Due South

Chicago

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After checking in our baggage to Memphis we headed across town to the Navy Pier a fun park jutting out into the lake. It turned out to be a bit tacky but gave good views back to Chicagos’s sky scraper-laden skyline. We had decided to take one of the ‘Architectural’ boat tours that takes you up the Chicago River and this turned out to be a good choice with a lively commentary and good views of most of the most impressive structures. You may not like the mall but there are some impressive and occasionally beautiful buildings. What they apparently don’t have is any sense of overall planning as buildings are thrown up without any relation to their surroundings which means some very attractive earlier skyscrapers are completely overshadowed by more recent construction. Its also a pity that many of the new buildings have meant the destruction of an earlier version on the site that should really have been preserved, particularly as there seems to be plenty of derelict land within a short distance of the city centre that could have been used. Still, you can’t deny it’s a dynamic and fascinating city for all that.

 

After the tour was over we walked back through the town seeing many of the buildings from a different perspective. We also passed the huge model of the couple from the ‘American Gothic’ painting that we would later see in the art gallery.

 

To get back to the station we caught the ‘El’ star of may episodes of ‘ER’ but sadly saw no handsome young doctors chasing each other up an down the stairs.

 

Due South

 

The main aim of our next detour was to see Adrian and Tresia in Kentucky and there were two or three ways we could have got to them. One would have taken in New Orleans and Atlanta but a mix up in San Francisco meant that the shuttle bus out to catch the first train counted as on of our “segments” (you are allowed 8 separate segments or journeys on your rail pass) so we didn’t have enough to get us there and then on to Boston. In any case we had heard that since Katrina New Orleans was a bit Disneyfied so were happy to get off at Memphis and hire a car from there. As it was still early morning – our train ride had been just overnight – we hopped a taxi out to the rental depot near the airport, picked up our car and headed East, stopping at the first diner we saw for breakfast.

 

We had allowed two days for the journey across Tennessee which proved to be more bible belt than deep south and our overnight stop was at Nashville. We had booked in at a hotel downtown and headed down to see the sights. Unfortunately, being a Tuesday night things were a bit quiet. A number of clubs and restaurants were open, including one of B.B. King’s chain outlets but they were clearly aimed at dumb tourists like us whereas we were looking for something a bit more genuine. We ended up just taking a meal in an ordinary restaurant but what we did find was Ernest Tubbs record store. Peter went in to enquire after a song that had been going around in his head for about 15 years (Nothing but the Wheel by Patty Loveless) but could not be found on I-tunes or Amazon. The assistant, who looked as if she wasn’t born 15 years ago, not only found the CD but could recite the complicated change of labels that explained why it was no longer easily available. Unfortunately that song has now been replaced by one we heard while driving into the Yosemite Valley so we may have to go back and enquire again in another 15 years time.

 

The next day we went cross-country through endless woodland and small towns (including Amish country where used car parts dealers also sold wooden wagon wheels and horse drawn buggies competed with old pick-ups at the cross-roads) where it seemed every second building was a church and each one a different denomination. By nightfall we arrived at Morehead where Adrian and Tresia had supper for us and we met Sadie, a very bouncy labra-doodle, a cross between a giant poodle and a golden labrador, and so cute we have decided that when we get home we will definitely settle down and get a dog.

 

The next day we lazed around and then went down to Adrian’s Folk Art Museum where he was busy preparing for their next exhibition, the first major collecting of some incredibly dynamic work in carved and painted wood by  LaVon Van Williams. The current exhibition was equally fascinating, circus scenes of astonishing detail and intricacy by the son of Merv King, one of Australia’s great showmen. If you can’t make it to Morehead it’s worth a look on the website - www.moreheadstate.edu/kfac/index.aspx?id=7795  

 

In the afternoon we were shown around the Morehead Middle School where Tresia is Principal. The school catchment area includes some pretty disadvantaged mountain communities but the school itself was very impressive with a well-ordered but friendly and relaxed atmosphere and some great work going on, including a jazz band rehearsal of a really high standard, well beyond their years.

 

Our fleeting visit ended with another evening of good food and wine with our first taste of home-made key-lime pie together with country music and reminiscence about the bad old days at boarding school back in the UK (where Adrian and Peter met nearly 50 years ago). The next day, after another slow start, it was time to head back west for Memphis. This time we stayed at a lakeside resort which could at first have been taken for a retirement home but, as it was Friday night later began to fill up with fisherman and the car park with shiny pick-ups towing equally shiny speedboats. Though why you need a 400HP outboard to go fishing escaped us.

 

An early morning run around the lake and then on to Memphis.

Memphis

Well, Tuesday night at Nashville may have been  a bit quiet but Saturday night in Memphis lived up to expectations.

 

We drove into town in good time so headed for the station to drop off our big luggage and book it through to Washington DC. We then parked at the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was shot – now the National Civil Rights Museum... It was pretty busy and progress round was slow as it took you through the whole history of black emancipation and the struggle for civil rights. As in Hiroshima a lot of the pictures and stories were familiar but actually being there made it particularly poignant, as did the presence of so many African-Americans. It would have been interesting to know what everyone was thinking but there was no real opportunity for discussion or interaction There was indeed a woman picketing the museum from across the road with the slogan ‘Stop living in the past, look to the future’. A poster claimed she had been there for 27 years. We had intended to go over and see what she was about, but when we came out she had packed up and gone.

 

Because of the crowds we were in fact a little late as we had to get the car back to the airport by 5pm, full of petrol. When we reached the car rental return strip we had still not seen a gas station so, with time running out we carried on over the freeway in increasing desperation. A couple of u-turns found us a ‘Love’ station where we topped up and headed back to the airport leaving rubber on the, thankfully, empty tarmac. We got back at one minute to 5, saving ourselves a substantial penalty.

 

The shuttle took us to the airport building where we got a taxi back into ‘downtown’, Peter’s initial request for the ‘city centre’ being met with blank incomprehension. The driver, a Somali refugee from his appearance and accent, put Peter’s efforts to shame leaving not only rubber on the tarmac but possibly paintwork on the trucks and concrete barriers as he squeezed between them at 80mph.

 

Somewhat shaken we reached downtown to find it was Barbeque Festival weekend with the city centre, sorry “downtown”, cordoned off and great crowds parading the streets. We headed for Beale Street which turned out to be the real thing. Crowds wandered up and down as bands played in open air alley-way venues between the bars or on the pavements and street performers did it, literally, on the street. We stopped to watch a couple of bands. Ms Zeno sang like a young Tina Turner with a brilliant lead guitarist, and the Delta Saturn Blues Band with a very laid back New Orleans sound had the audience, black and white, line dancing in the park.

 

Although some of the bars offered food they were very dark and noisy so we decided to go further afield to eat. We found a kind of southern fish restaurant with ‘mud bugs’ (crayfish) and catfish fillets. Washed down with a local beer and a slice of key-lime pie and with blues on the PA it was a great meal, but the restaurant itself was a find. One wall was lined with photos of diners with their catches and the other with the world's first Billy Bass Adoption Centre. If you don’t remember, these were those musical mounted fish that you could hang on your wall. We don’t know what you did with yours but here you could donate them to the restaurant and they would go up on the wall. There must have been a hundred or more, but thankfully no batteries included, so no singing and dancing.

 

We then strolled up and down Beale Street again having another beer and listening to a couple more bands before walking back to inappropriately named Central Station to wait for our train. The old concourse had been rented out for a wedding party. Maybe our visit to the Civil Rights museum had made us over-sensitive, and certainly the atmosphere on Beale Street was relaxed and friendly, but you couldn’t help but contrast the all-white wedding party in their lush frocks and shiny DJs with the mainly black, mainly low income passengers sitting in the waiting room. The t-shirts proclaiming “Obama 08 – dream accomplished" seemed a little premature.

 

Chicago again

 

Another overnight trip on the train got us back to Chicago about 9 in the morning. We planned to breakfast at the Chicago Cultural centre which we had looked into the previous week and seemed to have free wi-fi and a nice café - a bit like a public library but without the books. As it turned out the café didn’t open on a Sunday but while we were there we decided to look round as the meeting rooms were said to be worth a visit for their decoration alone. As it turned out, on the first floor was the last day of an exhibition of artwork by people with physical or ‘developmental’ handicaps which turned out to be of really high quality with some exciting stuff. We were then drawn further up the stairs by the sound of chanting which turned out to be the entrance to another exhibition (neither had been obviously  publicised at the entrance level) this time of modern Chinese art. Equally fascinating and giving a real insight into what was happening in China and a glimpse of the breadth of impact that China is going to have beyond the mere churning out of industrial goods.

 

By now we were pretty hungry so went over into the Millennium Park to see the fountains that spit and try and find a café. We had to make do with a coffee and a soya fruit bar being given out as a promotion but sat and watched the fountains against the backdrop of skyscrapers, like everyone else waiting for someone brave or foolish enough to get a soaking as, although it was sunny, there was quite a chill wind.

 

Further along the ‘Magic Mile’ we went into the Art Museum, mainly it must be said to find a proper café but we picked up a leaflet and our attention was caught by some of the exhibits the had on offer. The museum was pretty full as it was a free admission day so we decided to focus on 6 works, which seemed somehow to be located at the extremities of the huge museum- ‘Grants ‘American Gothic’, Hoppers ‘Nighthawks’,  the big Seurat of people promenading in the park, the seated Buddha and Magritte’s fireplace with the steam engine emerging. Though of course we saw lots more on the way. Fortunately this was the first free day after the opening of the new wing and most people had come to check that out so the rest was not too crowded and you could stop and look at most of the pictures without interruption. In particular the impressionists were stunning, as we had never seen so many iconic paintings at one go, and really well hung.

 

We decided to get some more sunshine while it lasted and walked through Grant Park to the lakeside passing the enormous fountain on the way a then turning back towards Millennium Park so we could get some food for the journey and get back to the station.

 

As we passed the Art Gallery Peter popped in to collect his day pack from the left luggage where he bumped into Ed, in Chicago for the weekend. Small world.

 

As we made our way under the El we stopped in at Borders for a coffee and a last attempt to get online (without success). The café was crowded with overseas students and homeless and the rest-rooms had a patrol to make sure no-one took up residence. The last few blocks before the station has a number of homeless looking for change with a range of lines often witty and Peter took the opportunity to off-load a pocketful of loose change that threatened to lower his trousers round his knees like some ageing skateboarder. With $1 dollar notes and local taxes added on to published prices you have to be really on the ball to avoid accumulating vast quantities of change so small you feel it would be taken as an insult, not only by waitresses and taxi-drivers but by panhandlers too. Boy, its tough being a liberal in the USA.

 

We arrived at the station about 50 minutes before the departure time but somehow missed the call for the halt and lame who get on first. As we qualify as seniors this is a real advantage and can mean the difference between a seat together or not. Peter showed unusual determination by going to the front of the queue of youthful, childless and able bodied and managing to get us through before the stampede began. Shame that not a voice was raised questioning our qualification as seniors, but never mind. So now we are on the train to Washington and its time to log off and recline the seat. It’s going to be a long night.

Washington DC

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Having last seen our luggage in Memphis we were very relieved when it eventually appeared on the carousel but then we had to trundle it onto the Metro and out to Dupont Circle where we had booked a surprisingly cheap hotel. Considering its location you might have expected it to have been upgraded to a boutique hotel but we were happy that it hadn’t as it was about the only affordable place so close to the Mall.

 

The highlight of our time in Washington was meeting up with Sam who was jet-setting around the States on business but arranged to be in Washington the same time as us and had booked in at the same hotel. We arrived mid-afternoon while Sam was in Philadelphia and not due back until midnight so we showered and changed and headed down the hill to Dupont Circle and Kramer Books which has a cutely named restaurant out back called “Afterwords” where our guidebook told us all the ‘hip literati’ hung out. Although neither hip nor literate we enjoyed the meal and the atmosphere although Washington generally has a slightly smug feel to it. You can almost see why the Sarah Palin's and George W’s of this world are a bit suspicious. Well, almost.

 

Back at the hotel, about midnight, Sam arrived and we had a midnight feast with all the freebies she had lifted from the conference venues she had been visiting. It was really nice to catch up with what is going on back home and what she and Matt are planning when they go on their round the world trip in October. It was one of the first times we have begun to realise that we are on the last leg and that before too long we are going to have to engage with the real world. What are we going to do with the rest of our lives? No doubt what most gap-year returnees ask themselves about this time.

 

Sam had to catch a train to New York about one o’clock so we went into the Mall and wandered around the Capitol mainly people watching.  Arnie was due in town to support Obama with his Café Car Bill that will force Americans to stop driving around in Hummers but probably have little effect on climate change as there is no way America could exist without the motor car. Our insistence on walking from Metro to hotel with our baggage is seen as weird in the extreme and attracts taxi drivers like hornets round a honey-pot. Still it’s a step in the right direction.

 

We didn’t meet Arnie but did chat to a young woman who was protesting that the Senator of Utah was not doing enough to prosecute her father who was a big-time gangster who got off scot-free despite (allegedly) having numerous rivals bumped off. She was just sitting on the steps with a hand made placard and said she would stay there till justice was done. We asked what her dad thought of what she was up to and, thankfully, he didn’t as yet know. Now that’s a family with issues.

 

We looked in on the Conservatory and then went for lunch at a rather nice café on the mezzanine in the grand hall of Union Station and Sam headed off to catch her train. We then headed back to the Capitol and managed to get into the Capitol along with dozens of parties of school kids from all over the country as it’s the end of the school year and this is apparently the thing to do. We did the tour which included a glimpse down Nancy Pilosi’s corridor of power but we didn’t see her or find out any more about whether she had been fully briefed on water-boarding or not. We had intended to go on to the Library of Congress but there was an evacuation exercise just as we went in so we ended up out on the steps alongside a motley crew of senators, secret service men and schoolkids.

 

We headed on down the Mall again and went into the Native American Museum in one of the more striking of the many museum buildings there. Unfortunately we had left it a bit late and only had time to make a start before closing time. We headed down to the Washington Monument intending to make it all the way to the Potomac weaving through the pick-up baseball games, not to mention ‘kickball’ which is a hybrid game – baseball and football combined. But it’s a long, long way so we turned off at the White House and headed back to the hotel.

 

Our last day in Washington: we took our bags down to the station and went to finish off the Native American Museum. The best way seemed to be to take the Metro over the river to Arlington Cemetery and walk back but when we got there we decided to do the tour, once again surrounded by thousands of school children. Despite having severe misgivings about most of the wars that the majority of the soldiers buried there died in, it was an interesting and moving tour. We stopped at the JFK monument and spent time at Arlington House which had an interesting history as the home of Robert E Lee. He was a slave owner but sympathetic to abolition and against secession but when the civil war came he felt obliged to fight for the South on the grounds of family loyalty.

 

We also saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldiers but this was so ritualised it came across as weird rather than moving. In fact, the most striking feature of Arlington is not the monuments or elegant marble gravestones but the endless rows of white crosses.

 

We then walked back across the Potomac to the Lincoln Memorial and on to the Korean and Vietnam memorials. By then, it was far too late to go back to the museum  so we headed back to Union Station  (via the WWII memorial)where we had pizza and salad in the Food Hall  and sat until 930pm when we were called for our train.

 

The East Coast Corridor trains are less spacious than the transcontinental ones and Peter had great difficulty getting to sleep through the night. We had a car booked at Boston but we weren’t too sure how far we would get before sleep caught up to us. In fact we managed to keep going all day, across Massachusetts to the border with New York State. The next morning we crossed the border and up the Hudson River to Poughkeepsie to see Susan, with whom Margot had worked in York. After a lunch chat went on a bit longer than planned (a lot to catch up on as we hadn’t met since 2003) and we set off  to Portland Maine cross country to avoid the Memorial Weekend traffic jams. Our car was a Toyota Prius hybrid, a bit more expensive than some but more economical and we were feeling a bit guilty about the gas we had consumed with our RV in California. However it drove well but as always America proved bigger than we realised and we didn’t arrive at Portland until midnight where we checked into a Super 6 motel.

 

It was far too late to get a decent night’s sleep and get over to Bar Harbour by 8am as intended but we logged on and found the ferry for St John New Brunswick left at 1830 and took 3 hours which would get us to ~Faith and Jane’s at a reasonable hour.

 

It also gave us time for a quick stop at our old favourite LL Beans at Freeport the 24-hour outdoor shop where we window shopped and had breakfast. We made good time to the Border at Calais / and were only slightly concerned about the long queue and the slowness of the passport and customs officers. What was more disconcerting was the clock across the river in St Stephens which indicated that we were an hour later than we thought. We had forgotten the Time Zone and had 70 miles to do in one hour to get on the boat.

 

Fortunately the road has been improved and was not too busy with no townships to slow progress and we joined the queue on the ramp to the ferry just in time to get loaded. We crossed the Bay of Fundy as the sun went down and arrived at Annapolis Royal not long after 10 to find both Jane and Faith waiting up and in good spirits