Category: Texas & The Southern States

Rosie and the Operator are flying out to the US today.  A 21 day road trip around Texas, over to Nashville, Memphis and then down the mighty Mississippi to New Orleans  awaits us.

Spring is a suburb of Houston, nothing really but a giant strip mall on the edge of the Interstate.  Turn the corner though and nestled in amongst the industry is Old Town Spring, the original villages cottages and shacks have been turned into an eclectic arrangement of a destination shopping  area.

Fort Worth is hot, a dry heat with no humidity in the air, the mid afternoon sun is glaringly bright and burns into you, the sky is bright blue with not a cloud to be seen. At 4pm the temperature is at its hottest for the day 29c.  Its  Saturday and the town is buzzing with people.

Dallas loomed up out of the flatness like a mirage in the hazy late morning light.  Gleaming glass buildings reflect the sky and lush green trees frame the skyline.  We were headed straight for Wild Bills Western World….The Operator was looking forward to getting his cowboy on and was in the market for a new pair of boots and a hat….Texas style.

State Fair Stats – 500,000 soft toys are won on the midway each year – 600,000 visitor guides are printed each year – 1,800,000 free tickets are given to students across the North Texas Area – 80,000 pounds of pure cane sugar used in 2015 to make cotton candy – 57,500 corny dogs were sold during three hours at the State Fair Football Game.

Onto San Antonio, The Venice of Texas.  So called because the San Antonio River flows through the town.  We are staying right on the edge of the Riverwalk, cars, buses and taxis drive through the city at a crawl during peak hours like they do anywhere.  However, in the city center of San Antonio walk to the nearest bridge and look down…..one storey below street level is where the heart of this city lies.

The Alamo today is hallowed ground to all Texans and represents the Shrine of Texas Liberty because of the famous Battle of The Alamo that was fought there in 1836.  ‘Remember the Alamo!’, is the famous battle cry that is still repeated today as the ultimate ‘no retreat, no surrender Texan catch call.

Check in Lady told us where the best bars are that have the best bands, where the best BBQ and Hot Wings are, the sights we cannot miss seeing, where the best diners are and what time the band starts in the Hotel Bar…’amazing’ said Rosie, ‘even in the hotel bar you have live music, I couldn’t believe they even had live music at the airport arrivals hall’. Check in Lady looked looked sideways at Rosie and said, ‘Darling, this is Nashville, there ain’t no place in town that don’t have live music’…..Check in Lady was not exaggerating, this place is alive with sound.

Nashville by day is just as busy as it is by night….its like no one went to bed, including the bands, I kid you not, every place along Broadway still had music blaring out their still open front windows….and it was only 1000am.

Rosie is shocked, she wasn’t quite expecting the grittiness that greets her, it is such a contrast to glitzy Nashville…Memphis is like a faded photograph of once was, famous Beale Street (above and below) is grimy and run down in the daylight, and so small, it looks like we have just entered the historic precinct of a town, one that is a time capsule of its good times in the 1950s….but, it is full of bars and blues music is coming out the doors.

This whole tour of the house and grounds has been very eerie, the house is a perfect time capsule which seems so intimate and ordinarily normal, the fact that this nearly fifty year old snapshot of a mans life is still so polarizing to me and all these visitors….is amazing too.

The Operators sinuses are suffering, he has a runny nose and keeps sneezing, seems like he is getting a dose of hay, or in this case, ‘cotton’ fever.  The seed heads are all fully burst open and the harvest is under way. Big round bales of wrapped  cotton line the edges of the fields ready to be taken away.

Vicksburg sits high on the bluff and was a natural fortress high above the river, whoever controlled the river controlled the South, Vicksburg was the last place the North needed to overtake in order to stop the Confederate supply lines which ran up and down the river.
 

Back in the day an elephant was gifted by a visiting foreign diplomat to one of the governors of Natchez, they kept the elephant in the back yard and it was a local curiosity.  During a party it was wondered how much beer it would take to get the elephant drunk….apparently the elephant, after consuming a barrel of beer went on a drunken rampage and killed a couple of people and destroyed alot of property…there is still a law in the city ordinances to this day that ‘it is illegal to provide beer and any other intoxicants to an elephant.’

The heat was fierce in the park today everyone was fighting for abit of shade under the trees, a zydeco band was playing some lively grooving sounds, the band had an accordion, guitar and a guy with a metal washboard strapped to his chest that he was banging and scraping.  Good sounds.

Spanish moss romantically drips from the trees, the dripping part is actually the airborne root system. This moss was used back in the day to stuff mattress and chairs….make sure you kill the bugs in it first….
Henry Ford stuffed the seats of the first model T Ford with Spanish Moss, which prompted the first automotive recall to come about when little bugs started creeping out…True

The Operator did a good job, ditching the car…we don’t need it, everything is so close and easily walkable.  We went for a quick trip around the block, everything is so close, it was midday Monday and there were just a nice amount of people wandering around, a jazz band was already playing in the street, and folk were walking, some staggering, with drinks in hand already.  Wowza, this is going to be a cool place. Rosie is excited!

We jumped in a carriage at Jackson Square, this is the heart of the French Quarter and is a beautifully symmetrical park facing the mighty Mississippi….that is hard to tell though with the levees to stop potential flooding being built so high….its a shame, being able to see this mighty river would elevate this town to a whole new, albeit probably lethal level.  St Louis Cathedral stands tall and elegant overlooking the square, it can see the river from its fairy tale like towers.