TravelStream™ news feed for member incajac on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/incajac en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 19 Jun 2006 04:18:15 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1150704840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1150704840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1150704840/tpod.html Mon, 19 Jun 2006 04:18:15 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Tahoe, California, United States

I'm here at Lake Tahoe after a long school year.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1123025520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1123025520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1123025520/tpod.html Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:12:02 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Houston, Texas, United States

It was about 6 hours of driving between New Orleans and Houston, but we broke it up by touring a plantation on the banks of the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge. Called Nottoway, it was one of the largest Antebellum homes in the entire South. After the tour we stopped in Lafayette for a great Cajun seafood lunch.We got to my friend Charles' house in Houston at 7pm. After resting up for a bit we headed out to a local bar where we spent the next three hours drinking bottles of Bud Light with Charles and four of his friends. Afterwards we moved on to another bar and switched over to drinking Jack and Coke. It was quite the Texan welcome, as we drank more that evening than any other night of the trip.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122938220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122938220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122938220/tpod.html Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:10:06 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

The listing for Donna's Jazz Club said there was a show tonight at 9:30 with a $10 cover that included a free CD and all-you-could-eat chicken, rice, and beans between the first and second sets. It sounded like some sort of joke, so I called and the woman on the phone confirmed that what I had read was correct. My former roommate Ethan and his girlfriend Jill had just arrived in New Orleans that day, so we agreed to meet up in the evening to go to the jazz club. It turned out that Donna's was in a shady location on the edge of the French Quarter, and when we got there we only saw 5 other people inside. But by 9:30 people started streaming in, and by the time the musicians started playing there wasn't an empty seat in the entire place. The music was great - they were mostly a group of young guys who had been assembled together by the drummer, Bob French, who was a New Orleans Jazz Old Timer. Bob was a real character - he'd call out to friends in the audience during songs and even stopped playing a couple times to yell at a drunk heckler. Throughout the sets musicians would come and go - there were three different guys who came up to sing as well as a trumpeter and trombonist who each rotated in and out for different numbers.By the end of the first set we were getting hungy since we hadn't eaten any dinner and had been promised chicken and beans in between sets. We waited and waited, but no had food appeared by the time the band started in on the second set. It looked bleak. So bleak was it that by 11:30 Ethan and Dan wanted to leave so we could get food elsewhere. But just as we had given up all hope and were about to walk out the door, a waitress appeared carring a large bowl of rice. She set the rice down on a folding table and then returned to the kitchen to bring out the beans and the chicken. We devoured that food like ravenous beasts...The next morning we heard Bob French on the New Orleans NPR station making fun of the heckler who had been at the show...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122851280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122851280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122851280/tpod.html Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:06:03 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Dan and Ruth and I had a buffet lunch of good ole' fashioned soul food. Menu items included chicken fried steak, fried chicken, biscuits, fried okra, mashed potatoes, peach cobbler, and sweat tea. My mouth was delighted but my arteries must have been pretty upset about that meal.After lunch we drove down to New Orleans and found accomodations at a youth hostel in the Garden District. We got a private room for $60 a night which was a bargain considering the great location. At night we rode the streetcar to the French Quarter where we had an amazing seafood dinner at the Acme Oyster House before downing Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's. Those hurricanes were 22 ounces big, and probably contained 4 or 5 shots of alcohol. So by the time we finished our drinks at 9pm we were feeling quite a buzz. The rest of the evening consisted of people watching on Bourbon St. with an hour break to hear some good jazz music at Preservation Hall.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122764100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122764100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122764100/tpod.html Thu, 01 Sep 2005 02:02:55 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Jackson, Mississippi, United States

Dan and Ruth and I visited the Civil War battlefield of Vicksburg, which along with Gettysburg was one of the turning points of the Civil War. After Vicksburg fell to Grant's army on July 4, 1863, the entire Mississippi River was in the hands of the Union Army. It wasn't quite as exciting of a battlefield to visit as Gettysburg because the battle at Vicksburg consisted of a siege in which the Union forces surrounded the city and just waited patiently until the Confederate Army surrendered due to lack of food and ammunition.For dinner we went to a restaurant in Jackson called Julep's where I had the best fried chicken I've ever eaten in my life. I'm not kidding. This chicken wasn't just finger lickin' good. It was downright amazing...Then after dinner we went to the 930 Blues Club (jesdablues.com) and saw one of the liveliest musical performances I've ever seen. The main singer was this sassy black woman nammed Jackie Bell who belted out blues and R&B tunes that got the audience up on its feet.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122677040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122677040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122677040/tpod.html Tue, 30 Aug 2005 01:10:15 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Jackson, Mississippi, United States

A long day of driving. It was 200 miles from Nashville to Memphis. Then another 200 miles from Memphis to Jackson. But we broke up the driving with a 3 hour break in Memphis where we had some incredible barbeque at the Rendevous restaurant - I ate the Brisket while Dan got the Pork Ribs - and visited the Civil Rights Museum which is located in the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. On our way out of Memphis we passed by Graceland but didn't feel like stopping to fuflill the urge to worship the King...By 7pm we arrived at Ruth's house in Jackson, MS. That evening we went out to a brewpub in downtown Jackson where we listened to a liberal guitar player who made fun of Republicans. It was reassuring to know that there still are some liberals in the Deep South...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1125267840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1125267840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1125267840/tpod.html Tue, 30 Aug 2005 01:09:04 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Nashville, Tennessee, United States

After learning of the existence of the canjo yesterday, we embarked on a mission this morning to get our own canjoes in the town of Gatlinburg. Gatlinburg is one of the most touristy towns I have ever seen in my life - It doesn't just have motels and T-shirt shops, but it's filled with pirate museums and adventure minigolf, sword-selling shops and wax museums (plus, don't forget that Dolly Parton's musical themepark is just a few miles away). So we saw a girl playing a canjo yesterday and she told us she'd gotten it at the craft fair in Gatlinburg. Turned out that the Craft Fair was taking place in the Gatlinburg Convention Center. So we found the place, paid $5 for parking and another $5 each just to get inside the Craft Fair (I'm amazed they can charge people to go inside a building so filled with people selling stuff - Why not just let people go inside for free? Wouldn't that generate more business for the sellers inside?) Anyway, the Convention Center was enormous and we were in a hurry to get to Nashville that afternoon, so Dan and I decided upon a "divide and conquer" strategy. He would take all of the aisles on the left side of the Convention Hall and I would take the aisles on the right side. After walking down aisle after aisle of little booths selling baskets, tapestries, and natural honey, we finally came across the treasure trove: A booth full of guitar-like instruments with one string and a can. The cans were quite varied: Coke, Pepsi, Nestea, Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller, and even Pabst Blue Ribbon. The "craftsman" who had made the Canjoes was a friendly guy, and he also had on display many hand-crafted wood dulcimers. We started talking and when we expressed interested in the canjoes a sort of reverse bargaining took place. He told us the regular price was $25 each per instrument. But then he said he'd give us one for $20 because we were his first customers of the day. In the end we bought two canjoes for $40 (I got mine with a Bud can and Dan got his with PBR). Thus satisfied we got back in the car and set off for Nashville.Today also marked the first time zone change of the journey: Eastern Time to Central Time. We set our clocks back an hour as we drove across Tennessee on our way to Nashville. In Nashville we visited The Hermitage - President Andrew Jackson's estate. Andrew Jackson is Dan's favorite president ever since Dan read Arthur Schlesinger's Dissertation on the Age of Jackson. It wasn't quite as beautiful a house as Monticello, but it had a lot more of the original furniture than Monticello. Plus the people giving the tours at The Hermitage were friendly old ladies rather than the stuck up young Republicans who were leading the tours at Monticello. After the Hermitage we saw the Grand Ole' Opry and then met up with our friend Annie who is a medical student at Vanderbilt.Annie showed us a great time in Nashville. She took us to the Blue Bird Cafe, which is famous for showcasing up and coming country stars. Many folks got their big break at the Blue Bird including Garth Brooks and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The place is small - only 21 tables - and the performers were seated in a circle in the center. There were four musicians, each with just an acoustic guitar and a microphone, who took turns singing ballads about such topics as pickup trucks, their wives, and the virtues of small town life. It was a great performance.Later that evening Annie took us on a whirlwind tour of Nashville nightlife, with stops at a bluegrass music club and two other bars.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1125180900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1125180900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1125180900/tpod.html Tue, 30 Aug 2005 01:04:22 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Great Smoky Mtns, Tennessee, United States

We spent the day in Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The heat wave continued today, and the heat made the sky hazy so that when we walked to the top of Klingman's Dome - at over 6,000ft the highest point in the park - there wasn't a whole lot you could see. We had been planning on spending most of the day hiking but because of the heat we just hiked a 2 mile trail to a waterfall. Along the way we noticed a girl playing a curious instrument made from a soda can, a piece of wood and a guitar string. Once we heard the name of this instrument, a "canjo," we were doubly intrigued. That night we camped in the park and finally succeeded in building a fire, toasting marshmellows and making smores. We finished the entire bag of marshmellows and ate all of the chocolate leaving us satisfied and content not to eat a smore for a long, long time.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122414180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122414180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122414180/tpod.html Tue, 30 Aug 2005 01:02:46 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Asheville, North Carolina, United States

Turns out Tuesday night is the worst night to visit Asheville. I'd been pretty excited about seeing Asheville because of the great things I had heard about the place from friends who had lived there. It was supposed to be a place with great live music, art and hippies in the midst of the mountains of North Carolina. But we picked the one night of the week when there wasn't live music at Jack of the Woods, the local Bluegrass Bar. Plus, the vegetarian Laughing Seed restaurant that had also been highly recommended by a friend was closed on Tuesday. To make matters worse, we arrived in Asheville on one of the hottest days of the entire summer.We spent most of the day in the car driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway, following the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains across western Virginia and North Carolina. Because there's not much traffic on the Blue Ridge Parkway it gave Dan a chance to practice driving, so that by the end of the day he was quite confident at driving with the stick shift.One of the few stops today was at Blowing Rock - a rock in North Carolina that looks out on the mountains and valleys below. It got its name because it you toss a piece of paper or a feather from the rock it will blow back to you rather than falling downwards. Turned out you had to pay $6 per person just to see the rock. Plus it was hazy so the view wasn't that great. Dan and I both agreed that this rock did indeed "blow," but not in the way that the guidebook had said.Anyway, so we finally got to Asheville around 5pm after a beautiful - but long - drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We checked into the youth hostel and were a bit dismayed to see that there was no air conditioning given that the temperature was still in the 90s at 6pm. For dinner we had great food at Salsa's, a mexican-carribean fusion restaurant, although the service was terribly slow and there was no A/C so we sweated buckets while waiting for the food. After dinner we went back to the youth hostel dripping with sweat and found that the temperature had not cooled down even though it was 9pm. So we put our bags in the car and drove to a motel. But it wasn't any motel. It was the Mountaineer Inn. It had a giant 25ft neon mountain man sign out front. And a swimming pool which we jumped into at 9:30pm for an incredibly refreshing swim.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122327000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122327000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/incajac/usaroadtrip/1122327000/tpod.html Tue, 30 Aug 2005 00:55:42 -0400 South by Southwest

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Charlottesville, Virginia, United States

We hiked to the highest point in Shenandoah Park in the morning, then drove to Charlottesville, VA in the afternoon. It was around 100 degrees - "powerful hot" as Dan liked to put it - when we got to Monticello to tour Jefferson's estate. After seeing the mansion and TJ's gravesite we wandered around the campus of UVA with its beautiful neoclassical architecture that was designed by TJ himself.For dinner we went to a UVA campus burger joint called "White Spot" and each ate a Gusburger (a hamburger with a fried egg on it). Then for dessert we shared a "grilswith" which consists of two Krispy Kreme donuts heated on a grill and served with ice cream. It was amazingly delicious because of the way the glaze on the donuts carmelized...From Charlottesville we drove south through Lexington, VA - the most Confederate town in Virginia and hometown to Stonewall Jackson, the Virginia Military Institute, and Washington and Lee University (named after Virginia's two favorite sons - George Washington and Robert E. Lee). Then we pushed on to Roanoke where we spent the night.
]]>