uhm......still on the road

believe it or not anna and i are still on the road. and over the past six days we havn't really had any internet connection. i know, hard to believe in this day and age in america, but you know, when you're not hanging out in starbucks and traveling hundreds of miles a day and staying in hostels and dives, it can be very hard to get on the internet to get any work done. anyway, a whole helluva lot has happened in the past days and nights. tonight we are in southwestern new mexico, in silver city, on the edges of gila national forest, which is massive, beautiful, and endowed with 30 miles of amazing non stop winding roads. woo-ee. took two hours to go about 50 miles.

anyway starting from the beginning, which for our purposes is nashville tennessee. anna and i reached the outskirts of nashville some time in the afternoon, and right before we got there we ran across this little odd gem of american history called the hermitage, the home of andrew jackson. it was actually really interesting, giving great insight into both the life and times of our seventh president (if i was paying good attention) and slavery in the south. if you're ever in the area and trying to kill time before you go out and drink in nashville you should check it out (assuming you're of the slightly nerdy persuasion). anyway we met up with the pettacia boys (dave and mark) went out to dinner and did nash vegas. for those that have never been nash vegas is about a 5 block strip of honky tonk clubs and cowboy boot shops, which is a blast at night on the weekends if you enjoy bars packed with an odd assortment of southerners living out thier nashville dreams later that night at the kareoke bar down the street, men in big hats, women with big hair, and overtalented bar bands playing tired covers of johnny, merle, and hank. so we did nash vegas for a bit, saw a few bands, and headed back to mark's to crash for the evening. in the morning we headed back into town to walk and explore a bit, didn't see too much worth noting, except maybe the campus of vanderbilt, which was quite lovely with many old dignified magnolia trees.

moving on after nashville we headed to the corner of the state to memphis, which is a different beast entirely. while nashville may be the home of country music in america, memphis is the home of the blues, and in some ways rock and roll. it's where elvis, johnny cash, carl perkins, jerry lee lewis, isaac hayes, booker t and the mg's, and countless others broke into the bussiness. it's the home of graceland and beale street, where you can find authentic blues music any night of the week. we stayed in cabin across the street from graceland, (owned by the presley family) although never actually made it to graceland proper (it was too damn expensive and even from the outside too kitschy). we did at least make it to beale street our first night in town, and caught a great blues band, except when the singer/harps player couldn't get the sound right or was haranging the audience for tips. after a cold night behind the broken heart hotel we toured the daylight side of memphis, visiting the rock and soul museum and the civil rights museum housed in the lorraine motel where mlk was shot. it was a extremely thought provoking day, which i will discuss at length with anyone at a later date, but i'm far too tired to get into that mental depth. somewhere along the way we also walked the banks of the mississippi river, which is in fact big, fast moving (in parts) and muddy.

we left memphis in the late afternoon and headed into arkansas. gotta say it was interesting to see the country flatten out at first into marshland, and finally into the prairie, (by the time we reached oklahoma) but at the same time it is really , really , boring to drive through. luckily we did it at night, which takes the monatony right out of any landscape. we made it through all of arkansas and onto fort smith, which is only notable for being over the border into oklahoma. in the morning we rolled out of bed and kept rolling west. all i found out by travelling through ok was that ok is not a place worth visiting twice. and it's really hard to find a place to eat that's not a chain restaurant. it's kind of like everything unique and individualized in america died first in the reat plains and was replaced by fast food and malls that are visible from space. regardless it seems to work for them, so power to 'em, but fuck that state. excuse my vitirole, but of everywere i've been in the states and beyond i have a hard time thinking of anywhere i disliked being, except for oklahoma. where the wind does in fact come rushing down the plains. and across the highway. makes for some tense white knuckle driving when you got a sail of a cargo carrier attached to the top of your car.

shockingly i thoroughly enjoyed texas. the people there were really friendly, and the landscape was like nothing i've ever seen before. at least in the eastern panhandle. while we were pulling away from a gas station we were flagged down by a crazy texan honking crazily who told us (through open car windows) about half his family history where to go in texas and new mexico, how he was married in new york state, and honey mooned in bethlehem and gettysburg pa. and probably more than that, but it's hard to remember at this point. he also flagged us down again on the high way to tell us about bruce springsteen and cadillacs planted in the ground (again through open windows, this time traveling at 70 miles an hour. anyway we drove down route 66 trying to find a nice dive to eat at in amirillo tx, but the route 66 strip ain't what it used to be, and there wasn't anywere that was both open and free of bikers. so we ended up back on the intersection of i-40 eating at a great texas roadhouse complete with peanut shells on the floor. overall texas was full of friendly people who were fun to talk to. but that was our last hours in texas, cause we made the border of new mexico just a few hours after dinner.

new mexico is just going to have to happen in another post, because too much has happened, and i'm beat. so satiate yourselves on what you've got, and let me go to sleep. hopefully it won't be another 6 days before i get back to it.