Over the Hill and Far Away……….

It feels rather strange writing this final episode in my squalid man-cave back home rather than some equally squalid (at least after we’d been in it overnight) hotel room in somewhere roughly equidistant between the somewhere we were the night before and the wherever we would be in a few hours’ time.

It would be fair to say that our final day was not the most enjoyable of the trip. We rose quite early and downed a quick breakfast in the hotel. The quite elderly lady presiding over the dining room told us she was originally from Nottingham but had lived over in the US for 35 years although she still retained her UK citizenship. We listened politely while Mark had his cereal and I had my “biscuits and gravy” (although I always struggle to think of scones and white sauce in those terms). 

We were on the road about 9.30 and were a bit disconcerted to realise that although New Orleans was only 77 miles away the airport was another 15 or so miles beyond that and we’d have to negotiate the urban freeway traffic to get there.

The journey was reasonably straightforward. The armadillos were being particularly coy and we didn’t notice any, although Mark claimed to have seen two alligators. As we got closer to NO we found ourselves in the middle lane on one side of a 12 lane highway with not much idea where we were going. At one point my clumsy attempt to swap lanes elicited a shriek of terror from my co-pilot and nearly caused a multiple pile-up. While this would have resulted in a cacophony of horn-blowing and a frenzy of gesturing back home, here the reaction was strangely muted. I can only assume that the fury of other road users is tempered by the expectation that the object of their ire might well have an assault rifle on the back seat of their car.

Despite this mishap we arrived at the car-hire drop off in reasonably good time and headed for the check-in. We hadn’t been able to check in on line couldn’t get the airport machines to work either but an attendant managed to do it for us, which sort of negated the point of it but was nevertheless very welcome. We then went through Security without incident only to be told that all the shops and bars were back outside and although we could go out to them we would need to go through the security procedure again when we came back. We opted to do that and I purchased a large bag of expensive tat to take back with me. The second time through security we both fell foul of the scanners and our backpacks were searched and swabbed for explosives. Having got through that lengthy process we realised that we had been misinformed and in fact there were ample shops and bars on that side and we hadn’t needed to go out at all!

Our delight at finding a bar was somewhat dampened by being charged $25 for two (American) pints of beer. However this setback was not sufficient to prevent us buying a second round. While getting something to eat, Mark was flattered to be told that he reminded the server of a movie star, although I wouldn’t have thought she was old enough to remember Lon Chaney Jnr (anyone under 50 may need to Google that reference).

We boarded on time and the flight to Philadelphia went without incident. We only had about an hour there to get from one terminal to another but unlike the outward journey our baggage had been transferred direct to the onward flight and to our relief we didn’t have to go through security again. So we even had time for our last drink on American soil and only got charged $15 for two pints this time.

Our joy at making the connection with time to spare and then boarding on time was tempered somewhat by being kept on the tarmac for two hours in stifling heat while they faffed about trying to load the catering supplies. To add insult to injury, when we finally took off and the meal was served it was virtually inedible and the flight attendant served the free wine with all the reluctance of a disapproving father-of-the-bride at a Methodist wedding.

We arrived back in Manchester just before 10am on May 17th feeling somewhat frayed around the edges but otherwise intact.

So how, I hear you ask, was the trip overall? What is it like spending 17 days sharing hotel rooms with a man who has elevated flatulence to an art form? How did you live with the fear that you would wake up one morning to find that Mark had metamorphosed into a giant oyster? Why does every hotel have a “fitness suite” that is always empty and a waffle machine that is always oversubscribed? Well the trip was great and as to the other questions, it’s probably best that they remain unanswered! 

As we didn’t get chance to take many pictures on the last day I thought I’d leave you with these, starting with a rendition of Paul Revere’s ride, a map of our travels and moving swiftly forward to something that we saw in an edition of USA Today.

We were in no rush to set off today as we didn’t have a great deal of distance to cover until our next, and penultimate, destination on this trip. Biloxi was about 178 miles away, although we crossed three state lines – Florida, Alabama and Mississippi to get there. It shouldn’t have taken more than about 3 hours  if it hadn’t been for the traffic (and traffic lights) on the first 50 miles of the journey. We went through Destin West, which looks rather like Benidorm-on-the-Gulf, before reaching Interstate 10 which we followed for most of the rest of the journey. 

We clocked the deceased-armadillo-of-the-day at the halfway mark around 90 miles – it was clearly playing hard to get today. The largest place we went through was Mobile which is a large seaport and has the WWII battleship Alabama moored as a museum ship. 

Apart from that the trip was uneventful and aside from a last minute satnav malfunction we got to the hotel without too much trouble. It’s an old-style motel badged as a Best Western and seems to be perfectly comfortable. It’s also close to the sea although that  can only be reached by a relatively short walk and a rather hair-raising crossing of a six-lane highway. The pedestrian crossing lights allow about 30 seconds to cross which they count down as you go. While we were waiting we noticed a grizzled oldster at the other side waiting to cross and had a small bet as to whether he could make in within the allotted 30. He cheated slightly by taking off like an arthritic hare about 5 seconds before the light turned to green and he actually made it to his side before we reached ours. He’d obviously had lots of practice.

The other side of the highway seemed to be a replica of Las Vegas with enormous casinos lining the road. 

Having survived the crossing we made for the Small Boats Harbour which provides moorings on one side for commercial fishing boats and on the other, for privately-owned pleasure craft. Overlooking the harbour was our destination, McElroy’s Harbor House seafood restaurant. The place  is built up on pilings so it has a great view over the harbour but it also serves the practical purpose of ensuring the place doesn’t get washed away when the hurricanes come in.

The meal was fine, although not the best meal we’ve had over here. The oysters were up there with the best but the seafood platter loses out to Wintzsells. On this occasion, Mark’s balls were a bit crispy but that may be due to the amount of time we’ve spent on the road. 

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It was delightful sitting out on the restaurant balcony on a balmy evening, watching the sun set over the Gulf as the pelicans glided by on the warm breeze while we reflected on our trip. The bike part was undoubtedly the best but having the car enabled us to cover more ground and arrive refreshed and ready to explore (albeit that the exploration never seemed to take us much further than the nearest seafood restaurant and bar!).  When we first met in primary school all those years ago who’d have thought that we’d be sitting here in Biloxi, looking out over the sea, eating and drinking too much and talking about all the places we’ve been and the miles we’ve covered in this amazing country. It still remains so familiar yet so alien at times. We’ve now seen all the parts that we wanted to see when we first made our plans about ten years ago. So I don’t suppose we’ll be coming out here again together, which is sad in a way but there’s a satisfaction in the sense that we’ve accomplished what we set out to do and its now time to turn to other things. 

Tomorrow we drive back to New Orleans. It’s only about 77 miles and we’ll go straight to the airport and drop the car off. After that we’ll spend about the next 24 hours travelling so there’ll be no blog posts. I’ll write a final summing up on the trip once we get back. 

There was no rush to set off today as we had only a relatively short hop to Destin in Florida ahead of us. The day was pleasantly warm and cloudless. After a last check to ensure that I had my passport this time (and hadn’t been given the passport of Mr Hagleshaw) we were on our way. The satnav took us by a bewildering series of County roads with low speed limits but we made good progress.

The deceased-armadillo-of-the-day made its appearance at the 45 mile mark but we saw no more alligators today. It being Sunday in Alabama, the airwaves seemed to have been taken over by religious broadcasting and the only non-religious (or at least not too overtly religious) station we could find was the “Country Top 40 on 98.9”. This turned out to be a dismal collection of songs about painful separations, trucks failing to start, dogs dying and the inevitable bar stools. In desperation we tried the jazz CD that we had both bought off a group of street musicians in New Orleans but this turned out to be 12 tracks that sounded like variations on the same tune with the same backing track playing. We finally settled on the playlist from Mark’s iPod, which, while it probably reveals more about his state of mind than I would ordinarily care to know, at least contained some tunes that one could hum along to. We stopped briefly to swap over the driving at a rather nice wooded rest area somewhere about half way.

We made good progress overall, didn’t need to stop for gas, and got to Destin around 1pm. Check-in wasn’t officially till 4 but they found us a room straight away. The place we are staying is a Best Western hotel in the middle of a vast retail park.  Along with the Cat Clinics there was a place that was intriguingly offering “Free Smells” – we decided that we get enough of those in our room each morning and swiftly moved on.

We dropped our stuff off and headed for the beach. It was disappointing to find that the public beach turned out to be a strip about 20m wide between two private beaches. However its possible to walk along the sea shore on the private beaches provided you don’t have the temerity to try to take more than a few steps inland. This walk led to a much larger public beach where we stopped and even had a little swim in the sea. I suspect there may be some local ordinance prohibiting men of our age from wearing swimming trunks but we seemed to get away with it on this occasion. 

Following all this exercise in 80 degree plus heat we were badly in need of  rehydration and took ourselves off to Millers Ale House for some well-earned refreshment. 

After that it was all downhill, we went back to the hotel for a shower and then back out to find some food. As it’s Mother’s Day here, the restaurants were all doing a roaring trade but we managed to get a table at the Outback Steakhouse, where for once we didn’t overdo the seafood.  However Mark managed to procure an lobster tail to go with his steak and I had shrimps with mine. For perhaps the first day since the trip began we didn’t have oysters!

After that we had a couple of glasses of wine at another bar and staggered back to the hotel. Our next (and final) stop before we return to New Orleans is Biloxi which is about 170 miles along  the coast in Mississippi.

We were up early today under stormy skies to set off on the nearly 500 mile drive back to Greenville, necessitated by me having left my passport there! We took the road to Savannah and from there we went onto Interstate 16 over to Macon in Georgia and from there down a series of State highways to Alabama and Greenville. We let the satnav do the work and pootled along enjoying the sights and trying to keep out of trouble. At one point the right-hand lane was blocked by an incident involving three police cars and a fire tender. As we passed we saw that they were all peering under the bonnet of a stranded pickup truck. 

As it turned out, apart from a terrifying thunder storm, the drive was quite pleasant. We spotted the deceased-armadillo-of-the-day quite soon, at only 40 miles out, but without doubt the most spectacular roadkill spotted today was the alligator! We were so impressed we had to turn back and go past it again and get a photo. Judging by the size of the thing, whatever hit it must have been fairly substantial as there was no sign of any wreckage that you’d have expected if it had tangled with anything smaller than an 18 wheeler. 

A bit further along we saw another armadillo lying on its back on the hard shoulder but frankly, after the alligator, it was wasting its time if it thought we were going to be impressed. 

The aforementioned thunder storm  appeared just around Dublin but before we reached Dudley (seriously, we passed both places on the journey today). We could see it brewing up ahead as it got progressively darker apart from the lightning flashes that periodically lit up the sky. The rain came down like stair rods and visibility dropped to a few yards. It got quite frightening at times particularly as the conditions didn’t seem to be diminishing the enthusiasm of some of the truck drivers and they were going past at speed, adding their spray to the already ridiculously heavy rain. It was very difficult to judge distances and at one point all we could see was vehicle hazard warning lights ahead without being able to tell if they were stationary or even how far ahead they were. It was also necessary to keep going on at a reasonable speed as we had no idea what might be coming up behind us. 

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However we survived and once we got past that the sky gradually started to clear and the temperature rose until by the time we reached Greenville it was warm and sunny. We checked into the hotel and I was able to retrieve my passport and other stuff. The staff here are lovely and I knew they’d kept them safe for me but it was reassuring to have them back in my own hands. I shall try not to lose them again on the rest of the trip….

One of the compensations for being back in Greenville is Wintzell’s Oyster House which is only a short walk from the hotel. We ate there last time we were here and had really enjoyed it. We weren’t disappointed by our return visit. We started by sharing a plate of 16 oysters cooked with a variety of of toppings and then had the same broiled seafood platter that we had before. All this was washed down with a couple of pints of the local brew. The only somewhat disconcerting feature was when a shaven-headed chap with a beard wandered in with a handgun in a holster at his waist. Alabama is a state that permits open carrying of firearms in public but we did wonder why someone would want to wear one for a meal out with his family. Perhaps he was expecting to have to defend himself from a marauding shrimp. 

Tomorrow we are going to Florida. It should only be a relatively short drive of about 200 miles. We are staying at a place called Sugar Balls  Sands just outside of Destin, which is just to the right of Pensacola. 

We were under no time pressure for a change this morning so we had a leisurely morning and caught up with some laundry before taking the taxi into town. It was the same driver so we got another fascinating historical commentary as we travelled. This was really useful as he pointed out to us the various places that were worth a visit.

It was a baking hot day again and after walking down to the waterfront we were badly in need of refreshment so we repaired to the Lagunitas bar again. As we walked along, people watching, Mark repeated his long-held belief that shorts should only be provided to men over 50 on prescription. I have to say that we saw many examples to support that hypothesis. Once we got to Lagunitas,  one pint inevitably led to another, and another, and then we then staggered off to have a wander through the old streets and visit the museum. 

There was a real sense of history in the old part of town which we have rarely encountered in other towns, apart from Boston. There are lots of fascinating old buildings from back when South Carolina was the most prosperous British colony in North America. There appeared however to be some reticence to acknowledge the fact that much of that prosperity seems to have been based on slavery. It was shocking to realise that public slave auctions were held here as comparatively recently as the 1850s. 

The museum that we visited is housed in what is called the Provost House as it was the headquarters of the British military Provost Marshall during the War of Independence. It was originally the Exchange Building, where goods were traded and stored, and once hosted a visit by George Washington amongst others. We were taken round by guides dressed in period costume and visited the cellars where the British had kept their prisoners during the war. I also managed to get a rare picture  of Mark writing to the folks back home.

One building had a plaque on it commemorating a visit by Gerald Ford in the 1970s and it was striking, in the light of recent events, to remember that there was a time when people had thought that he had seemed like an unwise choice for President!

We noticed a few tours passing by on horse drawn wagons. We had to admire the courage of the people sitting up there in this sort of heat with a horse farting continuously in their faces.

Our favourite taxi driver picked us up again in town and took us back to the hotel. After I called him he promised to be with us in 6-8 minutes and for the first time was a little late (maybe 5 minutes or so). To our surprise, when we got back to the hotel he initially refused to take payment on account of him having been late. It was quite a struggle to get him to accept our money. On the way back, after some hair-raising stories about idiots on the freeway he confessed to owning a motorcycle. We didn’t bother to ask what sort as it was all too obvious. He said he mainly used it for riding round the town and we shamefacedly realised that he is exactly the sort of person we have made rude remarks about on more occasions than we choose to remember. 

After a short break to shower and change and generally recover at the hotel, we settle off downtown again. Our taxi driver hadn’t had any other calls so had been sitting in the hotel lobby since he’d dropped us off. We went back into the same area of town and ate yet more seafood. The only notable features were that I had grits (which is a sort of porridge) with my prawns and Mark’s balls weren’t coated in sugar this time. After that we stopped off at Lagunitas for a last drink and listened to the live music that they had on.

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Then it was back in the same taxi for the trip to the hotel. It was quite sad to say goodbye to the driver (who’s also called Mark – or maybe Marc) and have him look me in the eye and say with apparent sincerity, “You come back and see us again”. In truth Charleston is one of the nicest places we have stayed at on our American travels and would certainly be worth a return visit some time. 

We set off from Milledgeville about 10.20 and let the satnav direct us (or Mr Hagleshaw – whom it continues to believe us to be)  to Charleston. It seemed to want to take us by the interstate highways, which is not the shortest way but is probably the quickest. We rolled along perfectly happily listening to 106.3 again and then, when we lost that, picking up something that had “Oldies” in its title. Whether it was a station for oldies or that it played oldies wasn’t entirely clear but either way it seemed to work for us. 

As usual there were lots of trees to look at and more churches than one might have thought strictly necessary, while the houses ranged from grand mansion-style places to little shacks by the side of the road. We also passed by some curious place names such as “Somewhere” and “Rattlesnake Crossing”. Rattlesnakes are indigenous to parts of North Carolina so perhaps that’s where they cross the road. We also spotted the deceased armadillo-of-the-day about 80  miles out from Milledgeville around where we crossed the Savannah River into North Carolina. We stopped to refuel the car and ourselves at a distinctly unfriendly gas station and Subway just past Augusta.

As we approached Charleston on the freeway the traffic started to get heavy and it got steadily worse the closer we got to our destination. However we were managed to find the hotel without too much trouble and checked in at about 3.45. There’s a lot of construction work going on in the area and it’s very noisy, to the extent that the hotel is offering complimentary earplugs! Our window on the 7th floor looks directly out onto the site but just beyond that we can see the river and a yacht basin on the waterfront. The photo on the left below was taken with a telephoto lens pointed just to the right of the right-hand crane in the second picture and is no doubt the one that the hotel would prefer to use in its publicity brochure. 

At the hotel we paused to unpack, recharge electronic devices and connect to the wifi. Possibly because we are up on the 7th floor the connection is a bit iffy and the only network available at one point was listed as “Schnibbe’s iphone” (I’m assuming Schnibbe may be an associate of Hagelshaw). We then wandered down and asked the hotel to get us a taxi into downtown Charleston. The taxi arrived promptly, driven by what appeared to be the lost member of ZZ Top.  He turned out to be a really interesting and informative character who gave us a running commentary as we drove in. He actually recommended a British pub where they reputedly serve the best fish and chips outside the UK. He also pointed out an intersection called the Four Corners of Justice (or Law) which has a church, the City Hall, the County Courthouse and the Post Office and Federal Courthouse on each corner. The saying goes that at least one of them will get you eventually!

 We got dropped on Queen Street near the sea front, where there are plenty of bars and restaurants. We opted to start at a place called Lagunitas that has its own brewery as a visible presence on the premises. We drank a very agreeable couple of (American) pints of the local brews before  (surprisingly) moving on to an oyster house. I had two pilsners while Mark’s second pint, which was served in what appeared to be a jam jar, apparently had the pleasantly grapefruity afternotes of an IPA. 

For the meal I started with a raw oyster shooter (a shot glass containing an oyster, a measure of vodka, some Tabasco sauce and some mysterious green liquid) followed by southern fried oysters and then a couple of shrimp tacos. Mark went for a dozen raw oysters followed by the oyster platter (the more observant of you may have noticed a theme developing there). Mark also ordered a side of quinoa that he didn’t really want, just to check how it was pronounced over here. This was all very delicious apart from the oyster platter which consisted of some battered oysters, some garnish, some crisps,  and some undefined spherical objects that had been dusted with icing sugar. Apparently Mark thought the oysters were OK but his sugared balls didn’t really hit the spot. 

After that we walked the short distance back to Lagunitas and got another beer while I called the taxi guy to pick us up. He arrived dead on time again  and got us back to the hotel, again giving us a commentary on local history as he went. As he dropped us off he told us that his family had been French Huegenots who had fled to England to escape persecution and had been resettled in the Carolinas, so he felt a sense of gratitude to the English Crown although his ancestors had been quite happy to kick the Brits out when we’d overstayed our welcome!

Tomorrow we’re not driving anywhere and we’re planning to have a gentle stroll round Charleston and see the sights. 

It was another hot day here in the Deep South. Nothing remarkable occurred this morning apart from me being accosted in the hotel lobby by a lady with a Zimmer frame asking me if I had a knife on me! To my embarrassment I had to confess that at that time I didn’t and it turned out that she needed one to open the bubble pack for her medication. After that brief frisson of excitement we left Greenville at about 10am and got back onto the Interstate with a mixture of religious and Country stations playing on the radio. The musical highspot, that we both sang along to, had to be someone singing that he liked the rain because the rain made the corn grow and the corn made the whisky and the whisky made his girlfriend “frisky”. I assume that was on one of the country stations as it didn’t sound very religious somehow. 

The journey was mainly uneventful. No armadillos among the roadkill today as far as we could see. The only thing out of the ordinary that we experienced was a stoppage due to a pick-pickup truck on fire on the hard shoulder with the fire department busy putting it out. Once we got past that, apart from the occasional roadworks, it was all plain sailing. We even managed to locate  “Q106.3 Middle Georgia Rock Station” on the radio. As they seemed to be locked into the same 70s/80s timewarp as us we happily rocked along with them for the rest of the journey.
Just about 200 miles out with about 50 miles to go we stopped at a gas station to swap over the driving. I looked in my backpack for something and made the heart-stopping discovery that I’d left a packet of papers with my passport in it back at the hotel in Greenville!! This was truly a senior moment, although in my defence I have to say that changing hotels every day and packing and unpacking does tend to get a bit disorientating after a while. It looked like we might have to turn back and do the 200 miles in reverse. I made a frantic phone call to the hotel (The Hampton Inn) and they couldn’t have been nicer. They told me they had my stuff safe before I’d even had chance to explain the problem and they are happy to hold on to it or send it on to me. Fortunately there’s nothing in the packet that I need at present so we can swing by and pick it up on the return leg. It will take us a bit out of our way but compared to the disaster it might have been, a few more hours on the road is a small price to pay.

We passed through Macon on the freeway at about 25 miles from Milledgeville and after a short while took a detour because Mark wanted to visit a place (or maybe I should say a plaice) called Haddock. I suppose it was appropriate given the seafood-related nature of the trip. It turned out to be quite a pretty little town with a gas station, antique shop, postal depot, bank and lots of well-kept houses by the side of the highway. The only thing that could have improved it would have been for the next town along to be called Chips. 

After Haddock we spent another 20 minutes or so getting to Milledgeville and our hotel. When we arrived the outside temperature was reading 93F. The hotel is another Hampton Inn which seems perfectly comfortable (although I was a little disconcerted that the desk clerk felt it necessary to thank us three times for choosing to stay with them during the course of a short conversation). There is a shopping mall nearby and a Longhorn Steakhouse so we opted to eat there tonight. After a starter of calamari for me and chicken for Mark (both of which came coated in sweet chilli sauce) we had a very decent steak each,  although once again the side orders left a little to be desired. I had the roasted carrots which came smothered in a sweet glaze and Mark’s spinach was lurking somewhere under a layer of cheese sauce. Only my asparagus, which would have been perfectly entitled to have come with melted butter or hollandaise sauce, managed to arrive untainted. However as it was our only meal today it went down very well. 

Following the meal we tottered back to the hotel, or rather, scampered across a four lane highway then tottered back. 

Our next stop is Charleston which is on the coast in South Carolina. 

Mark awoke yesterday morning and announced that not a drop of alcohol would pass his lips today, his body was a temple (presumably in the classical sense of a semi-ruinous ancient structure that has seen better days), and he was confident that he was going to feel better for it. We checked out of our hotel at 11am and took a taxi to the airport where the car hire place was located. The taxi driver couldn’t seem to decide which lane he wanted to be in on the highway and spent much of his time looking at his phone as he swerved in and out. However a sign in the cab warned us that if we chose to kill him we would be liable to be executed, so we thought it best just to let him get on with it.

As usual nothing was as simple as we’d expected and we couldn’t find the car hire office when we got to the airport. Eventually we came upon it rather by accident and spent a happy half hour filling out forms and finding out we hadn’t ordered what we thought we’d ordered.  It seems that we have booked a medium-sized SUV but the make and model is left to chance, so we stood in the parking garage wondering what was about to appear. Fortunately, although it wasn’t a Jeep, it turned out to be a Nissan Pathfinder rather than a Toyota Yaris. Anyway it was big enough to comfortably accommodate us, our luggage and probably the Band of the Coldstream Guards had they chosen to join us again. 

Mark took first shift on the driving and after a fierce hand to hand struggle with the satnav, which for some reason, as yet unexplained, insists on greeting us with “Good morning Andrew Hagleshaw”, we found our way onto our old friend the I-10. It was nice for me to be able to just sit back and enjoy the view and take a few photos as we drove along over Lake Pontchartrain and the bayous. The Pathfinder is quite fast and comfortable although it struggles to manage more than 25 miles per gallon, however with gas at just over $2 dollars a gallon that’s not a major issue. We trundled happily along listening to Country music  on the radio (mostly involving songs about people whose trucks won’t start and whose best friends are bar stools) from station K99 FM in Biloxi. 

We crossed from Louisiana to Mississippi and then into Alabama (where a sign greeted us with “Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama”) on the I-10 and we then picked up the I-65 just before Mobile. Just inside Alabama we stopped at Grand Bay (which appears to consist solely of a branch of McDonalds) to swap over the driving. Leaving there we swiftly spotted our squashed-armadillo-of-the-day by the side of the highway before passing by places with exotic names like Chickasaw and Satsuma. We kept up a steady pace and arrived in Greenville just before 5. On checking into the hotel we learned that with it being just a small town (pop. approx 8000) it didn’t possess a taxi service and it was 4 miles from the hotel to the centre of town. Fortunately it turned out that there was a place called Wintzell’s Oyster House just a couple of hundred yards away, so we took a stroll down there. You may be surprised to hear that oysters featured on the menu. For a roadside place in the middle of a retail park it was surprisingly pleasant.  After a certain amount of confusion in the ordering “You say tom-ay-to, I say tom-ar-to”; “you say oak-ra, I say ock-ra”, we settled down to fried green tomatoes for me, half a dozen oysters for Mark and a rather delicious platter of seafood each to follow. It’s probably one of the best meals we’ve had so far. In case you are wondering about the beer on the table, it appears I had misunderstood Mark this morning, he was in fact referring to not drinking tomorrow (or maybe the next day)! On the positive side however our alcohol consumption was limited to two American pints (which are 3/4 of a British pint) with the meal. We did buy a six-pack of beer from the local Walmart to take back for a nightcap but as I was just opening the second can of it I happened to notice we’d managed to get the non-alcoholic version! 

The advantage of using the car rather than the bikes is that we can cover a lot more ground and we arrive in much better shape at the end of the journey so have more time to get out and, errr, explore – and today was an excellent example of that!

We are now planning to get to Milledgeville in Georgia which is roughly 260 miles east of here. There’s a place by the same name in New Brunswick, Canada which is 39 hours away according to the satnav. If you don’t hear from us for a day or two we may have gone there by mistake……..

The night in Jackson was slightly more peaceful than the previous one, broken only by a Hong Kong financial company phoning Mark at 5am to try to interest him in some investment opportunities for the Gallacher millions. They received a somewhat terse, two word reply.

We got back on the road just after 10 for the relatively short return journey to New Orleans. It turned out we had only about 180 miles to travel and it was all on the interstate. We managed to navigate our way out of Jackson without too many dramas and found the I-55. That took us across the state of Mississippi and we crossed the state line into Louisiana at just 90 miles. We stopped soon after that, at a place called Kentwood, whose only claim to fame – as far as we could see – was to be the next town along from Tangipahoa. The gas station did seem to offer a rather exotic line in snacks, but as we were on track to arrive in NO early afternoon we managed to resist the temptation and save ourselves for later. 

As we left the gas station a chap asked Mark what sort of bikes we were riding and commented that he had never heard of Triumphs before although he had apparently once cleaned a BMW. As we chatted to him Mark noticed what appeared to be a bullet hole in the rear wing of his car!

There were a few other motorcyclists out today and we exchanged the occasional “low five”. For those of you new to the blog, this is the term we invented to describe the way in which motorcyclists acknowledge each other over here. It involves briefly holding the left arm out at about 45 degrees below the horizontal and splaying out the fingers of the left hand for the time it takes to cross with a bike coming from the opposite direction. Most bikers seem to do it although some Harley Davidson riders are too important to acknowledge anyone who isn’t  wearing a plastic replica of a WWII German helmet while riding a bike like theirs.

Apart from that the ride was fairly uneventful. We kept up a steady 70 or so most of the way and made good time. It was rather alarming though to see how many people were cruising past us in the fast lane while texting on their phones! Mark spotted another armadillo that hadn’t quite made the crossing. As we got closer to NO the road was raised up on pilings for miles as we crossed the bayous and then Lake Pontchartrain. I googled it later and found that it is actually called the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and at 23.83 miles is the longest continuous bridge in the world. 

Shortly after that the I-55 becomes the I-10 into NO. The traffic was very heavy with big trucks passing either side of us on the 3 lane highway. This was a little unnerving as we weren’t entirely sure where we were going. However, Mark, with a little help from the satnav got us back to Eagle Rider. Had it been left to me. I suspect we’d still be out there somewhere. We finally covered 185 miles, making our total for the trip on the bikes 1370 miles. It was sad to see the bikes go back but we should be able to cover more distance in a car in the next week.

We returned the bikes and got a taxi to our hotel – a Holiday Inn Express in the centre of the town. We had to wait till 3pm to check in but found ourselves in probably the largest hotel room we’d ever been in. You could fit four double beds in here and still have room for the Band of the Coldstream Guards. 

After a quick change we set off towards the French Quarter of New Orleans. Our brief foray last week hadn’t touched very much of it and we had a very pleasant mooch around looking at the historic buildings and listening to a variety of street musicians. 

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The house in the photo on the left above is called the Napoleon House because allegedly the then owner offered Napoleon refuge there after Waterloo. However, as far as I know, Napoleon never got anywhere near America in 1815, so this seems like rather a tenuous claim to fame. We then had a couple of beers and tried to eat our own weight in oysters. We started with some raw ones, then after a starter of calamari and shrimp we each had a fried oyster poboy. I think we may have overdone the oysters slightly but it may be at least another 12 hours till we get to eat seafood again!

On the walk back to the hotel we spotted a tram which had derailed as it tried to switch from one track to another. A number of people in fluorescent jackets were standing around it scratching their heads and looking nonplussed while a number of other trams were stopped further down the tracks. It didn’t look like anyone would be going anywhere by tram for a while. It should however enable us to tick off another song as I’m sure there must be plenty of country music that features train derailments.

Today we pick up the car and plan to get to Greenville Alabama. 

The hotel we stayed in at Shreveport seemed to be some sort of haven for partying youngsters, The group in the room next to us managed to keep going all night. Various voices shouted out “Oh My God” in shrill Texan accents at regular intervals throughout the night and then someone decided it would be a good idea to watch TV at 5am. So unsurprisingly we were awake fairly early and, if not well rested, at least ready to make an earlyish start on the next stage of our journey.

We’d decided to take the Interstate today as the I-20 was a direct route from Shreveport to Jackson. However there weren’t many opportunities to stop and take photos along the way. The ride was pleasant enough but unremarkable. The Interstate was mainly 2 lanes in each direction with a wide, grassy, and at times wooded, central reservation. There was also a wide grassy area to our the right before the trees started. This was quite reassuring as there seemed to be plenty of relatively soft landing places to go if we needed to get out of the way of marauding 18 wheelers and pickup trucks. We did pass a car wreck along the way at one point, which must have just happened because the State Troopers were still trying to clear the road. Fortunately, although the cars involved didn’t look like they would be going anywhere soon, there didn’t seem to have been any serious injuries.

One of the most exciting parts of the ride was seeing signs saying “Beware of Bears” along a 13 mile stretch of the road in Louisiana. We also stopped off to top up the tanks simply because we could do so in a place called Bolton, although we found it consisted of a gas station and little else. The best moment however was crossing the Mississippi River at Vicksburg as we neared the end of our journey.

We got to Jackson, Mississippi just before 4pm, after about 215 miles on the road, and were able to find our hotel in the downtown area with the aid of the satnav. The hotel itself is very upmarket, probably the best place we have stayed on any of our American trips. It even had valet parking although the chap said he wasn’t authorised to park bikes! It is, however, located in a very run down area of central Jackson. Normally “downtown” means lots of bars and restaurants but in this case it means the hotel, some high rise offices and a lot ot derelict buildings with some rather dubious characters walking about. Fortunately the hotel has a decent bar and a reasonable restaurant so we don’t need to venture any further.

 

The hotel is right by the train station and as we sat outside in the sun, sipping a beer, we heard the station announcer giving the last call for the City of New Orleans, which was departing for Chicago. As this was the train Mark had hoped to see in New Orleans, he was off like a scalded cat over the road to catch a glimpse of it before it left. It was quite ironic that having failed to catch sight of it in New Orleans we encountered it by chance here in Jackson. 

Following that we retreated inside the hotel and got something to eat. We both started with fried oysters and then I had a burger and Mark had fried chicken. The burger was fine but the chicken apparently did not live up to expectations.

Feeling the need for some vegetables we asked for side orders of spinach and yams (sweet potatoes). The spinach came swimming in a cheese sauce and the yams, which are already sweet,  were covered in what appeared to be honey. The yams were inedible but I have to confess that I did rather enjoy the spinach. It seems to be a feature of American food that everything has to come smothered in some sort of sauce and the idea that vegetables can be served just on their own does not appear to have occurred to anyone. It’s remarkable that they don’t have a problem with obesity over here. 

We are due back in New Orleans by 5pm on Monday to return the bikes. It’s only about 200 miles from Jackson so we should have a relatively easy day. We’ve then got a night in NO before picking up the car and setting off on the second leg of the trip.