, many semi-trucks on the highway, fluffy clouds, straight roads, not a single mountain - no, not a single hill in sight. it is VERY flat.

kentucky has rolling hills, more trees, just as many semis, curvier roads. we skirted around Louisville and saw it only from the freeway. at Bowling Green we pulled into the National Corvette Museum 15 minutes before they closed. we may go back tomorrow because it is 1 hour from Nashville, and there is an assembly plant there that we can tour.

Nashville: excellent restaurant - Bricktops - which i read about in Blender magazine and all the country music stars swear by it and they were right. great, great food. then we went to the old downtown which is all honky-tonk bars and a live band in every bar. these are right next door to each other. we couldn't go in with rylan (21 and older) but we could stand in the street and listen, and even watch. we heard a lot of good bands (well, good in a country, western or bluegrass kinda way). i thought it was really cool, and would like to have picked a bar, gone in and listened for a while. but ry couldn't go in, and didn't want to stand on the street, so we just walked around and listened until his teenage moaning outdid the music. so we are back at the hotel. s'okay. it's almost 11 p.m.

end of chicago

well, we walked Michigan Avenue, went out to the end of Navy Pier to look at the lake, toured Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio, ate some really incredibly good Mexican food, shopped at my favorite designer outlet store and visited relatives. We also drove past Wrigley Field while a Cubs game was being played. Wrigley Field is SOOO cool, because it's a tiny ballpark, and it's semi-open on two sides. The buildings that face the Field set up bleachers on the roof and people sit up there to watch the games. Even just driving past, you can see the fans in the lower stands inside the Field. You could go to Wrigley Field while there is a game, you could not buy tickets, not go in, and yet still feel like you are part of the experience. It's really quite wonderful.

Tomorrow we are driving to Nashville and will enter country music territory. it's kinda scary!

la to chicago

okay a flight really isn't worth talking about. except that, for us beginning this "music trip" - well, there was a band on the plane! not anyone hugely famous, but it was a band called Sweet. They are famous for one song people might know: Ballroom Blitz. if you know this song, it will now be stuck in your head. i can say with certainty that the one band member who sat near us was blitzed - he had quite an array of tiny bottles of whisky on his table.

we also snuck into O'Hare through some very bumpy clouds and landed and retrieved our luggage . . . and then, just as we got outside to find the rental car bus, the skies opened up, it started pouring rain, and we watched the most magnificent lightning storm! rylan had never seen a midwestern display of lightning and this was really incredible. because the terrain is so flat, the sky is huge and the lightning bolts race across the sky from one side to the other. and, yes, we were glad our plane touched down just before all this happened!

dinner was our one extravagance - we ate at Morton's steakhouse, right next to our hotel (the Hard Rock Hotel, in keeping with the music theme of the trip). we had salmon, steak, ahi tuna - but the very best thing was this giant round pouf of bread they bring to the table at first. I could only sample a bite, but richard and rylan ate the entire thing. it was soft and fluffy and hot, with onion bits sprinkled on top. the best thing ever!

today - friday - we walk, shop and take photos while it's sunny. saturday is supposed to rain so that will be an indoor day, with the Frank Lloyd Wright house and possibly a museum or two.

on the road again

tomorrow is our summer holiday!

we fly to chicago, we rent a car, we drive to nashville, to memphis, to tupelo (honey), to new orleans and then back up highway 61 (revisited) to the crossroads at clarksdale and the follow the blues highway back to chicago.

i will attempt updates here, along with having to do my online writing class homework and keeping up with my favorite blogs.