Thread: Ramblings From The USA - 1

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Originally Posted by rspears

A good solution, Uncle Bob! I shared with someone that in our travels all around NZ we found that every motel is like an efficiency apartment, with a small kitchenette, basic pots & pans, and dishes for two to four. Also, every place as "take out" places, which offer a variety of meals packed to go, many with limited or no seating area. Our motels are geared around sleep, many with areas for the "complementary breakfast" that's built into their price whether you eat or not, but they're not intended for in-room dining. They expect everyone traveling will be buying their dinner at a local eatery, which is not jb & Rosie's norm - they'll pull off the road, book a room and then backtrack to a suitable take-out place, and then be in for the night. Just a different approach.

Point taken Roger.
Our motels are based on a whole different philosophy of what a motel should be.
So chill out jb...recognise the difference...I don't like it...but I do now appreciate it.

Originally Posted by johnboy

Point taken Roger.
Our motels are based on a whole different philosophy of what a motel should be.
So chill out jb...recognise the difference...I don't like it...but I do now appreciate it.

So grab a couple of Super Burrito's from Taco Bell to go with your Arrogant Bastard ales, lean back on the fender of the people mover, and relax! They even have Breakfast Burrito's, jb! Some scrambled egg, sausage, and salsa all wrapped up in a flour tortilla, YUUUUMM!

I'm allowed access!
Oh frabjous day, calloo callay!
I tried to log on exactly as I have before; this time 'the machine' relented and recognised me as being me.

Many thanks Roger for being my surrogate...I don't know if this will last; so I may need to use you again, if that's okay with you.

Once again; thanks heaps, and thanks all of you for the kind comments.

Okay...here goes...copy/ paste from word:


Friday 28th August.

After my little hissy-fit of yesterday we got away today at about 8:15, and were walking in to the museum around 9:00…lots more better!
Rick didn’t want to come…that’s alright…do what you like…so we left him to guard the car.
We started at the roof top, someone (I think it was Joe Weimer, toomanytocount,) had told me about this some years ago. Well his time around we made it.
There’s a school bus up there, eleven stories up; and the nose is hanging twelve feet out over the edge of the building.
There was
no
way
in the
world
that I was going to walk out through that bus and peer out the open front door.
Eleven stories? Nah; I’m a devout coward. This is a grand area for kids young and old there are slides and climbs, and all sorts of fun activities…I saw one woman, younger than I, follow her grandchildren on a climb up the inside of a dome twenty-five feet up to the centre of the dome.
I would’ve liked to do that; but my right shoulder and right knee wouldn’t let me now.
Sob.
And the art-work!
Amazing!
Mostly collected rubbish; birds made from trombones, deer from bicycle sprockets and oe spanners, birds from air-horn trumpets, and even a working ferris wheel too!
We spent a good ¾ of an hour there, and loved it.

Back to the ground floor and worked our way up.
What a fun place!
Alongside the serious stuff is a huge amount of whimsical stuff alluding to various theme;, f’rinstance: Kenneth Graham’s Toad of Toad Hall appeared in several places/levels…with a row-boat, a gypsy caravan, and a motor car…poop-poop!
There was a lot about the architecture of the city too, focusing primarily on the partnership of Elmslie & Sullivan, who designed buildings from the ground up, including all details…capitals, finials, decorative griffins, even the down-pipes and door knobs.
Amazing stuff.
This place is a serious museum; but it’s also bloody good fun. We spent better than three hours there, and while I wouldn’t go back to-morrow, in another two/three years…hell yes!

Lunch at a Chinese restaurant at Butler Hill, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, all good. Veges you don’t get (or in minimal quantities,) with a burger,
I thought I’d get me a couple of beers for tonight, so wandered in to Schnucks, to see what was on offer.
I’m not familiar with American beers, there was a fella there stacking shelves, so I asked him what was a good dark beer.
“I don’t know,” he replied, “I’m a wine man myself.”
But we got talking, he told me he’d like to come to NZ, I told him “By all means come! We need the overseas funds!” and he laughed.
He wandered off, I wandered into the chiller and found…Arrogant Bastard!
A beer I’d tried a few years back and really enjoyed…so I bought a half dozen.

Walking across the car park, a car screeched around the corner, a fella jumped out, it was the bloke I’d talked to in Schnucks.
“Hoped I’d catch you,” he said, “we get beers in promos to give away; here, try these,” and he thrust a six pack of various beers into my hands, jumped back in his car, and was gone again, leaving me standing gob-smacked in the middle of the car park trying to stammer ‘Thanks!”
Crikey!
That was good of him!
The average American is a decent, honest, good hearted bloke. And my opinion of him rises every time we come here to his place.

Walked a bit further towards our car, saw a car I didn’t recognise, thought “what on earth is that?”
‘Merkur’, the badge said.
That rang no bells, so googled it.
It’s a Ford Mercury, based on German components, and sold as a Lincoln for the luxury market, manufactured circa ’64 to ‘’69.
I’ve never seen or heard of one before.

Okay…in to the car and keep on truckin’.
All the way to Blytheville.
Where we pulled in to a Super 8 to overnight before heading into Memphis tomorrow.



No edit, no spell check, I was just so surprised to get on to the site I just bunged it in as is.

How about that! Thought you should have been able to get on the site, but then at any given time..... Susan's been to that museum in St Louis a few times, but to my recollection I've not been there. Glad you're having an enjoyable trip, and I'm a willing surrogate, any time the access overseers happen to block your way here.

Safe travels,

Don't give up jb.........the site has been doing it's.............."I don't care..I don't have to" thing lately. Even we normal, local mortals must submit. Keep the journal coming..........don't have to wait til the month end Ramblings to get the fun.

Hmmmm..........a brew named "Arrogant Bastard"............wonder if the inspiration was the current President or the Wannabe? Tough to tell............. Enjoy!!!!!

Originally Posted by johnboy

He wandered off, I wandered into the chiller and found…Arrogant Bastard!
A beer I’d tried a few years back and really enjoyed…so I bought a half dozen.

That ale is made by the Stone Brewing Company in California, but I think they went out of state a ways to get the name....

Originally Posted by johnboy

Point taken Roger. Our motels are based on a whole different philosophy of what a motel should be.
So chill out jb...recognise the difference...I don't like it...but I do now appreciate it.

I hadn't really thought about it much, but I saw an explanation that made a bit of sense, pointing out that in the US the hotel/motel industry is geared towards business travelers who fill the units during the work week. By & large, the family vacationer is a secondary market here in the USA, but in NZ the industry is geared towards tourism. You don't have nearly as much business travel, being a smaller land mass. Of course we have "destination spots" that are more vacation oriented, like Las Vegas, Orlando, and Hawaii but in the big picture hotels/motels are kept in business by the business travelers out covering sales territory, visiting factories, attending meetings, etc. and the last thing the business traveler wants is to eat dinner in his room. Hadn't really considered that before.....

OK, enough philosophy! Back to the travel log! Where'd ya'll go today?

Roger.........I think you missed the additional market slice served by the No-tell Motel.........................just sayin'..........

Hey Johnboy,
I always enjoy your travel journal reports and musings! Too bad for me that I didn't pay closer attention to your itinerary from your other thread as we probably could have arranged to break bread or sip a social beverage in the OKC leg of your trip. I was in Oklahoma 8/21 thru 8/28 supporting me Mum through her back surgery on the 24th. The doctor is optimistic, as am I, and hopefully will regain much of her youthful 81 year old spryness as she heals!

Anyway, looking forward to reading more of your impressions of our great country through the eyes and fingers of a thoughtful, creative, opionated, time-tested Kiwi.
It would be awesome to haul my '37 to NZ for a cruise around your country someday. That's assuming I'm not too old to drive by the time I get it finished! but then there's that driving on the "wrong" side of the road thing....if I was slow to adjust the results could suck!

Godspeed and safe travels!!!

Scan_20150829.jpg does this ring a bell?

Looks like the poster for someone's birthday bash.....

Saturday 29th August.

Well the results from my tantrum of the other day didn’t last very long. It was 9:00 again before we were on the road. “But you said the place we’re going to doesn’t open ‘til 10:00! We’ll be there in plenty of time.”
“True; but if we get there earlier we can ‘do’ Beale Street itself before it gets too hot. If we make Beale St our secondary appointment it will be at midday…and we’re gonna melt.”
“Mutter mutter mumble grouch mumble.”
You’re supposed to love your kids; and I do. But sometimes I just don’t like them very much.
As it happened we got there bang on 10:00…and I insisted we do Beale St first for the reasons mentioned above.
And yeah; there were grizzles re the heat,
Ah shuddup.
I’d warned them too about the tricksters trying to con money out of you for doing you an ostensible good turn.
“Tell them to eff off. Polite is something they don’t understand.”
She didn’t get caught…but Rick did.
Cost him near forty bucks.
Sorry…but no sympathy.

Rosie and I had a ball on Beale St…didn’t spend $100 combined; but wandered in and out of various places, picked thing up, put them down…the whole place is a shrine/mecca to our generation.
Surprisingly it is to Rick too. He grew up with our tastes of music (country, rock, jazz, some blues,) always being played.
In one incarnation he was a dj on a rock station (Rick the Rock,) for about fifteen years, and he knows music. He’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know.
And he really enjoyed the ambience/atmosphere.

And so to the Memphis Rock and Soul Museum.
Once more; an attraction that spanned the generations…all of us totally enjoyed it…spent about three hours there, totally engrossed with both the artists and their stories…as well as the broader picture of the genre, and the segregation issues.
(Something we in NZ were not fully aware of, having never experienced it.)
Highly recommended.

Drive on!

To lunch at a place I cannot remember the name of, but the bar was called ‘Side Car Rides’.
Plenty of Harleys parked outside…its got to be a good place to eat.
And it was,

Next stop was the ‘Casey Jones Home and RR Museum’ in Jackson.
Interesting enough. I enjoyed it. If you’re passing, pull in; but I wouldn’t go out of my way to visit.
Perhaps a six out of ten.

Okay…keep on truckin’!

Dunno where we are exactly; but we’re about a hundred miles out of Nashville, in a Days Inn motel.

Nashville to-morrow.


Disclaimer: be aware that the views and the opinions expressed by the author of this missive are bloody good ones.

johnboy,
Beale Street would have had an entirely different personality had you rolled through from 10pm to midnight vs hitting in during broad daylight! Can't say that you saw the true Beale Street, but glad you had a good time, anyway..... Rosie's probably happier to have done it during the day light hours

Strongly recommend that you stick around in Nashville to see the Grand Ol' Opry show. That's a memory maker, for sure, but unfortunately you're hitting Nashville on Sunday and it looks like there's no show on Sundays. That's too bad -

Originally Posted by rspears

johnboy,
Beale Street would have had an entirely different personality had you rolled through from 10pm to midnight vs hitting in during broad daylight! Can't say that you saw the true Beale Street, but glad you had a good time, anyway..... Rosie's probably happier to have done it during the day light hours
(

Umm...I know.
Me too.

Originally Posted by rspears

Strongly recommend that you stick around in Nashville to see the Grand Ol' Opry show. That's a memory maker, for sure, but unfortunately you're hitting Nashville on Sunday and it looks like there's no show on Sundays. That's too bad -

Yep.
Sometimes them's the breaks.
But I don't want to be wandering any streets of any city after dark.
Got talking to a fella t'other day...in his city of 17000 there were three random killings in one night.
So I want to be behind closed doors after dark.

Oh-you went thru St.Louis???????

Don't forget that you'll probably drive thru or near Baltimore

Too bad I didn't chime in earlier while you did Memphis. Downtown off Beale Street is the best barbeque I've ever had, they make dry rub ribs that are worth the trip alone. Place is called the Rendevous, and is in a seedy looking alley, but excellent place for sure.