Alison52

So it’s up early, farewell to downtown Memphis and off to the Hertz office to pick up our car. I was slightly bracing myself for a bit of a heated discussion as we’d booked through an internet site as it was so cheap and most importantly we didn’t get charged a ‘one way’ fee for picking up in Memphis and dropping off in Nashville which seemed unusual but there it was in black and white on the paperwork ‘no one way fee for this rental’. Can’t say it plainer than that. But I was still half expecting a bit of a kerfuffle about it. However, good old Hertz were as good as gold and we even got a bigger car than we’d booked so the other worry about the size of our cases fitting in the ... read more

'Good morning America how are you? Don't you know me I'm your native son, I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans, I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.' The USA is quite sparse on train routes now and people prefer to take a plane. But there seemed something quite romantic about a journey on a train with a great contemporary song attached to it. However, there were a couple of problems..... 1) We were doing the journey in the opposite direction to the song ie FROM New Orleans TO Chicago 2) There was a huge queue of people at the station so although I’d always believed that Americans didn’t stand in lines (that’s a quirk of us Brits) we did have to stand in a queue for about an ... read more

Well, I don’t know about anyone else but I’m getting bored with what’s basically an itinerary – ‘first we did this, then we did that’ – so for our 6 nights in New Orleans I thought I’d write up what we experienced generally rather than any chronological order ......food, history and most importantly MUSIC because New Orleans is like an all-you-can-eat-buffet when it comes to music!!! Actually that’s probably not the best analogy because most all-you-can eat buffets I’ve had promise much but usually end up slightly samey and boring. So perhaps a better description would be a heavenly banquet! As it’s one of the main reasons we wanted to come to New Orleans, perhaps I’ll mention the music first......also to say that over the past year I’ve loved watching the TV series ‘Treme’ which is ... read more

Day 2 of our trip down to Louisiana and no music today - but lots of history. Driving through more farming country we saw lots of mainly uninhabited sharecroppers’ shacks. Sharecroppers were really only one step up from slavery and life was tough. Mechanisation eventually took the place of manual labour and I guess people migrated to the cities to find work. We also saw some places where original sharecropper shacks have been updated slightly (air-conditioning installed etc) and people are flocking to rent them for a holiday. One place near Clarksdale called the Shackup Inn holds regular Blues festivals there so it’s very lively but others are in the middle of nowhere and have nothing to do but relax or fish. First stop today, Vicksburg which has lots of Civil War history. The old court ... read more

After breakfast (with Elvis of course) we set off for the Stax museum. Back in my teens I loved Soul and Motown music; still do actually, especially the 60's stuff. So I was really looking forward to seeing this place but I hadn't realised quite how much there was to learn. Alongside the museum is a school called Soulsville Music Academy. What a cool name for a school! 'Oh I'm a graduate of Soulsville' has a certain ring to it. Musically gifted children can win a scholarship and standards and expectations are very high so the pupils take their education extremely seriously. It’s very strict, for example there is no talking in the corridors and any pupil out of the classroom has to carry a text book! But it seems to work and is giving a ... read more