Wheresmehat's travel blogs:
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Big Easy to the Big Apple
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Sometimes I think I do these just to wrap my own head around it all. If you can't be bothered to read all the sick details, I think this photo link better summarizes a lot of this anyhow. Now with youtube links to the things I experienced!
http://picasaweb.google.com/jenroams/BigEasyToBigApple
I am currently in New York City for a month seeing friends and meeting new members of my family. My Brother's wife Jen just gave birth to their first child, Lily Norine Macpherson. She came a month early due to complications but is now doing quite well and keeping them up at night.
"Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?" This song got me choked up my last week there. I had an amazing 2 months living with my dear friend Joanne and her new baby boy and making my living by reading tarot in Jackson Square. Both were eye-opening life experiences. I also volunteered at the Jazz Fest and sold some wares at Chaz Fest, a sweet party in some locals backyards. I ate a ton of Crawfish and heard some excellent music. New Orleans is truly a big gaudy jewel in the tiara of American cultural hubs. People there are authentically crazy and life-loving freaks. I love them.
I bid adieu to Mama Jo and munchkin and head back to Austin, TX , for the Burner regional there called Flipside. I met Pharaoh at the Burners without Borders meeting in Mississippi, and he and his wife Susan welcomed me to hitch up with them at the Damn F@$king Texans camp, which is right on the main drag. I also reunited with this awesome girl Michelle, and now she and a boy she met there, Troy, are heading to Thailand to help with the Burmese situation.
Flipside has the same wild and generous communal creedo as Burning Man, but they do it on a hill in hotter, more humid weather and without bicycles. In the day you sit under a tree and drink beer and water until you get up the gusto to head down to the creek. Then you sit in the creek and watch funky, half-naked, American Gladiators battle on floaty platforms and wonder at how much more murky the water gets everyday. The night is your standard collective madness. Good times were had. Funky outfits worn. Heat shockingly brutal.
I head East, hoping the air would cool along the way, but drove right into a heat wave that hit half of the country. My tire popped on the way to Memphis and I pulled over in Dallas and found a last minute couchsurf house with a generous gay couple. One of them, Marty, was just setting off the next morning for an Iron Butt ride, where he rode his motorcyle all the way to San Diego and then up to Vegas and back. We may meet up in Montreal.
I made it to Memphis, where I stayed with a super cool woman named Jennifer and her awesome kids. I like Memphis, it's a very down to earth place with good mellow vibes. A lot of people there talk about it's issues with racism, but hopefully that means it's trying to shake that stuff out. I enjoyed my first traditional black Southern church there, led by the Rev. Al Green . It filled me with the spirit for sure. Can I get an Amen, people?
Took the side roads to Nashville and blasted blue grass along the way. I love 2 lane highways. They make the drive a bit longer but it goes by so much faster. Got to my couchsurf house and immediately was taken by Marky and Amanda to a bluegrass jam session at the Station Inn. While that was great, and Nashville has a better reputation for race relations and all, it just didn't have that authentic flavor of Memphis. Eh, and I'm not so much into country music.
Hit Asheville, NC, where I stayed with these great guys who had a big balcony and brewed their own beer at home. I worked here selling my wares to stores and made out well. It's a great hippie town a lot like Boulder, CO . Super nice people in beautiful mountains.
Next I stayed in Durham with another BwB friend Tony and his girlfriend Carolyn. I talked them into parting with the precious a/c and heading into the 105 record breaking heat to go to this little bluegrass festival I found online called Preddy Fest. They agreed to go if we took our time getting there, and I'm so glad we did. Good Gracious it was hot. We ended up being the 'city folk' at an all hic party. The only shops sold BBQ, Harley Davidson gear, purses, and knives. Everyone rode around on golf carts between the stage and the motor homes. I met a 72 year old man named Rebel who proudly plays Dixie at 9 am every morning. "It's the National Anthem!"
Finally, I stopped off with family friends Martha and Jack, who I haven't seen in 15 years. Great to catch up with them and she got me into James Madison 's Montpelier for free. The 300 year old forest behind it is ethereal.
Arrived in New York in time to meet Mukunda and we toured the city and hung out with my lovely ladies. Then I went out to meet my brand spankin' new niece and my folks who were both visiting as well. Week after that I dove into trying to sell my wares, but on Friday I completely lost my voice. I mean I couldn't produce a resonance at all from my chords. I went to the doctor and he adamantly told me NOT to speak at all, and gave me meds. He did an attentive job but was so serious that he scared the hell out of me. Y'all know all too well how much I love the sound of my own voice. Luckily, it's back and I'm seeing a specialist about it tomorrow.
Feeling physically fine otherwise, I went to a party that night where I met a really cool girl who is a little person and she helped translate my predicament to the people we met. I acted out my non-verbal charades like a confused Marcel Marceau and we danced our booties off with a playwright named Gamal. I spent the rest of the week writing and hoping that I can sell some of it.
The plan post-New York is to head North to Quebec and then shoot back West to go work at the burn. Afterward I shall seek out a homestead somewhere between San Francisco and Portland. I am more than ready to lock down. As much as this trip has been a fantastic journey, my travel habit is starting to smell of a dirty addiction. I am itching to root down long enough to build a community in a place that I intend to return to in case I get itchy feet again. I actually get dreamy at the thought of a routine.
Ah but be careful what you wish for, eh?
Stay cool like Fonzie.
Or fun like Fozzie.
Where I stayed:
Joanne's place
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