Bruuuuce and Frostburg

Upper Marlboro

On Friday night, 9/14, we attended a Bruce Springsteen concert at Nationals Stadium in Washington with Donna and John. A beautiful night and a great concert. I've never been a big fan of  Bruce's music, but I'm a big fan of Bruce. He's an amazing performer. He sang pretty much non-stop for almost four hours. He never seems to take a breath between songs. A new one starts before the music from the previous song has ended. Really  something. Well worth the cost of admission .... particularly when your daughter and son-in-law are treating!

We got home about 1:30am and were up by 5:30 to travel to Frostburg, MD, for their bicentennial celebration. (Donna and John also came, but they left a lot later.) Kim grew up in Frostburg and Michael went to college there and lived there for about nine years. About a year ago they approached the bicentennial committee with the idea of putting together a picture book about the town, reminiscent of the book done for the 150th anniversary. The book turned out great, as did the parade and other events we attended. In the evening we had dinner with Carolyn Wolfe, Kim's mom, in Frostburg, at her 200-year-old house.

Home Again

Upper Marlboro, MD

We arrived at home on Friday, 9/7/12. The last few days of our trip I wasn't able to connect to the internet, so I have a few days to catch up on.

Tuesday night, 9/4, we were in a motel in Columbia, TN, on the way to Nashville. We were listening to the Democratic Convention and could hear it storming outside. About 11:30 we heard what sounded like dripping coming from the bathroom. Sure enough, there was a leak over the tub from the rain. No big deal at first, but a few minutes later it began to leak on the floor, so we called the front desk and they gave us another room. The next day Serry went to see if they'd give us a discount for the inconvenience of having to move in the middle of the night. They gave us two bottles of water.

Downtown Nashville

On Wednesday, 9/5, we went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, a really classy place, much like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, OH. They have a lot of the instruments and fancy outfits old-time country stars used to wear.  As we walked along the exhibits I noticed that most of the outrageous suits and boots were made by Nudie's Rodeo Tailors. Nudie Cohn (born Nuta Kotlyarenko in Kiev, in 1902) came to America when he was 11. He started as a shoeshine boy and later became famous making rhinestone covered outfits for country performers, including Elvis. He also did elaborate auto customizations for the stars. The Museum has Webb Pierce's 1962 Pontiac Bonneville convertable. It must be 30 feet long. It's festooned with models of rifles and six-shooters. It has longhorn cattle horns on the grill, and a fancy saddle over the transmission hump. The upholstery is fancy hand-tooled leather, and the dash is covered with silver dollars. Tasteful? No. An eye catcher? Definitely. Look it up, I can't really describe it.

After the Museum we walked around downtown Nashville. Real honkytown. Even early in the afternoon, every bar has a country singer hoping to make it in the business.

We spent Wednesday night in Knoxville and decided to head for home. When we entered Virginia in its far southwestern corner, near Bristol, we stopped at the welcome center to see if we could figure out an interesting way home. We talked to the guy there and he suggested we explore The Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, something Serry has wanted to do for some time. This is a driving route that stretches 333 miles through the mountains of southwest Virginia. (We drove only a portion of it.) The Crooked Road connects major heritage music (basically Bluegrass) venues in small communities along the way. These towns are noted for the jams, festivals, and concerts they put on. We stayed overnight in Floyd, where the Floyd Country Store has a Bluegrass jam session every Saturday night for $5, and a smaller, free, affair every Thursday night. Lots of fun. And the hotel was one of the nicest we stayed in on our trip.

On the way home we stopped in Richmond to see Kim and Felix (Michael was at work).  Felix had just awakened from a short nap, and he was not happy to see us. Lots of frowning and screaming. But then Kim fed him and put him back in his crib for a little bit, and when she brought him back out he was like a new kid. Lots of smiles and goo-ing. What a cutie!

So we got home Friday afternoon. We started to wash our laundry, only to learn that the washing machine was dead. It had been dying for some time, so we weren't exactly shocked. Then Saturday we had a bad storm that knocked out our power for about 20 hours. All in all, a nice welcome home.

Sunday we went shopping for a new washer, something I figured would take days. Instead, Serry decided to buy the first one we saw!!! The real Serry must have stayed behind with the hoodoos in Utah.

Almost forgot: Two years ago in Montana we met a guy wearing a tee shirt advertising a car show at the First Baptist Church of Upper Marlboro. This year we were walking along Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs, AR, when Serry stopped to talk to a woman standing in front of a restaurant passing out menus. We told her we were from Maryland, and she said she used to be trick rider and once performed at the Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro. Small world.

Statistics
We were gone 22 days.

We drove 6527 miles, spent $714.19 on gas, and averaged 28.2 mpg, pretty good, I think, for a fully packed car doing at least 75 mph most of the time.

We spent $785.79 on food.

Lodging was $2338.29.

Favorites
The scenery at the parks in Utah is extraordinary.  You really have to see it to appreciate it, because no matter how big the photo or movie screen you see it on, it can't capture what your peripheral vision sees. It's so overwhelming that it's difficult to pick a favorite place or sight. It's easier to pick smaller, more manageable things. One of which was horseback riding in Utah's Red Canyon, where Butch Cassidy used to hide from the law.

Other highlights were the Indianapolis Museum of Fine Arts, the Salt Lake City Public Library, and Floyd, VA, and the Bluegrass music at the Floyd Country Store.

Coming up: A Bruce Springsteen concert on 9/14 at Nationals Stadium in DC, and then Frostburg, MD, on the weekend for the town's Bicentennial celebration, which Michael and Kim are helping to put on.

Still in Tennessee

The Jungle Room at Graceland

Columbia, Tennessee (far from anywhere)

Some years ago, Serry and I attended a memorial service for her brother-in-law, Bob Mercurio, during which friends and relatives got up and spoke about their recollections of times they spent with Bob, and the many things he accomplished in his life. After the service, at a luncheon in the church basement, Nancy Heiss (Lofaro) turned to me and said she'd better get on the ball if anyone was ever going to have something nice to say about her.

I waqs reminded of Nancy's comment yesterday at the Clinton Library. There was an exhibit having to do with Bill and Hillary's mothers. It talked about where they grew up and went to school, who they married, where they lived, etc. Written on the walls in big letters were inspirational comments they made over the course of their lives. Things like, "You sometimes have to make daring choices in your life, and then you must have the courage to see them through." 

Now I know lots of people, and I have never heard anyone say something worthy of being written on a wall. But maybe it's true about these ladies. And I'm thinking, suppose one of my kids becomes President, and they want to do something to celebrate my life? I've gotta come up with something worthy of being written on a wall. "Where's the bathroom?" is not gonna cut it.

We spent this morning touring the Graceland mansion, the house Elvis bought when he was just 22and already very successful. The house is beautiful but the decorating is atrocious! Lots of money, but absolutely no taste at all. Things like shag carpeting on the walls and ceilings, unimaginable combinations of colors and fabrics, etc. Painful to look at, but fun nonetheless. Elvis certainly had an eventful life, and it was fun to see his many gold records, and relive, through film, the things we saw him do. It's just too bad the whole experience is so tacky. So...don't go to Memphis for the purpose of seeing Graceland, but if you find yourself in Memphis with time on your hand, it's well worth a visit...if only to see what all the fuss is about.

We had planned to go into downtown Memphis after Graceland, but it was very hot, and I just didn't feel like traipsing around in the heat, so we headed to Tupelo, MS, where Elvis was born, to pick up the Natchez Trace Parkway toward Nashville. The Parkway was built and is operated by the National Park Service. No commercial traffic or billboards are allowed, and the road has some nice things along it to see. Originally, it was a path used by the Indians, and then hunters and traders, etc. Unfortunately, we hit the Parkway too late to get to Nashville, and the road is in the middle of nowhere, so it took us a long drive, down a very dark road, to get to a motel to spend the evening. And now we're in Columbia, TN, wherever that is. 

Tomorrow we'll try Nashville.

Greetings from Memphis, y'all

Clinton Library

Memphis, Tennessee

We spent this day in Little Rock. First stop, the state capitol building. Because of the holiday, we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It's a beautiful building, like all of these buildings are. During the Civil War, a Confederate prison was on this spot. Later, it was decided to build the capital here. An informational sign says the building was largely constructed by convict labor.

Interesting: A few months ago I watched a PBS program titled "Slavery by Other Means."  It documented that after the slaves were freed and the war was over, whites in the South came up with the idea of arresting blacks on flimsy charges (e.g., claiming someone was a vagrant because he didn't have $10 in his pocket), throwing him in jail, and then putting him to work as a convict--often for years. Tenant farming was also related to this system. I always thought a tenant farmer was someone who signed on to work on someone else's farm for a portion (admittedly small) of the profits. But it turns out that most of them were poor blacks who ran afoul of  laws like this (I'm exaggerating, but not by much): It's against the law for a black not to step off the sidewalk when a white is walking by. Most blacks don't know about this law, as they can't read, so when one disobeys the law the offended party takes him before the white justice of the peace. This official fines the black money he doesn't have, so the white farmer lets him work it off by working as a tenant on his farm. But the system is rigged so the tenant can never pay off the fine.

After the capitol, we went to the Peabody Hotel to watch the ducks come down the elevator, wals across the lobby, and into the pool. Cute. You don't see this everywhere.

We spent the rest of the day at the Clinton Presidential Library, a lovely building on the banks of the Arkansas River. This the the second such library we've seen, having visited LBJ's in 2010. These places are always interesting. I wouldn't visit a city specifically to visit one, but if you happen to be in a city that has one, they're well worth the visit.

When we returned to our car, it was 107 degrees in the parking lot. Yikes!

Tomorrow we'll explore Memphis. Graceland is right down the street, so I guess we'll start with that, thank you very much.

Little Rock

Bath House Row, Hot Springs

Little Rock, Arkansas

We drove to Hot Springs National Park today along scenic US 7, a winding road through the Ozarks that must be stunning during its Fall foliage season, as it's even pretty when all is green.  It's a great road for motorcycling, and we saw hundreds of them.

Hot Springs became an attraction in the early 1800s when the hot springs were discovered, as people in those days, and well into the 20th century, believed hot springs had the power to cure all sorts of ailments. Over the years, large, ornate bath houses were constructed to cater to these people, and they're still in operation. Well-heeled people flocked here to "take the waters," and it was a favorite haunt of major league baseball players and gangsters, like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano.

To protect the area, Congress declared it a "resort," and in 1921 made it a National Park. The Park Service operates the Fordyce Baths as its visitor center. You can't bathe there anymore, but you can tour the building to see how it worked. Among the things there are those box-type things where you sit in them and only your head shows. In old gangster movies, a guy would be in one and then someone would sneak into the room, lock the box, and turn up the heat.

By and large we were disappointed in Hot Springs. Bath House Row, where rich people once strolled in style, is now full of tacky souvenir shops.

We're now in Little Rock. We got here kind of early, so we've had a chance to explore a little. We're down by the River Market area, where we took a brief stroll on the River Walk. We also went to the Peabody Hotel, an elegant hotel by the river that is known for the mallard ducks that live there.
The ducks, which are wild, live up on or by the roof at night. Every morning at 11, a hotel employee (he's called the "duckmaster") leads the ducks into an elevator and down to a pool in the lobby. They have a red carpet for the ducks to walk through the lobby. At 5 each evening the duckmaster leads them back upstairs. We'll try to catch the morning ritual tomorrow. We also plan to see the capitol building and tour the Clinton Library.

It's very hot here. It was in the 90s in the desert, but it's in the low 100s here. And it's not as dry, so it feels hotter.

Greetings from Arkansas

Canal Walk, Okla. City

Russellville, Arkansas

This morning we toured Oklahoma City a bit. First stop was the Murrah Building Memorial, for the Federal building Timothy McVeigh blew up in April 1995. It's a beautiful and quite moving memorial, and is meticulously cared for. A Park Ranger gave a talk about the day of the explosion, and while I of course knew generally about it, I was surprised about how large the explosion was. Several other buildings were extensively damaged, and a woman walking along the street quite a ways from the Murrah building was killed by the blast.

After that, we took a trolley ride into Bricktown, an old part of the city that has been spiffed-up with new bars and restaurants and a baseball stadium for whichever is the not-quite-major league team in Oklahoma. And like every spiffed-up town like this we've seen, this one has a riverwalk. Not quite like San Antonio's, but trying its best.

Then we drove up to see the Oklahoma Capitol Building, something we like to do whenever we're in a state capitol. (And let's face it: where else can you see them?)  We didn't go in. In front of the building The Eagle Must Fly Ministries was blasting religious music in preparation for some kind of event.

We're spending the night in Russellville, AR, and plan to go to Hot Springs NP tomorrow. We just finished dinner at the Old South Restaurant, a really neat old diner listed on the national register of historic places. We were there shortly before closing time (9pm), and the waitresses were cleaning up and chatting among themselves. All young. All with children. None married. Our waitress was pregnant--I thought she was just grossly fat--and her boyfriend came in while we were there. She's having a girl. Her boyfriend has decided to name her some odd name from one of his favorite video games.Something like "Axisth." I guess it's better than PacMan, but not much.

Eating out with Serry is always interesting, especially on a trip like this that takes us to really backward areas--like rural Arkansas. Coming in to AR near Fort Smith, we stopped at a supermarket to see if we could find a salad bar. The kids didn't know what we were talking about--never heard of a salad bar in a market. We finally got them to understand what we meant, and they suggested a pizza restaurant up the street. One of the girls said she loved the stringy salad they have. That turned out to be shredded iceberg lettuce, and the selection of salad fixings was the worst I've ever seen. And the pizza!? 

At the diner, Serry asked if they had Egg Beaters. The waitress had no idea what Serry was talking about. And when Serry said she didn't eat meat, the waitress expressed amazement. These folks are real nice, but it's like they live under a rock.

Almost forgot: Yesterday, in Groom, TX, not far from Amarillo, we came upon a gigantic cross erected by some guy who felt God wanted him to do something to promote the glory of Jesus. The site also contains statues for the stations of the cross. We didn't stop. When God talks to these  characters, I wish he's suggest more interesting things.
 

Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain...

Oklahoma City, OK

Lots of driving today, but some interesting spots. First place was Santa Rosa, NM, which contains a fragment of old Rte.66. As you probably know, Rte. 66 largely disappeared when I-40 was built, but it still contains some old 50s motels and abandoned 50s gas stations, some of which are now nostalgic gift shops.

We then headed east on I-40 and stopped in Tucumcari, NM, which also has some Rte. 66. We stopped at the Blue Swallow Motel, which advertises "refrigerated air." The place was charming and fixed up nicely. A couple of 50s cars in the front, and some of those old metal patio chairs painted bright colors. This place had garages for guests and they're now painted with scenes from "Easy Rider" and other Western scenes. We talked to the owners, who bought the place last year and fixed it up. They both lost their jobs in Michigan last year and bought the motel to try to make a fresh start. They seem to be doing well so far. They sell out every night.

After that we drove down the street to have a bite at Dell's, another old place that seems to be doing well. I had a hamburger that was so big I could hardly get it in my mouth.

Along I-40 in Amarillo, Texas, we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch, an unusual (to say the least) roadside attraction. In the 70s, a rich Texan, working in concert with some San Francisco hippie artists, planted 10 Cadillacs along the roadside. The noses are stuck in the ground in a straight row at an angle that's supposed to mimic one of the Pyramids. The site is open to the public and for years people have been taking parts and spray painting graffiti on the cars. There were a bunch of people doing that while we were there. They cover up other stuff and do their own thing. Tomorrow, others will come and do the same thing. The paint must be an inch thick, at least. The only disconcerting thing is that lots of people simply discard their empty cans on the ground. It's a mess.

The scenery has changed a lot since we left NM this morning. Lots of mesas and such when we headed out of NM, then endless expanses of range land in Texas. I expected Oklahoma to be the same, but it's not. It's become hilly and green where we are. Kind of nice after all that desert.

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Tomorrow we'll explore Oklahoma City a bit and then head for Little Rock, Arkansas.