Way down yonder !

My first glimpse of the Mississippi

After two and a half days plugging along Interstate 40 I finally turned off about 50 miles short of Memphis and headed….                   South! Yep, that was an unexpected turn, even to me. I picked up on Facebook this morning that Caroline and Jim where heading down to Clarksdale today, so I’ve come down with the hope of meeting up; I’m feeling in need of a bit of a laugh and some good company. I swung into a gas station and dang ma britches, I’m in the deep south! I couldn’t understand a word that was being said. As I sat and enjoyed a cold drink a black guy in the next booth started talking to me about my trip, I felt a complete idiot as I struggled to get to grips with what he was saying. It was worse than being in Gambia!

The Shack up Inn

However, I’m now at the quirky and quaintly named “Shack Up Inn” in Clarksdale, Mississippi, home of the Mississippi Delta Blues, after finally catching up with Caroline and Jim at the Delta Blues Museum. Clarksdale; possible inspiration for the Monkeys hit, is an eclectic mix of old and new; rich and poor, modern and classic. On the way to the Delta Blues Museum, I rode through a part of the town that was virtually empty and derelict, or so I thought; until I saw a young black woman pushing a pushchair with child into one of the buildings; so it seems that at least a few are still inhabited. It was one of those parts of town where you really didn't want to pause for too long. Clarksdale was also home to Ike Turner . Various plaques around the town testify to the fact and also, something I didn't know, that Ike had a band and was playing and singing blues, way before Tina came on the scene

 As we came out of the museum we met one of the Delta Bluesmen; Razorface. We didn't make it to his show at Morgan Freeman’s club, which is almost next to the museum, as we opted to stay at the hotel, where there was also live blues, but Caroline and I both got a signed “Live” recorded CD from him. Something I’ll look forward to playing when I get home.

So once more my trip takes a little bit of an unexpected twist as I set off further south with Caroline and Jim, heading for that iconic city of the jazz world, New Orleans. We should make it by Saturday without too much trouble. So hopefully it will be Saturday night on Bourbon Street! That’s assuming we can get some accommodation in town at a sensible price. It’s funny how things work out sometimes; I’d guessed that as Jim and Caroline were running the Mississippi that they would go to New Orleans, so I’d reckoned on riding with them for just a couple of days before heading back north to Nashville. Now I find out that they too are heading up to Nashville, so if all goes well with us travelling together, we may well end up there together; indeed they are even taking about running the Blue Ridge Parkway… It would certainly round my trip off nicely, travelling with such good company, but I’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out over the coming days.

Of course it won’t have missed your notice dear readers, that when (if!) I get to New Orleans, I will have visited all four coasts of the North America, which will certainly give me something to think about in the years to come. Additionally on this trip I will have traversed the continent north to south and east to west and back again. So a few notches clicked up over the past few months I think.

I want one !!! Captain America here I come...