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Sunday, August 16, 2009

The Colorado Plateau -- The Trip

Before we start this story, let's establish where the Colorado Plateau actually is. The graphic to the right is stolen from a book we saw somewhere along the trail [You can click on it and blow it up to read the fine print; then backspace to return to blog.]. It talks in terms of the Great Circle that encompasses essentially four states -- Utah (the most), Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico (the least). Over the period of the last 250 million years, this area has fluctuated between being below sea level, being a plain with lakes and rivers and back again until at one point it experienced a dramatic uplift of about 2,000 ft. So the geology of the region is rooted in the swings between sea and plains and between dry and fresh water lakes and between meandering rivers and massive, deep cutting rapidly flowing rivers. The granite rock we are familiar with in the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere is nowhere to be found in the Colorado Plateau. This geology is what you would expect from ocean beds (calcium....), clay, compressed clay rock and so on. This of course gives rise to the marvelous gorges and the towering spires you see throughout the region because erosion works well against such materials -- and differential layers of harder and softer material gives rise to the many "pinnacles" you see with huge objects of softer rock at the top balancing precariously on a pedestal of harder rock.

As you can see from the travel map graphic here, Texas is no where near the Colorado Plateau -- in fact it is more than 1,500 miles away if you starting in Houston! Below is a graphic taken from the software we used for navigating on the trip It is also what we used to find RV parks along the way [Trailer Life Directory Campground Navigator 2009]. Great software for plotting course and keeping track of where we have been. I just printed out a map of the path we took on this track through the Colorado Plateau. But note the huge startup cost from Houston!! That explains why we decided along the way to park our RV in Salt Lake City when we needed to come back to Houston before starting up into Idaho and Montana (part 2 of our western travel plans).

From Houston to the Plateau
[click here for photos; backspace to return to blog]

We started out for the Plateau from our lake house in Montgomery,. TX ("Houston") on June 10th. We opted to take the back roads diagonally across toward the mighty windfields of West Texas (Sweetwater, Lubbock...) rather than take the efficient freeway route up to Dallas and across. That turned out well as well "discovered" Dr. Pepper Town along the way -- essentially in the middle of know-where. Delightful little place and they were gearing up for a town-wide celebration of the anniversary of the founding of Dr. Pepper in the late 1800's. [Shame on anyone reading this who does not know and like Dr. Pepper!!]

We drove about 400 miles each day to get from Lake Conroe to the west side of Albuquerque as quickly as possible -- and within fighting distance of the beginning of the Plateau. Did pass through those mighty West Texas windfields along the way -- they went on for 50 miles or more. [Texas produces 30% of the total U.S. energy from wind -- with nearly 10 billion dollars in capital located primarily in the Texas Panhandle!] When we got west of Albuquerque, we slowed down and bagan to become tourists! There are some great pictures here of some of the oldest RV rigs I have ever seen -- look to be from the late 1940's -- that we ran into in a little RV site. By the way, the temps were 58 at night all the way out when Houston was getting 100 degree days as we left! Among the pictures you will see a few from Gallup, NM -- a quaint little town with a lot of indian influence ... and a great lunch place called "Jerry's Cafe" that we stopped in for lunch. Found it in a great website called "www.roadfood.com". They specialize in ranking little roadside food places all over the U.S. Recommend it highly. It worked for us many times on the trip.

Petrified Forest National Park
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This was our first encounter with the leading edge of the Colorado Plateau. It comes as you travel west of Albuquerque and enter Arizona along Route 40 and pass the town of Gallup. It is actually on the approach to Flagstaff, AZ. We discovered that the park is actually divided into two sections -- the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. The Painted Forst was an amazing surprise. The pictures we took do not do it justice. The colords in person are much more dramatic. We found our first set of Indian petroglyths (carvings in the rock) while driving in the Painted Desert. We were to see many more of these by the time we had traversed the whole Colorado Plateau. The Petrified Forest was impressive as well. It was formed as the result of alternating climates and environments that grew huge trees only to be buried in ocean bed, then lake bed, and so on -- the environments for slow petrification of the wood. The park has now created a walking tour at one point in the drive so that you can get out and get up close to a large array of the petrified trees. Turns out that in the early days before the area was declared a ntional park, people raided the forest and took larges numbers of the best pieces and carved out the stones from many others.

North Rim of the Grand Canyon
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Driving north from Flagstaff we headed toward the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. You can only get there however by a round-about path that takes you over the only bridge across the Colorado for some 500 miles. This bridge is known at the Navajo Bridge and it was completed in 1927. Prior to that, the only way across was by a ferry not far from the site of the current bridge. Seems unbelievable, but the Colorado was a serious impediment to the movement west. As you look at the pictures of the bridge and the gorge it spans, you can appreciate the challenges involved.

Once we cleared the Navajo Bridge, we had to climb out of the lower valley and up to the mesa that houses the North Rim. That produced some more great scenic views for pictures. When we got the final miles, we discovered they had had a major forest fire throughout the area in 2006. The pictures are pretty stark, but fortunately the fire did not approach the North Rim and its beautiful lodge. Incidentally, once inside the park itself, we also encountered a rather large herd of buffalo -- including quite a few newborns -- and they ran right along the road so we could get a great view. I have attached the video clip here that I took -- just for fun!



The Lodge at the North Rim is a spectacular building that sits right on the edge of the rim and looks out over the canyon. We got a 1 hour introduction to the Canyon from a ranger and then headed out to walk several of the vistas that have been built off the back side of the lodge. Later we picked a major trail -- Kaibab Trail that runs down what is known as Bright Angel Canyon -- to experience what it is like to hike down the canyon walls. This was an early route off the north rim at the turn of the century -- as you can read from the plaque that is included in the photos. We hiked down about 1,000 ft to the first vista. It would have been another 1,000+ ft to the bottom and then tough climb back up. As you will see from the pictures, we encountered several mule trains along the way -- even they looked like they were working to get up the path!

Lake Powell, Glenn Canyon National Park
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You enter Lake Powell via the Glenn Canyon Dam. It is quite an impressive dam that was commissioned by President Johnson (not that old!). We found the lake to be beautiful and our RV park setting was up looking down on the lake -- one of the better we had had up to that point in the trip.

Our primary event at Lake Powell was a boat trip that we took to go out and tour the Rainbow Bridge. This is one of the more famous natural bridges on the Plateau and it is 50 miles by water just to get to it. In the course of it we got a chance to experience the "houseboating" that is famous on the Lake. People rent huge houseboats and spend days to a week and more traveling around the huge Lake -- but it is not cheap. Prices can run $2,000 and more a day. If you can get a large group together that is not too bad -- as the boats easily accommodate 10 to 20 people. They certainly have luxury as the price goes up -- including multiple jetskis, jacuzzis, and full kitchens and lounges on the upper deck. [The photos here show you a number of these floating recreation centers!]. Rainbow Lodge was 50 miles out and about a 1 mile hike off the tributory of the lake. See the photos here. It really is a special place.

Zion National Park
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Talk about a contrast! After having ben at the top looking down into the Grand Canyon and out riding on the water to see the scenes at Lake Powell, we arrived at Zion to the bottom of the canyon. And the drive to Zion was breathtaking too. You travel through two tunnels and through a field of switchbacks to cope with the major elevation changes involved. The road to Zion was built in the 1920's and was quite the feat at the time. But they built the tunnels too small for the big RV rigs that travel there now -- so one of the tunnels must operate in one way cycles to give the rigs enough room to pass through.

We had a particularly grand arrival. The park does not allow cars -- they run a free shuttle instead. We got on a the shuttle for a quick run through the park (takes about an hour). No sooner did we do that than it started to rain, really a hard rain. As we learned that does not happen more than a few times during a season -- and it triggers some spectacular waterfalls. Sure enough, they started almost immediately and got very large within a few minutes. But they also did not last -- over within an hour or so. But that we precisely the hour we were traveling all through the park on the shuttle. So we were treated to a front row seat for every major waterfall in the park!! The picture to the right here is of one particularly spectacular one.

After spending a beautiful night at an RV park just south of the park, we spent a day hiking in several of the areas of the park -- though we passed on one of the more spectacular hikes that would have had us climbing over 2,000 ft to the top of one of the cliff areas in the heart of the park.

Bryce Canyon National Park
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OK, so we loved Bryce Canyon -- you can tell by the number of pcitures we took and shared here!! If we could only go back to one park in the Colorado Plateau it would be Bryce! The drive from Zion was beautiful and there are pictures to highlight the shift in the geology as we approached Bryce. Bryce is really a compressed clay formation rather than a real rock -- and accordingly, it is eroding at a rapid rate every year. But oh so spectacular!

You will see that Bryce switches us back to a mesa looking down into the canyon -- much as Grand Canyon was. You will also see in the pictures that there is a southern and a northen end to Bryce -- and that the northen section is over 2,000 ft higher (and colder -- 50's) than the southern end (warm -- 90's at the bottom and 70's at the top) and when you see us bundled up in jackets (50's) we are the northn end walking along the rim. Early in the pictures yo uwill see a plaque that explains the primary formation at Bryce -- HOODOO's. They are the columns that you see in all of the pictures -- freezing and thawing and rain erode the columns with more severe erosion on the softer deposits which results in so many structures that appear to be standing on a "pinhead" of a structure.

Capitol Reef National Park
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From Bryce we took a great drive on scenic highway 12 through the Grand Staircase/Escalante to get to Capitol Reef. Along the way we encountered a great Anasazi indian ground dwelling site (circa 1000 AD) with a very well done museum -- learned a lot about the Anasazi in that museum. We also climbed out of the mesa to a mountain range of 9,000 ft and escaped the heat for awhile -- before descending again to the low lands as we approached the town of Torrey just outside of Capitol Reef. The day of our drive turned out to be Father's Day and Pamela planned a great surprise for me -- dinner at a 5 star restaurant out in the middle of nowhere in Torrey, UT!! It was the Cafe Diablo and it was unbelievable -- check it the main course here. It fully lived up to its rating. Turns out the chef operates the restaurant 6 months of the year -- the rest of the time he spends skiing in Colorado!! What a life.

Capitol Reef National Park was dramatic and in line with everything we had seen so far on the Plateau. There were many grand peaks visible from the road. They we got out and hiked to some rock bridges that were accessible within a mile or two of the road -- and 500+ up the mountain side. At the end of the park, we encountered a private farm that had been given a waiver to remain after the park was named. The farm had been there for 100 years and now operates among other things a store that sells native fruite pies -- awesome. we bought one for the road!

Arches National Park
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When we left Capitol Reef, we headed for a base camp at Moab, UT -- for 3 days of touring Arches National Park and the Canyonlands National Park. The drive to MOab began with a drive on sceni route 24. It led through Hanksville and up to U.S. 70 where we turned and drove through Green River before turning south for Moab. Moab is an incredible place. It was founded after World War II when the world was chasing uranium deposits. Initial discoveries there resulted in a "gold rush" type of environment. But that died out quickly when there were no additional deposits found. later, the town revived itself as a recreational capital when mountain biking, white water rafting and rock climbing emerged as sports. It now touts itself as the capital of these things.

Day 1 of our 3 days in Moab we toured the Arches National Park. It is home to a number of famous arches -- and we saw most of them. We hiked a couple of miles to one in the north end of the park and then hiked another to catch the arc hat sunset (about 8:45 pm this time of the year) -- see picture here and note the scale -- it is huge.

Canyonlands National Park
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Day 2 we drove the famous overlooks in the Island in the Sky section of the CAnyonaldns National Park (there are a total of 3 sections -- with huge geography and access miles to visit them all). On the way into Canyonlands, thje first stop is Dead Horse Point State Park. Thje schenic outlook hjere is one of the most beautiful we saw on the whole trip. The story of the name is that cowboys used to herd wild horese out onto the mesa that ended up at Dead Horse Point -- where there was no exit other than over the cliff. Story goes that a lot of horses died of starvation and lack of water out on Dead Horse Point. when you leave Dead Horse Point, you enter Canyonlands. We too the turn to the right first and headed for the outlook for the Green River -- more spectacular scenece of the gores in the erea. From ther we headed for the GRand View Overlook -- a view of the Colorado Gorge. We spent most of the day in these siteseeing visit -- taking pictures and a couple of videos from my little digital campera.

Day 3 we too a jet boat run down the Colorado so we could see the canyons we had sden the previous day -- but this time from below! Great 30 mile ride downriver and then another 30 miles back again with the local temperature well over 100 degrees! I took a short video using my small digital camera and was amazed at the quality. So for fun, here is that clip -- it gives you a sense of being on the river and the speed (about 40 mph -- boat had 3 350 hp diesel engines)....


A few miles out we passed some famous sheer rock walls that are the mainstay of some of the rock climbing that makes Moab famous. Further down the river we ran into the canyons we had seen from above -- first Dead Horse Point and then the GRand View Overlook. Turned out that our driver and tour guide had been operating the boat for the film crews of Thelma and Louise when they shot the famous closing scene for the movie -- the two of them driving off the cliff in a vintage thunderbird. He gave us the full scoop. The crew had to promise that they would not hit anything with the car on the way down and that they would clean up everything afterward. They actually shot the scene TWICE -- burned two vintage thunderbirds in the process! AND THEN in the end, the producers decided NO TO USE THE FOOTAGE in the final form of the movie. Wise heads ruled -- because the final scene is romantic as you watch them charge off the cliff; it would have tunred very frightening and morose had they shown the flight of the car and the crash into the river below. When we got back from the boat trip, we had enough time to take drive up the Colorado (we had boated down river) to a resort on the river where they have a museum dedicated to all of the movies that have been shot in the Moab area. Moab and Monument Valley are the two most photographed and filmed areas on the Colorado Plateau.

Mesa Verde National Park
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We left the 100+ degree days of MOab and environs for the drive to Mesa Verde, CO. The temperature dropped staedily as we made our way up the mountains and into Cortez, CO for the night (where it dropped into the 50's over night!). The next morning was rain and fog as we drove up to the top of Mesa Verde where the park sits at about 8,000 ft. The park is very spread out with long drive between visitor centers. We finally secelected Long House for our first stop. The house sits down about 500 ft off the mesa and in under the first layer of the rock that forms the mesa top. The Anasazi who lived here around 1000 A.D. farmed on he mesa and lived in the house in the cliff -- a community of up to 200. The mesa is very difficult farming, so life must have been a challenge. FRom the Long House we had to drive a good 50 miles to get to the site of several more cliff houses -- Spruce Tree House, Cliff Palace and Balcony House. It would have take too long to tour all of these so we just ivisted the nuseum and drove by and photographed the Spruce Tree House before heading out. We drove down the mountain area toward Monument Valley and stopped in a little town called Bluff UT for the night.

Monument Valley National Park
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First a little bit about Bluff, UT -- which is quite the place. It was originally an area of Anasazi indian development (ca 1000 A.D.). But it got its name in the 1890's when a Mormon community from Salt Lake was commissioned to setttle and develop the area. The town is right on the San Juan River -- a real problem for the settlers because it often overflowed its banks, making development very difficult. The combination of heat in the summer, rock soil and tough winters finally was too much for the Mormons nad they moved north and east 100 miles. Now the small town is trying to rebuild the settlement as it existed in the 1890's. In the morning. Bluff is also memorable because we met some very interesting folks at the RV park. We generally did not mingle with folks at the parks but this proved to be different. Nice couple from San Diego who invited us to join them in their exploration of the San Juan River banks for petroglyths. We got a really close look at a whole wall of petroglyths jus a few miles down the San Juan from where we had stayed -- as the picture here shows! It is really quite amazing how similar the images are among the petroglyth collections we wound up seeing all across the Colorado Plateau.

We had an awesome time in Monument Valley. Fiurst we stopped at the famous Glouldings Lodge -- which sits right in the middle of the most famous buttes that make up the Valley. The Lodge was founded in the 1920's by a German couple when the territory was harsh and unforgiving. Later it became famous around after World War II when movie directors discovered the area for what because the famous John Wayne movies. Much later it became the scene for such famous movies as Back to the Future. After enjoying Gouldings, we stopped on the side of the road just outside of Gouldings for a wonderful wine, bread and cheese lunch under the awning of our RV! The temperature was about 105 degrees -- but we had the shade of the awning, a great view of the buttes and plenty of wine and cheese! One humorous side note -- as we were sitting enjoying our wine, we heard a vehicle honking at us as it went by but could not see around our rig to get a look it that vehicle. Got an email later that explained it!! the folks we had met in Bluff UT drove by on their way back to San Diego!! Small world....

Natural Bridges National Park
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We still had plenty of daylight and energy after Monument Valley (and the fabulous wind and cheese lunch) so we vowed to push on until we could get to the town of Green River on U.S. 70 -- the rough dividing line to Park city, UT, our next destination. We passed through a little place called Mexican Hat as we headed back north -- and took pictures of the famous rock that gave it is name (not much else to write home about there!). Then we toured the Natural Bridges National Park and photographed the three major natural bridges that make up the park. Could access them all with short walks from the car (we passed on hiking down to the base of each!). From there we drove over the bidre of the Colorado that forms the headwaters o Lake Powell ( s we had now seen both ends of this huge 180 mile long lake by the time we finished our trip!). We passed over the Colorado River entry into Lake Powell at sunset -- so we stopped at the overlooks to enjoy the scene anmd absorb the huge geography we had traversed. From Lake Powell it was just solid driving to get to Green River and find an RV park for the night -- which we did.

Park City and Sundance Resort
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The drive from Green river to Park City was beautiful and SO DIFFERENT from everything we had been traveling hrough for weeks. The geology shifts pretty suddenly from semi rock/clay/limestone to hard rock and granit as you head toward Park City and their mountains. The vegetation changes; the streams swithc from muddy to clear; the smell of pine is in the air and the lake look different -- clear and blue rather than muddy and brown. W vowed to stop at Robert Redford's Sundance Resort on our way in and did. What a beautfiul place. we just have to arrange to stay there for some skiing one day in the future -- before we lose our ability to!! Ended the day at an RV park located just below the dam that forms the Jordanelle Reservoir -- on the back side of Park City. We wounmd up staying at htis campsite for a couple of days while we toured around Park City an d before heading into Sal Lake City. We were surprised to find that there were not many RV parks to choose from in the area -- a marked contrast to our experiences throughout the rest of the trip.

Day 2 in Park City was all bout playing on the rides on Park City Mountain. They had a slide, a roller coaster and a zip line. We rode them all multiple times except for the zip line. The zip line was actually a bit disappointing as it took oan hour wait to get into the zip and the ride itself was short and not very exciting. We had though it might be like the zip lines we had heard about from friends -- the ones that run across the rain forest in Costa Rica. Guess we will have to go to Costa Rica and experience the real thing first hand!

Salt Lake City
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We spent our final morning at the Park City RV park relaxing and reading. Then we headed off for Salt Lake City. It is only a short drive so we went directly to the KOA RV park (don't generally use KOA but this one was located strategically where we needed it so we did it -- and it worked out ok) to get our site before heading into the center of Salt Lake for a tour of the Mormon Temple Center. Altogether we spent about 3-4 hous walking through b uildings and taking in museum exhibits. The Tabernacle was the most impressive site (other than the temple itself which yo ucannot get into). It was the largest arched roof structure in the world -- until the modern football/baseball stadiums that started in Houston! And it has the most amazing acoustics in the world -- we witnessed the demonstration of that when someone dropped a pin on the podium table up front and you could clearly hear it in the back of the church where we were sitting! No wonder the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sounds so awesome when they sing there.

Day 2 in Salt Lake was spent paying homage to mechanical issues with the RV! First we spent the bulk of the day at the Freightliner shop getting (a) the front end aligned and (b) one of teh cabinets reattached to the ceiling. Once that was done, we moved on to finding an RV shop that would install a takeoff from our onboard propane tank that would let us use that source of propane for an outdoor cooing stove. Got that accomplished and more -- the place we chose for that work agreed to store our RV on their lot while we were back in Houston!

So finally after a wonderful series of weeks running across the Colorado Plateau, this phase of Free Spirit's GAP YEAR came to a close. On July 2nd we caught a flight out of Salt Lake City headed back to Houston!! BNut we were already planning the next phase of our journey -- which was scheduled to start up in Salt Lake on July 16th and run to the end of August. Idao and Montana -- here we come!

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Colorado Plateau -- The Plan

Writing this note after the fact of the trip (which we finished on July 2nd!) I PROMISE TO FILL THIS BLOG IN AND GET THE PHOTO COLLECTIONS TO GO WITH IT SOON. (We are already out on the next leg of our trip -- Idaho and Montana) The Colorado Plateau trip was fabulous. The picture here is taken in Bryce Canyon National Park during a hike down into the canyon -- just one stop among many parks over nearly 4 weeks. We started from Lake Conroe but wound up leaving the rig in Salt Lake City and flying back. The drive back to Houston would have been daunting and expensive. Found a great safe place to leave the rig. We will be using it again in September.

The list of places we visited and will report on includes:
  • Petrified Forest
  • North Rim of Grand Canyon (south to come in Oct)
  • Zion
  • Bryce Canyon
  • Capitol Reef
  • Arches
  • Canyonlands
  • Mesa Verde
  • Monument Valley
  • Natural Bridges
  • Park City mountain area
Well, promises, promises....here goes.

Monday, June 1, 2009

The REAL THING -- Big Travel Plans!!

Well, our "trials" phase taught us a lot, but we are now ready for the real thing! While we are saving the details for "in the moment developments", we realized we needed an overall sketch. So here it is:

Rest of 2009

June 10 thru July 2nd we are doing the Colorado Plateau -- states of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah. Most of the national parks (many are among the most famous in the U.S.) we will tour are largely in Utah, but they share borders with these other states -- known famously for the Four Corners intersection.

July 16 thru August 26th we are doing Idaho and Montana. Can't believe the number of things there are to do in these two places. Intend to hit most of them.

September 15 thru November 20th we are doing Jackson Hole, Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, the path to LA for a layover trip to the South Pacific (30th wedding anniversary treat!), then travel up and down the coast of California, and return to Lake Conroe via the southern states.

November 20 thru early January -- Home for the holiday season

Much of 2010


January thru Early Spring (in the north) we are going to do the southeast where it is warm!! Includes whole gulf coast and down through the keys where I expect we will stay for quite a chunk of the time.

April thru June, at the risk to being too early and freezing our %&%#% off, we are going to visit the midwest including getting up to our wonderful Sand Lake in northern Wisconsin (our summer vacation spot throughout my growing up). Will visit Ohio and mother and dad on the front end of his phase.

Late June through September we are going to travel throughout New England including a lot of time in Maine.

October we will be heading home via midwest and south including visit to Georgia to see my brother. Seek to time this phase to hit he colors and drive he Smokey Mountains.


Seems intimidating to even write this down, but we are actually very excited to have the chance to do all of this.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Trail 2 -- Part 2: Memphis and the Blues Trail

This phase of our trip began May 22nd when we left the Natchez Trace Parkway at about 225 miles of its 444 mile total length (it ends in Nashville, TN) in favor of visiting Tulepo, MI -- brithplace of Elvis Presley. It then extended up to Memphis and down the Mississippi along the famous Hwy 61 Blues Trail. Tupelo was well worth the visit and a great start to our Blues Trail (did not do the tourist haven of Graceland later in Memphis!). As many know, it was Elvis more than any single other singer who bridged between the blues and what became the birth of rock music. His birth and early years were mighty humble in a 3 room house in Tulepo. There is plenty to see at his birthplace -- they have even moved the church to his birthplace that he sang bible songs in during his early years. [Some photos of this and the rest of this Blues segment of our trip -- click here and then backspace to return.]


Went from Tupelo to Oxford, MI (only a few miles), the birthplace and home of Ole Miss. Great university and the first and oldest in the south. Looked up William Faulkner's house of over 30 years and visited his grave [Some photos -- click here and then backspace to return.]

Stayed in an RV park between Oxford and Holly Springs or the night and then headed for Holly Springs the next day -- on the path to Memphis. Wonderful place Holly Springs. Many contributions to the blues there. But we found the Phillips Grocery to be the heart of the place. http://www.roadfood.com/ lists the Phillips Grocery as one of the best hamburger places in America. We went and sampled to see for ourselves. Burgers were outstanding and the atmosphere (old 1800's building at a railhead famous leading up to the Civil War) provided great backdrop. And there were nothing but simple locals mixed with an occasional tourist (like us) who had heard of the place and come by for a famous burger. [Some photos in earlier link.]

From Holly Springs we headed into Memphis for what turned out to be 2-1/2 days of sightseeing, eating and music. Had their famous pork ribs both ways (dry and wet -- I liked wet better), Beal Street for the Blues (BB King's place among others), and the famous duck march at the Peabody Hotel. [Yes, some pics in the link above to prove this!]

First stop for formal touring was the RocknSoul Museum (http://www.memphisrocknsoul.org/home.htm) -- 3 hours went by quickly -- in part driven by what seemed like over 100 recordings of the blues that you could select and listen to at various exbibits that traversed the history of the Blues. Then it was the National Civil Rights Museum -- another 3 hours -- this time among a huge crowd that moved slowly through over 100 exhibits. This museum has an awesome website that captures each of the exhibits -- http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/home.htm. The most dramatic of these is the room Martin Luther King stayed at regularly at the Lorraine Hotel -- and which became the site first of his assassination and then of the current National Museum. The museum is literally built around and through the Lorraine Hotel room. We finished the day having dinner at Alfreds on Beal Street and taking in live Blues at BB King's place on Beal Street. [Some photos in the link above.]

We headed out of Memphis via famous Route 61 for the drive down the Blues Trail -- this road that follows the Mississippi River starting at Tunica and then through Lula on the way to famous Clarksdale and beyond. It is the path that the early and greatest blues artists traveled as they migrated into Memphis during the late 1800's and early7 1900's, bringing their brand of blues music out of the Mississippi delta and up to Memphis -- from which it spread to Chicago, Detroit and other cities in the north. And of course it was Memphis (and the areas such as Tupelo, Oxford, Holly Springs) where it melded and morphed into rocknroll. We followed a great website [http://www.msbluestrail.org/blues_trail/] in our journey -- looking for the various plaques along the way and taking in the museums and famous old stores that remain in operation at various places along the trail.


Turned out that the Mississippi was heavily flooded during our travels so we wound up staying in Arkansas west of Greenville, MI for one night -- before heading on to Greenville and then across to Leland. These are very historical sites and have great blues museums which we also toured. After doing these, things trickled off so we set sail for Lake Conroe and drove hard til we got home. GREAT TRIP and great old recordings of the Blues added to our collection.


Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Trial 2 -- Part 1 -- Natchez, MS

Left the lake on May 19 and headed for Natchez, Mississippi. Spent two nights in River View RV Park and Resort on the Mississippi River. Nice site; great view of the mighty Mississippi. Then we spent the 20th touring Nachtez. Quite the place. It was the heart of the Southern business world when cotton was king and before the Civil War. We saw 4 awesome churches and dozens of small ones. Seemed like there was one church for every 50 people in the whole town. Awesome old southern mansions all over downtown. Spent the 20th eating out at Mamas Tamales and drinking her "Knock You Out Naked Margaritas"! Relaxed the morning of the 21st and then visited Stanton Hall and had lunch at the Queen's Room (famous for southern fried chicken and mint julips) before heading out on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Will travel for at least 2 days -- the Parkway is 444 miles long if you drive it all the way to Nashville. Jefferson commissioned it in 1800 for enable the commerce of its day. Later it was a major path for slaves escaping north. Plan to stay at a couple of state park campsites along the way and tour and hike.

As for the RV, we learned some more about setting camp, putting things up and taking them down. Laughable moments -- afterward!! But in the end, have to admit that we are getting the hang of operating out of our vehicle.

Here are a few of the pics we took of Natchez and then the Natchez Trace Parkway that we traveled after Natchez on our way to Memphis. [click here for pictures -- backspace to return to here]

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Trial 1 -- Lake Livingston

Well, we got out of Lake Conroe on May 11th and drove to Lake Livingston. The First night we stayed at an RV Park. The second night we stayed in the Livingston State Park (See picture here of campsite). Returned home on May 13th. What did we learn? Lots. We tested a lot of navigation systems -- GPS tied to Google Earth, tied to the Trailer Life Directory Campground Navigator software, the Garmin Nu-265. Proprietary interface on Garmin proved the pain in the neck we suspected. Without that we could have linked the systems. Got around it though. Just need practice now. Chairs and table we bought worked to perfection -- functional and practical to pack away in our limited space. Clothes -- what we had worked; just need more. Had purchased nice hiking boots and clothes at REI. Need a few more cooking utensils, but did not find much of anything we did have to be dysfunctional. All in all, good short trip.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Preparing

Well, original plans for an April 1st start on the road clearly have not worked out. Too many Houston activities that could not be closed out quickly. So we spent the time buying equipment and clothes sized for "Free Spirit." We chose a small RV (24 ft) -- for maximum flexibility. But the price of that plan is VERY EFFICIENT clothing and equipment planning!

Pamela has been the master planner and buyer -- she has always been extremely good at this. She tells me that she has done as much as she can without some experiments on the road to see what works and what does not. So we are about to head out for a couple of trial runs. The first one will be short -- a day or two. The second one will be a 7 to 10 day run. We have til the first week of June to get these done. Then we will be free to set out for a longer run -- about 3-4 weeks. Have to be back in Houston for the week starting the Fourth of July! Thinking now is to head west to such great places as Grand Canyon and Glacier National Park (only open for a couple of months a year in the summer!).