The Blues in Memphis...

Sad to leave Louisiana, we headed north for our appointment in Nebraska. We decided to split the journey into three parts..stopping in Memphis, St.. Louis and finally Omaha. When we arrived in Memphis and drove into the campground, it took us about a split second to look at each other and change our plans. The campground was situated directly on the Mississippi River. We had a front row seat for watching the huge river barges going up and down stream. After our first glass of wine, we extended our stay for one night. After the second glass, we had paid for 4 nights. It was just too beautiful to leave and we were finding that Memphis was a fascinating city.
On our first day exploring, we headed to Graceland, home of Elvis Presley. It was truly “Elvis Land”. After paying for the full blown experience, we were given audio guides and loaded on a packed bus to take us across the street to Graceland itself. The house, on Elvis Presley Boulevard, had beautifully landscaped grounds. The house itself was modest- not what you’d expect from “The King”. It was like walking back into the 60’s. The audio guide walked you through the main floor rooms, explaining about Elvis’s life and stories of Graceland. The house had a jungle room filled with bizarre jungle themed furniture and accessories, a media room carpeted floor, walls and ceiling. Outside were the horse stables, the racquetball court, and the Memorial Gardens with the gravesites of Elvis, his mother, father and grandmother.

After the bus ride back and the obligatory walk through one of the many Elvis gift shops, we got to see his collection of cars (including a pink Cadillac) and his airplane, the “Lisa Marie” (an old Delta 707 completely refitted with bedroom, gold plated faucets and sinks, conference room and living room.).

Feeling that we’d paid our respects to the King, we headed into Memphis. On the way to downtown, we drove by Sun Records and decided to make a stop. Sun was the home of artists like Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Rufus Thomas… the list was a who’s who of rock and roll. The inside walls were lined with photos of the artists who had been discovered and recorded in the studio. The tour didn’t start for 40 minutes, so we had the chance to sit at the old drug-store fountain, get a milk-shake and talk with the staff. All of the staff doubled as tour guides, so they were a wealth of information about Sam Phillips, the founder and the artists that he had discovered. Once on the tour, we were taken upstairs for a walk-through of the major artists and their songs and finally taken to the actual studio, still in its’ original condition. It was funny to see a huge crowd of 50-60 year olds reliving their past by listening to the old songs and hearing stories about these legends of R&R.
The Sun tour got us curious about the other Memphis recording studios. We found that there were three major labels – Sun, Hi and Stax. On our visit to the Rock and Soul Museum, we got a better education as to the 3 studios and their artists We drove into “the hood” to find Hi (now Royal Records). It was still a working studio and not open for tours, but was home to artists like Al Green. The original Stax Studio was torn down shortly after MLK’s assassination in Memphis. For years there was only a sign outside to remember what had once been a major soul recording studio. It was recently re-built and a spectacular museum created (as well as a academy for music). Like the Museum of Rock and Soul, the audio guides walked you through the museum and included musical clips which brought you right back to the 60’s and 70s. It was amazing to see how music can bring people back in time and make them feel like they’re 16 again. One old guy was singing along with the audio guide-oblivious to everyone around him.
The Stax artist list was more amazing than Sun—B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, Staples Singers, Ike Turner, Issac Hayes, Booker T and the MG’s. They defined soul and R&B. We learned that Stax was a more loosely organized group of musicians- with a more raw sound than their competition at Motown in Detroit. Turns out that Motown was a creation of Berry Gordy designed specifically to attract white kids to black music. They had the Funk Brothers band to keep the sound consistent and even had an etiquette coach.

With a few CD’s in our bag, we headed for Beale Street, once the home to the black community and lined with R&B bars. Where once Beale Street was the commercial hub of the black community, it too had been torn down after King’s assassination and recently revived as a tourist draw. Today, the streets are filled with older white tourists who come to listen to the music of their teen age years.

A trolley car circles the city taking you to the other major sights. We stopped at the Civil Rights Museum, housed in the Lorraine Hotel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated. The museum was packed with black folks, but lacked a clear theme. The walk through the civil rights struggle in the museum culminates in a chance to see the motel rooms where MLK spent his last days and the balcony where he was shot.

Across a small bridge is Mud Island. It was a beautiful city park with a 5 block long recreation of the Mississippi River from it’s headwaters in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
We were lucky to arrive in Memphis during the “Art of the Motorcycle” Exhibit at the Pyramid. This exhibit- originally put on by the Guggenheim in NYC – was an amazing “art” show highlighting the history and art of the motorcycle. It was spectacular to see the range and changes in motorcycle history. Amusingly, one of the very last bikes to be exhibited was the Suzuki Burgman…right next to the Harley V-Rod.

Down on the Bayou...

After losing Mija, Brenda told us to drag our butts down to the Bayou to visit with them We headed out on Sunday and decided that we’d cook for them that evening. We picked up a chicken with crawfish stuffing and some stuffed shrimp from a Cajun butcher in Metairie. With some roasted veggies and some French bread, we had a feast.

But nothing could compare to the shrimp boil the following night. We drove to Cocodrie in the morning to pick up the shrimp- fresh off the boat.

Just a few blocks from John’s old “camp” is a major shrimp fishing/processing operation and he can call them to set aside some big ass shrimp. We picked up 110 pounds of shrimp. They gave us a tour of the shrimp drying operation across the street. It was an amazing operation. Although the occupation of sheep crotcher is still the number one “worst job in the world”, there were a few jobs in that operation that would come close. The first step was boiling the shrimp. This guy stood all day loading shrimp into huge boilers with a flaming hot fire to keep the kettles going. It was SO hot inside that room- it made the heat outside feel like air conditioning. From there, they add salt and begin the drying process. In the last step, they put the shrimp in a huge thrashing machine that literally tumbles the shell off of the shrimp. It was quite an operation and the local Cajun owner was probably a millionaire. Interestingly, a large percentage of his dried shrimp is sold to Canada….

Well, the pickup in Cocodrie was only the first step. Then, we had to bring the shrimp home and wash and de-head them. John’s pool house was already set up with the sink and we had a four person operation de-heading the shrimp, cleaning them and putting them in zip-lock bags for flash freezing. The cat, “El Gato”, was in heaven- catching a few of the raw shrimp as treats. Finally, it was time to boil them up and eat them. John and Brenda invited Lynn and Dan over and we had huge platters of gorgeous fresh shrimp with Brenda’s homemade shrimp dip. It was fantastic.

We thought we’d have a free day on Tuesday as John had a funeral to attend in Baton Rouge and Brenda was involved in a 4H garden contest as a judge. Well, at the last minute, Brenda’s third judge bowed out- so I was enlisted into the contest. Knowing nothing about gardens, particularly vegetable gardening, Brenda told me to keep my mouth shut and look official. It turned out to be a very interesting experience. We had to judge 17 gardens- 4 of them were adult gardens, 13 of them done by kids from age 7-17. It was quite amazing to see the quality of the gardens. Since the kids were still in school, we were often met by a parent who would show us the garden and provide us with their gardening journal. We got to see beautiful gardens that were obviously done with full family/parental support. And, we got to see some where it was obvious that the parent’s weren’t as involved, but the child had poured their heart into the garden. The adult gardens were truly spectacular.

Our last stop was at the home of a 90+ year old man whose garden covered his entire yard. He was so sweet. He told us that he wanted to withdraw from the competition because he had just had a stroke and hadn’t been able to keep up the garden the way he should. We included him anyway and he walked (with a crutch on one arm and using a hoe as the other crutch) us all through the gardens telling us about each of the plants.

When it rains...it pours

Well, they say that bad things come in threes... That about sums up our adventures in New Orleans, LA (NOLA, for short).

First- the car....We headed to NOLA with great expectations of a week of fun and house-hunting. When we arrived at the campground, the VW was dead! We called the towing service-Mardi Gras Towing and got it into the VW dealer. The next day, we waited patiently in the motorhome for word on the prognosis. After a full day of working on it, they came back with a repair bill that would exceed the trade-in value of the car. So, we told them to hang onto the car-and started to review our options. We made the trip to the VW dealer- to start to look at our options. We loved the new Jetta...it not only had great acceleration, etc but had the advantage of having a usable back seat (and it was silver--matching our motorhome). Thinking about our future plans for a home in NOLA, we thought that maybe it would be nice to be able to actually be able to fit 4 adults comfortably in a car (avoiding the need for a rental car when we had guests in town...). We got down to negotiating the price (the sales guy, Jose, was wildly excited) when John thought to call the tow gear manufacturer to make sure they had the connecting kit for the Jetta. Well, turns out that they don't (there was a new body style change just two months ago and no one had gotten around to re-manufacturing the plate. Poor Jose-- he was seeing his sale go down the tubes. We finally got to an R&D guy at Blue Ox who said that he'd not only build one for us- but would do it at no cost and install it for free. The hitch....we have to drive to Nebraska! So, in 4 days, we would have to head north to the most boring part of the US....the Plains States.

Well, although we hadn't planned on spending the money on a new car, it really is a joy to drive. So, we spend a few days tormenting our realtors looking at houses--falling in love with them- then finding some minor/major flaw that precluded an offer. We did, however, see some really beautiful homes--giving us hope that that perfect house is out there waiting for us.
On our first day, we saw a beauty- 2 stories with parking and a nice backyard. We did a second look at the house- and found that the improvements that had been made were fairly “self-styled”. It was an obvious Home Depot- “I can do it myself” job. So, we decided to continue the search.
We found another gorgeous home on Laurel Street- a renovated shot-gun with a drop dead wonderful floor plan- for someone like us. They had made the best use of all of the available space- making a huge great room and gourmet kitchen, dining room, den/2nd bedroom that connected to a full bathroom AND a beautiful master bedroom and bath- on the first level. Upstairs were two guest bedrooms. It was a perfect floor plan for us-but something was nagging at us. Why had this beautiful renovation been on the market for so long? We concluded that it was the lack of a formal living room and dining room. Bill and Pat, our realtors, agreed. For some reason, people want that formal space- even if they never use it.

After a few days, the streets were becoming more familiar and we started to get a much better feel for the neighborhoods. Like Boston, it’s a street by street decision. We looked at more properties and saw a stunning house on Pitt Street. It was just on the market- in our price range- and the first showing was for the Realtor Open House day. Bill and Pat gave us the sheet of open houses. We had a few laughs looking at the list and seeing enticements like, “Great Lunch”, “Gourmet Brownies”. It was a bit like offering donuts to training weenies. Anything to get them in the door. We got to Pitt Street first thing in the morning and it was a revolving door of realtors. The house was as stunning inside as out. Bill called it a “small, big house”. It had the feeling of a beautiful old Victorian- with cozy rooms, high ceilings, a renovated kitchen opening to a cozy family room, with a shed in the back and a beautiful little pool and garden. The attention/renovation was done on the ground floor and the upstairs bedrooms/bathrooms would have required work. By this time, we had pretty much decided that rental income would have to be a part of any home purchase….so this one, tempting as it was, was not our dream home. It was priced at $549,000----they had 11 offers on the first day, and it was rumored that the actual selling price came in at well over $600K!
As we left Pitt Street, Bill gave us a call and suggested we look at another property on Chestnut Street. We had done a drive-by the day before and ruled it out based on the neighborhood, but decided to give it a shot. It was our dream house—a recently renovated shotgun—high ceilings, a master bedroom on the first floor, a renovated kitchen, gated driveway (on a brick patio), 2 bedrooms upstairs and a rental unit pulling in $1000/month. The rental unit was completely separate-and even had an entrance on the side street. It seemed perfect. So, doing our typical “let’s sleep on it”, we decided to take a second look the following day. And, as always, there was that something nagging that came up about 3:00 am. I realized that when I took a photo of John and Pat in the living room, there was room for only one more person to sit. Since the kitchen was pinched- and there was no space for an island—it made it almost impossible to envision having another couple over without sitting at the dining room table for any group conversation.

It was beginning to feel a bit like Goldilocks—this one’s too hard, this one’s too soft, but none that were “just right”. We also decided that buying a house now when we've got 6 months of motorhome living ahead of us, a shaky economy and a possible housing bubble was probably not a great idea.

Then- the PC.......In the middle of all the house hunting, we made the enormous mistake of eating dinner on our dining room table with the PC extension open and PC open and powered on. Well, guess what happens when a glass of wine falls onto the keyboard of a laptop. We spend one of our NOLA days at CompUSA--once again, waiting for the diagnosis on our PC and looking for a PC for me. Well, don't ever spill wine on your computer....it's not only sticky on the parts, but it fries everything, including the hard drive. So--we've been starting from scratch reinstalling software and praying that our backup CD's were good to go. We decided to get 2 PC's for our travels (mainly because John has become such a PC hog that I never got any time on it....)

And the worst of all....After the car and the PC, I couldn't imagine what more could possibly happen. During all of this turmoil, Mija took a turn for the worse...getting very lethargic. We knew that she had the beginnings of kidney failure and we watched her go down hill really fast during the week. In our early days in NOLA, we would take a walk then sit outside with her, having a glass of wine and giving her the chance to watch the scene go by. As the week progressed, she wasn’t able to- or interested in walking, but we still sat outside and she would enjoy her view.

On Thursday the 19th, John and Brenda came down to NOLA and we went out to dinner at Liuzza’s, a local dive in Midtown, known for it’s stuffed shrimp and cold beer. When we got back, she had gotten really bad. The night was awful- she would cry out in her sleep and we knew that something was seriously wrong. About 7:00 am, we took her to the emergency all night vet clinic. The doctor said that was only a matter of time and that the best case was keeping her alive for at most a month. She was running a 104 degree fever and showed signs of full blown kidney failure. The decision was a horrible one and we spent the day hanging around the motorhome feeling pretty depressed. The following day, things were a little better, although we still miss old "Spark Plug". As John always said--"She's not much of a dog, but she's all we've got". Honestly, I think that it's hit John as hard, if not harder than me. She was a real presence in our life- particularly in the motorhome and we miss her terribly.

May Rally – May 13th-15th….Almost forgot the Cajun Rally. With the PC fiasco, we decided to go in on Friday rather than Thursday. It was the best decision as re-entry into the Rally scene can be terribly exhausting. We arrived on Friday morning in time for the swap meet. We dragged all of our boxes of stuff into the auditorium and started putting them out. The Cajun guys started to hover. When John arrived to make the announcement that it was all FREE, it was like bees to honey. Our table was swarming with Cajun’s picking it clean. As Brenda once said, “They’ll wrap up a yo-yo as a gift”. Turns out to be more than true. We watched dumbfounded as some of our freebie’s showed up as door prizes the following night! It was hysterical to see the look on this woman’s’ face as she carried back her prize—a very used tachometer.
That Friday was John’s 62nd birthday. Brenda and I decided to pick up a cake that afternoon- and Brenda insisted on the “Older than Dirt” theme…complete with shovel and Oreo cookie crumbles. She also arranged for a Happy Birthday dance. John was asked to the front of the room, seated on a chair and all the women crowded around him- giving him birthday kisses—followed by John in a circle of women, dancing with each and every one of them. He was as red as I’ve ever seen him that night. It was good to be back in the Cajun scene and it really felt like old home week. It also left us feeling absolutely exhausted and ready for a bit of alone time.

Memories of Mija.....

Missing our best friend...

On the road again...

May 1st and we were on the road to Louisiana. Driving behind John in the VW wasn’t as much fun as traveling together- but between walkie-talkies and the 60s station on XM, the time went by fairly quickly. We had avoided the horrible rain storms of the past few days and had a beautiful sunny day for travel. As we crossed out of Florida and into Alabama, I realized that it was our 5th anniversary. Somehow, being on the road again seemed like the perfect way to celebrate. We arrived into Mobile around 5:00 and spent the night at one of our favorite campgrounds there. We were so tired that we opted to stay in and prepare for the “Cajun onslaught” the following day.

On the 2nd, we made it to Cajun Country and headed to John’s “shed”. He was already there, waiting to get us set up. The two guys went out to return the trailer and Brenda Ann arrived with a post anniversary celebration—champagne and appetizers. We grabbed some lawn chairs and sat outside their motorhome garage. It felt like coming home.

The following day, we drove to Baton Rouge to see the Rural Life Museum. It was particularly interesting to see the exhibit as John and Brenda related their own childhood recollections and experiences. We took them out for lunch- their choice of restaurant. John picked the “Great Wall”…..a Chinese buffet. We had our doubts- knowing how much we dislike buffets, but the food was actually pretty good.

On Thursday, they took us into the country to see the sights and sounds of crawfish season. John tried to take a photo of some of the local boys with their catch and was given a most definite “no”. Evidently they didn’t want any photographic evidence of the size of their catch- since it was probably being sold for straight cash. No proceeds going to Uncle Sam. That night, we drove almost all the way to Hammond to a crawfish restaurant know for its’ paper thin cut of catfish. The portions were huge and everything was fried. We had catfish and stuffed shrimp, po-boys and French fries (with bread and butter to round things out).

Farewell to T.G.O!!

We were home from two months in Australia and New Zealand and faced with the task of packing up the house and getting ready for yet another move. Fortunately, this time, we gave ourselves enough time to do it without driving ourselves crazy. Even with all the time, it still was a ball-breaking move. We had two movers arrive on the 19th to pack all of our stuff in the van, drive from the east coast to the west coast of Florida and unload the van into storage. We cut it very close- arriving at the storage unit at 3:00 – with a closing time of 5:00. These two guys literally ran the boxes into the storage unit. No telling if my careful labeling of “Fragile” and “Top Load” made any difference in the placement of boxes. Oh well, it’s just “stuff”.

We had 7 days left at TGO after the official move to get the motorhome ready to function as our new home. That meant not only moving everything in and re-organizing, but also getting all of our PC/cell phone updates, etc. The time went by all too quickly. Bob and Janet had us over for a farewell dinner. It was an interesting evening. We arrived to hear the latest discussions of TGO politics. Seems that even after the last election, the political bickering and hostility has continued. After about 40 minutes listening to the discussions, I felt John’s hand under the table shaking my hand….we were making the right decision to leave.

The closing – on April 26th- was painless- especially since the new buyers weren’t in attendance. They had signed the paperwork and Fed-Ex’ed it in advance of our closing. We signed the papers and took the check to the bank immediately for deposit. Unlike the sale of our house in Boston, there were no second thoughts or sad thoughts at leaving. We had left a few things in the house so we had the VW packed to the gills and boxes all over the motorhome. We looked like true gypsies when we left TGO for the last time. We decided to take the motorcycle and motorscooter up to John and Brenda’s, so we picked up a U-Haul trailer and I drove the VW behind John to my mom’s house.

We dropped off our last few things in storage and took Mom and E.D. out for his birthday dinner at Margarita’s. E.D. reciprocated the following night with a German dinner to celebrate John’s upcoming birthday. It was nice to spend a few days relaxing with Mom. (although, we did have the challenge of setting up her new cell phone).