Light In The West

Sacramento to Klamath Falls, Oregon

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 17:34:00 +0000

After an easy weekend visiting, walking, biking, eating and drinking beer, and more visiting, I drove through downtown, across the Sacramento River and north up I 5.

The valley is heavily agricultural, with rice, grain, olives and more

At the north end of the valley past Red Bluff and Redding, into mountains and past Lake Shasta

Mount Shasta filling the sky (Lemurians quiet this day)

Through weed, then up Hwy 97 though the mountains in the clouds and early evening to Klamath Falls.

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 03:16:00 +0000

The next morning, light snow in the lawns but the streets were wet as I drove through downtown Reno. I bought chains because they were required over the pass to Sacramento.

and up to Reno.

Then up a narrow canyon past Truckee, looking wintry

The highway at the pass was bare so I didn't have to chain up.

It was snowing on the way down and we sat for an hour while a jacknifed ruck was straightened out, soon enough the clouds broke

On into very busy Sacramento

to the lovely home of old friends John and Jane for a weekend of visiting.

Death Valley to Carson City, Nevada

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 18:04:00 +0000

The west is about landscape, and especially the basin and range country - the west between the Sierras/Cascades and the Rockies - is nothing if not dramatic. Every turn in the road brings a new vista,a new delight. I never tire of it. This was a long day through spectacular country, hence the pile of photos that follow.

Morning in Death Valley, quiet, as it always is there away from people. And something about the place quiets people,at least those who feel it.

A rig in the campground I liked for its classic lines and simplicity.

I drove up to Scotty's Castle, a 1920's collaboration between a former Buffalo Bill Cody showman/desert rat prospector an a Chicago insurance magnate. Interesting story, resulted in a Spanish style mansion at the north end of Death Valley.

I thought I could continue east over the mountains to Beatty, Nevada, but the road was closed due to storm damage,so I drove thirty miles back down the valley to Hwy 374, then east out of Death Valley into Nevada.

There is probably some reason for Beatty, but it is not obvious. I did have a good latte and an argument in a cafe about politics with an angry old white man with tubes in his nose who was traveling through with his equally angry old wife, so that was something.

Someone with Scotty's dream, in plywood.

driving north on Hwy 95, folks living in classic desert style.

Says something, although I can't say what, when the road behind

looks the same as the road ahead.

High country - I must have crossed maybe a dozen passes all at least 6,000 feet.

The turning west on 266, the road climbs over mountain ranges then drops into the valleys between - the ranges and the basins created when the earth's crust stretched.

From the heights, views of the 14,000 foot Sierras in the distance

When the road heads up a canyon like this, you have to wonder

From this pass, I turned north on a one lane Forest Service road and drove fifteen miles up through juniper and pinyon pine to a bristlecone pine forest.

By up, I mean I drove to 10,000 feet,above the treeline for everything else. I turned into the visitor center, but the road goes on another dozen miles or so to a gate and a trail up White Mountain at 14,248 just shy of Mt Whitney across the way in the Sierras.

A fine new visitor center, closed for the season but folks there closing up so I got to look around

These trees are old beyond any trees I know of - 4,000 years and counting.

I started down a four mile trail and quickly realized that if I was panting in the altitude walking downhill, I wouldn't make it back up. I choose a shorter trail on the hillside, but beautiful and with good informational signs.

A couple of old timers

Back down the mountain to the highway, then west down a very narrow, twisty road into the Owens Valley at the foot of the Sierras.

A big storm was building up to the west over the Sierras

The peak under the cloud is White Mountain; the bristlecone pine forest is a little to the right of the peak.

Into Bishop, a busy town straddling Hwy 395 in the sunshine

I drove north on 395, rolling over high ridges coming off the Sierras, in heavy winds, clouds blowing in but still sunny off to the east.

looking more ominous . . .

over a pass, snowing with snow along the road

Around Mono Lake, still a gem, saved for now it seems

rocking over yet another high pass in high sidewinds, the road closed to vehicles over nine feet high (I was eight)

still calm and serene to the east

through small towns mostly closed for the winter - I think this is Bridgeport

Finally into Carson City in the dark, wondering if i would make it over Donner Pass the next day with forecasts of feet in the Sierras

Death Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 05:29:00 +0000

The next morning, I drove north in the valley, the day clear and already warm below sea level.

Death Valley is a marvelous place, where there is almost no vegetation, leaving the bone sof the earth exposed. It is all rocks and stones and more rocks.

I parked along the road and hiked up a broad alluvial fan, headed for Red Walled Canyon sevveral miles away.

distances in the desert are always deceiving, and I was fooled again, hiking for a long time before finally reaching the mouth of the canyon. But it is fascinating country to just wander in.

After a rest in the welcome shade, I wandered up the canyon, all cliffs and red rock

And then, a squash? of some kind, who knows from where.

and then rock and more rock, the canyon gradually narrowing

In almost all of these canyons, sooner or later there are walls across the canyon, cliffs polished by water. Sometimes other hikers have left aids - here both a ladder and a rope

going up is the easy part, but, especially if you hike alone, you might want to be pretty sure you can get back down. It is always harder coming down, and it looks a lot higher from the top.

I decided to climb down and hike out of the canyon, enjoying everything about it - the light, colors, textures, the heat, the slightest little breeze

Just as far down as it was up, it turns out

a big fan across the valley, a challenge for another day

Driving north, more enormous alluvial fans

to Willow Springs campground, far from any store, quiet, the perfect place to end the day

Kingman to Death Valley, through Las Vegas

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:23:00 +0000

The next morning, I left Kingman driving north toward Las Vegas, surprised by the houses spread across the desert. Growth across the country has been so uneven the last thirty years, with many town shrinking slowly toward oblivion, many others exploding across the landscape.

but after fifteen or twenty miles it thinned to trailer houses and shacks scattered across the desert.

always mountains in every direction

a glimpse of the Colorado River in the canyon

The new highway passes over the Colorado River gorge on a high bridge, so now you have to detour down the old road to see Hoover Dam.

Plenty of outlets for colorful stuff in Henderson

then over the hill and down into Las Vegas (literally "the meadow"). Maybe once upon a time.

Looking good in downtown

Nice old motels, looks promising

But the strip itself is midwestern glitz, good to drive through but it didn't call to me to stop.

If nothing else, Las Vegas reminds us that there is more money in this country than we know what to do with, if we can waste it on this stuff.

I wound through the city and out past Red Rocks, a beautiful canyon west of town, many folks hiking and biking.

Small Joshua trees

Then over a pass on Hwy 160 to Pahrump, and odd smear of casinos, fireworks stands, and RV parks. Who knows what holds the place together, if it is together at all.

Slow times in Pahrump, it seems.

Just past Pahrump I turned west on a narrow road that ran over yet another range of mountains to Death Valley Junction

Then over more mountains and down into Death Valley.

Furnace Creek, always a surprise of water, grass and date palms in the middle of the lowest, hottest and driest place in the country. In the winter, it also features a parking lot full of old folks in their big RVs, sitting around doing not much- waiting for happy hour it appears.

As on other visits, I was prepared to criticize this extravagance of green in the desert, but this moderated my opinion.

November 6, no wonder the old folks are here and not in, say, Portland.

I camped up above in Texas Spring campground, where I camped years ago, half a lifetime ago in fact. Whew. But the place, the valley is still one of the best in the land.

Apache Lake to Kingman, Arizona

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:20:00 +0000

I left Apache Lake early Monday morning, up the dusty road, last look down at the cove where we camped.

I mailed my ballot from Payson (next day delivery guaranteed), then drove up onto the Mogollon Rim again and into forest

then down into the Verde Valley

through the nice town of Clarksdale

and out to the pueblo ruins of Tuzigoot

Many interesting pots and other artifacts were recovered when the site was first excavated in the 1930's

The ruins are the same configuration but almost all of the walls have been stabilized, so little of it is as it was back when. Still, it is an interesting place and worth a visit.

The area had a legacy of mining and mining-related pollution, sort of addressed now.

I drove west up a steep hill to Jerome, a town built during then mining era, now a tourist stop for all the old people milling around.

Over the mountains, I dropped down into the valley

then north through the high desert to Ash Fork on I 40,

then in a big arc on old Route 66 through Seligman and Peach Springs

swinging south and west to Kingman through beautiful country, mountains all around, the essence glory of the basin and range country.

Apache Lake

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 06:00:00 +0000

We spent two days camping along Apache Lake. There was a little wind early in the morning and the water came up in the night,

but the weather was fine and we enjoyed the thirty mile long lake on the pontoon boat, stopping in sandy coves to swim and look around. It is a lovely narrow lake, pretty clean water, with many groups of coots and western grebes and a few cormorants, and late one afternoon, a half dozen javelina along the water's edge.

Just a lovely weekend in a beautiful spot.

Show Low, Arizona to Apache Lake, Arizona

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 05:07:00 +0000

After a noisy night that included a call to 911 to break up fight in the motel parking lot, I left for Apache Lake on the Salt River for a couple days camping with my sister Janet and her partner David. Show Low is up on top of the Mogollon Rim, a high sandstone and limestone escarpment that runs for 200 miles through Arizona. Elevations above the Rim are 7,000 feet and more, and there are broad pine forests. Below the rim, elevations are 4,000 feet or so, not and dry desert lands. In the eighty miles from ShowLow to Globe I dropped off the rim through the Salt River canyon into the northeast corner of the Sonoran Desert.

Globe, a mining town, some nice old buildings, not far from Lake Roosevelt, the first of the reservoirs on the Salt River.

Along the reservoir before the dam, I drove up to Tonto National Monument, a rugged area of mountains, cactus, and thousand year old cliff dwellings.

The dam was the first federal reclamation project, begun in 1902, it took more than ten years to build. It required construction of a narrow road up the steep Salt River canyon. Much of the road work was done by Apache workers, hence the name the Apache Road. The dam was built with stone blocks laid one by one. In the 1970's,the dam was raised another seventy feet an encased in concrete, but the original stone dam remains at the core.

I drove the narrow,washboarded dirt road six miles past the dam to a campsite along the river and a couple days of camping.

Albequerque to ShowLow, Arizona

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 05:11:00 +0000

Old motels on Route 66 are a crapshoot, the Stardust no exception.

Down old Hwy 66 through downtown, many shops, cafes, a tcity with a lot of life it seems

to old Albuquerque on the west side of downtown. Built around a lovely square where I heard music the night before

with a very old and quite beautiful church to the north

and small section of art, jewelry and craft shops

A smaller version of old Santa Fe and sweeter for it. Funny how you respond to a place, and I liked this one as soon as I saw it. True of the city as a whole, I was sorry to leave and hope to return one day. I drove out on I40,he city behind, big open country ahead

I turned off onto a small road through small towns with small houses like many I'd seen in New Mexico

I turned south on Hwy 117 along El Malpais National Monument, 100,000 acres much of it a long lava flows and sandstone cliffs surrounded by volcanic cones and wilderness mountains. Very cool place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Malpais_National_Monument

A lovely natural arch.

South on Hwy 36 to Quemodo, then west on Hwy 60 across sweeping plains, big blocks of mountains in the distance.

over the continental divide, back in the west!

Through Springerville, a real town

the west on 60 through a range of beautiful volcanic cones

the land stretching away to the north

pine and juniper forest to the south

into Show Low, town of 10,000 named after a call in a card game (and where the main street is Duce of Clubs)

Where better to drive a convertible bug than Arizona? Gotta love it!

Taos to Albuquerque

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 15:35:00 +0000

Leaving the adequate Budget Host motel,

downtown Taos looked much better in the morning. I had coffee in the square with only a couple of people sweeping leaves from the sidewalks. Taos is a very old town: the area and nearby pueblo (village) inhabited by inhabited by Indians for more than 1000 years, Spanish first came through in 1540, started to settle in the early 1600s. Feels like the most multicultural town I've seen, and healthy for it. It feels like a place apart from the US.

Many, many houses have one or more adobe ovens outside, and they look like they get used.

I drove north a few miles from downtown toward Taos Pueblo,

The pueblo was closed to visitors for religious observances (Nov 1, it figures) so I decided to drive further north through desert country and sprawl - even cute adobe, more likely fauxdobe plastered over wood or concrete blocks - is still sprawl.

Up a rough dirt road to the base of the mountains

to visit an old friend who spent some time here back in the day, now is here for eternity or until the mountains move gain.

I can;t think of a writer whose life and writing (and painting and poetry) described an arc like Lawrence's - from England midlands to New Mexico to Mexico. It was a pleasure to spend time here, and it shouldn't have happened, because the place was closed by the University in 2010. I passed a closed sign, but the gate was open (singing Woody Guthrie again) and a very pleasant man - whose grandmother worked for Frieda back when - was so generous to show me around anyway. Good folks everywhere.

Out of the mountains,I drove south from Taos on the scenic high road Hwy 518 then 76 through very small towns -Vadito, Penasco, Cundiyo, others - many of the houses adobe or wood, all looking handmade, ramshackle and beautifully pleasing for it. Very quiet and peaceful up here this day.

Unexpected apple trees and small orchards along the way

And every town featuring artists of one kind or another. This gallery and the basement studio run since 1968, when young people moved into the valley from the outside - by a woman from Massachusetts.

I visited the smallest of the 19 pueblos

What a threshing machine was doing here I couldn't say, hard to imagine there was ever enough grain in the small fields to need this.

The pueblos that are open to public visitors - and some aren't- require permission, a permit, sometimes a guide. There was no one around to give me permission so I left out of respect for their privacy.

I wound down a narrow road off the already narrow highway to a most beautiful church.

Photos were not allowed inside, these are from postcards. Not sure the difference but there you go.

On south through more dry, beautiful country to busy Santa Fe, like most Spanish towns built around a square with the governor's office on one side and the church on the other.

The church is newer, massive.

The old area around the square is all adobeish and all small shops selling art, jewelry, pottery, blankets, etc. It was quiet this day but I'm sure mobbed with tourists during the season. I'll take the small old towns in the hills any day.

Small courtyards open off the streets, part of original houses, I'm sure they would be pleasant on a warm day.

At least one sign of contemporary culture, made me smile.

My car loaded down with rugs and jewelry, I left Santa Fe driving south on crazy fast and busy I25.

I left the interstate for a narrow road that would through several pueblos, including the large, busy, dusty Santo Domingo pueblo. It was quite a picture, people everywhere, many women in Indian dresses, newer cars and pickup parked next to old adobe and wood houses, all bright in the high desert light. Photos forbidden, I complied and kept driving, past small fields watered by canals fron the Rio Grande river just to the west.

Cottonwood trees were turning, leaves all golden against the blue skies.

The road turned to gravel

and got s little sketchy

but it went on through to the south through San Felipe pueblo, where it seemed every house had an adobe oven or two in the yard.

High mountains to the west as I drove into the suburbs of Albuquerque

into a pretty downtown

and to a cafe for a fine mexican dinner. After dark I listened to a mexican band in the lovely old square then drove through a lively downtown and checked into a 1960ish motel on old Route 66, liking the feel of the city (of half a million people, no less).

Guymon, Oklahoma to Taos, New Mexico

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 04:06:00 +0000

Morning in the middle of the Oklahoma panhandle, still in the middle of wheat country

but increasingly dry prairie as I drove west on Hwy 64.

the last oil wells

In the middle of a sixty mile stretch of nothing, no help, although it was open recently enough to have a satellite dish.

Through Boise City, far from anywhere, you would think there would be something there, and sure enough!

Old generation grain elevator

then more prairie, looking much like eastern Oregon and northern Nevada, at the end of this drought year any grass that might have bem there, even the sagebrush grazed down to nothing.

Excitement,a bump off to the north!

Into New Mexico and Clayton

Signs of life, then back on the road, still driving wesrt, another eighty miles of wide open country

Rest area

and then, Oh the Joy! Mountains!

Big mountains off to the north, maybe in southern Colorado

Off the high prairie into Springer

Just as quickly out of town, driving east on Hwy 21 into the foothills of the New Mexico Rockies

through Miami

past a reservoir - the novelty of standing water!

and then, unexpectedly, Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, where I dreamed of going as a boythrough years of Boy's Life reports. Tirns out it is a real place, and in a beautiful location a the foot of the mountains.

new Boy Scout Museum and Library

then into Cimmaron, town with a handful of shops, cafes and art stores, trying without much luck for some overflow from Taos and Santa Fe - and perhaps better for it.

castle grey skull in Ci

castle grey skull in Cimmaron???

Already at more than 6,00 feet, Hwy 64 climbs another 2,00 feet through a narrow canyon

onto a high plateau and into Taos, the town all adobe and bright colors in the high, clean light

the old city square and surrounding narrow alleys were jammed with children and parents trick or treating at the many shops. It was happy and colorful, and especially nice to see so many people of Hispanic and Indian heritage, I'm sure the majority of the town and the area.

Tired after a long day, I left the square and found a motel to rest and think about the long, long history of Taos and northern New Mexico.

Norman to Guymon, Oklahoma

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 02:54:00 +0000

In the morning, I decided to skip downtown Norman, maybe another time, and drive into Oklahoma City, past yet more oil wells. They really are everywhere.

I drove into Oklahoma City from the east through a traditionally black neighborhood, providing a nice foreground for the state capitol.

This is directly in front of the capitol. No kidding, an oil derrick and tanks.

Not sure it looks any better without them, another massive stone pile.

The capitol was constructed without the dome, which was added only in the last ten years.

The rest of the interior feels worn, but it houses a nice gallery of Oklahoma art.

The state flag dates from the 1920's and is surprising given the history of Indians in the state.

On into downtown, compact but alive, a few nice glass towers and people out on the streets.

On the east edge of downtown lies an area of brick - yeah, Bricktown - with cafes, bars, and not one but two brewpubs.

But the highlight of the area - maybe of my journey so far - is the baseball stadium and its homage to an Oklahoma native son, the greatest baseball player ever.

Back through downtown, headed north,

I drove through a pretty residential neighborhood

to a hip, artsy strip for lunch.

Liking the feel of Oklahoma City, I thought about staying and touring the art museum, but the day was too nice to stay indoors, so I motored northwest out of the city on Hwy 3 to Kingfisher. The land mostly open now, I've left the trees behind for much red dirt farming. I had driven through a fair amount of red dirt country before, especially in Alabama and parts of Mississippi, but not like this.

Luckily this is explained by the Oklahoma state soil map. http://www.ogs.ou.edu/pubsscanned/EP9p16_19soil_veg_cl.pdf
Driving on, the land slowly became more open, less hilly and drier, punctuated by oil wells, grain elevators and wind turbines.

Kingfisher. No kinfishers, perhaps from the complete absence of water.

Note this guy is riding on red dirt capped by a layer of caliche.

From Kingfisher, I drove through Watonga, then northwesrt on Hwy 183. I thought it would be empty, but the road were busy especially sith trucks hauling oil, cattle and grain.

Unexpectedly, cotton. Althought there is a lot of dry land wheat farming, there is also quite a bit of irrigated ground along the way, all of it groundwater from the Ogalla acquifer that underlies such a large part of the midwest, and provides the water for so many of the crops from Nebraska to Texas. And that will some day be gone. As wikipedia reports: "Present-day recharge of the aquifer with fresh water occurs at an exceedingly slow rate, suggesting that much of the water in itspore spaces is paleowater, dating back to the last ice age and probably earlier." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer . Whether it should be used on cotton - and whether it should be used for commercial agriculture until it is gone - are questions worth asking

Turning due west into the wind on a narrow road through Sharon to Shattuck, more dry land

irrigation

and wind turbines.

A little movie, with me singing Woody Guthrie

If you look closely at the bottom of this one, you can see the door where people go inside and climb up the inside of the tower to work on the generator in the head. Gives you a sense of just how tall they are.

Classic western scenes - this was surely dustbowl country

And the road just goes on

and on

and on.

Mesmerizing. Finally into Shattuck, some kind of a town

the north on 15 for 20 miles or so,

more of the same, dry but still rolling country

turning due west into Texas

through more small towns, Follett, Darrouzell, Booker, across the top of Texas

to Perryton, hoping for a room but the town was full up with truckers and oil workers

ao I drove north, back into Oklahoma to Balko in the setting sun, then east

the road going on and on and on. Luckily for me, it ended for the night at a motel in Guymon and a well deserved rest.

Ft Smith to Norman, Oklahoma

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:34:00 +0000

Through downtown Ft Smith in the daylight, workers making it pretty

a fountain in the morning breeze

old brick, most in good shape and occupied

clearly the edge of the west

Across the Arkansas River where steamboats once ran

And down a country road with the usual attractions.

Gas wells in the fields, later oil and gas

opportunities for local cuisine

I drove south from Sallisaw through Keota and McCurtain, the land surprisingly treed and hilly - the end of the Ouachita mountains trailing off to the south - not like the dust bowl Oklahoma I imagined.

Saw the first of many oil wells in Oklahoma.

On impulse, I turned south at Lequire on Hwy 82 to drive through the Sanbois Mountains, tail end of the Ouichita Mountains and, despite the name, covered with a pretty red oak-hickory-pine forest.

I was thinking there were fewer roadside churches, maybe because there are fewer people living out here, but when I came out of the mountains, what do you know, not only the Cowboy church somewhere back in those hills, but a couple of others. You just never know.

Oklahoma is no slouch for trailer houses, seemed like as many as Kentucky, this one a newer, and nicer, one

Through more small towns, people a long way from anywhere, then Wilburton, a metropolis of several thousand, an enormous cemetery and, surprise, a college.

Through McAlester, where someone dreamed large in brick, the land slowly opening up, getting drier, but still rolling and with plenty of trees.

On through Stuart, Calvin, Holdenville to Seminole, nice murals, more houses along the highway

to the outskirts of Norman and mushrooms of suburbs and suburban malls. Rush hour, I skirted the city center and drove north to friend Anne's for a peaceful night in her lovely guesthouse.

Memphis to Ft Smith, Arkansas

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:30:00 +0000

Sunday morning I dropped Ree at the airport for her flight back to Tallahassee. I drove back through Memphis, across the Mississippi and into Arkansas.

More Mississippi delta lands, in cotton, some hay, then something green, I believe rice.

I40 is a big trucker road from Chicago to LA,

I dropped down to Hwy 70 and drove through fields and small towns, Palestine, Brinkley, Carlisle, Lonoke, others.

a lot filled with what looked like tractor wheels

Most of these small towns, like so many across the country, have old downtown buildings that are mostly empty, deserted. Healthy downtowns were the core of these towns from the early 1900's until the 1970's, and the much lamented loss of small town society can be traced directly to townspeople deserting downtown businesses. People still live there, houses often look well kept, and the churches are doing well, but the toens are far different than they once were.

More small towns

someone put real money into this town back in the day

some very large elevators, I think for rice

and farms with extensive bins. clearly some folks are doing just fine.

Not far from Little Rock, I passed several miles of swamps along the high, filled with cypress, turning with the season before losing their needles.

In to North Little Rock, interesting things going on

then across the Arkansas River and into downtown Little Rock.

I got out the bicycle and rode aalong the waterfront, nice paths lead up and down the river and past the Clinton Library

A repurposed railroad bridge carries bicyclists and pedestrians across the river, fun and aa fine view from the top deck.

There is some good public art, including a bust of Casimir Pulaski, Polish nobleman, hero of our Revolutionary war

a downtown trolley

a variety of condo and apartment buildings, old and new

and some hipness as well. The waterfront is very nice and downtown has a good if dated feel. It has a ways to go but the pieces are there.

I drove to the south end of downtown to the state capitol, a huge stone pile with brass doors, a dome copied from Alabama and photos and busts of past governors gracing the walls.

Leaving the capitol, I drove througha pooer, black section of town, the out Hwy 10 through miles and miles of new suburban housing and the accompanying malls and stores. It seems this is where the middle class now live. Once out of the suburbs, I was in rolling, hilly, wooded country, very pretty, with lakes and small farms. These are the first real hills I had seen since I think New England, the Ouachita Mountains, a 300 million year old range that was once as high as the Rockies, and once a part of the Appalachian Mountains.

Along one stretch pf the highway were many chicken farms, and one of the small towns had a strong Mexican presence, including four Mexican restaurants in a town of fewer than a thousand people. We can thanks them for doing the absolute nastiest jobs in the land - raising and processing chickens- so we can enjoy cheap chicken nuggets.

More pretty countryside

a small sawmill, one of the first I'd seen in a long time

Mt Magazine, at 2,753 feet the highest in the range

Finally out of the mountains at dusk to Ft Smith, second largest city in Arkansas, an old town kick started by the discovery of natural gas in the 1880s. With its wide streets, it felt like a western town, maybe the beginning of the west.

Memphis

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 15:00:00 +0000

A clear, cold and windy morning in Memphis

we drove east from downtown, past a little cluster of Victorian mansions

through a small hip strip and surprisingly quickly into the usual boring upscalish malls and such. Circling around the U of Memphis, we came back west through middleclass then increasingly poor - and black neighborhoods, notably Orange Mound and Lamar.

Orange Mound has an interesting history: reportedly the first African American neighborhood built by African Americans - in the 1890's - it declined in the 1980's and 90's but - the good news - they say is beginning to turn around. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Mound,_Memphis

We came back downtown, to an art festival in the arts district in the south part of downtown around the Memphis Art School. A good crowd turned out to enjoy art, music and sunshine in the neighborhood.

Bike store, coffee shop, art, condos for sale at a good price

fixies

chance to be in a movie

have a wedding in the old train station

It's not Mississippi Street, Portland yet, but it's clearly on the move.

A noteof somberness on this lovely day, a block over is the Lorraine Hotel, site of one of the greatest of American tragedies, now part of the National Civil Rights Museum. At least it is a museum dedicated to hope, not fear and war.

Memphis has a long stretch of parks and greenways along the Mississippi, windy this day, leading to the pyramid, of course.

Sunset over the Mississippi

then down to Beale Street, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, tourists trying too hard to get drunk and the locals more than happy to oblige, but worth walking once

and over it all, the King.

Clarksdale, Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 02:02:00 +0000

Rain blew in in the nights, ending a long string of 80 degree days, and summer. We visited the Delta Blues museum in the old Clarksdale train station, saw some blues stuff and learned a little,

then drove to the crossroads of (old) Hwy 61 and 49, one candidate for where Robt Johnson made his deal with the devil.

makes some sense - it's well known the devil loves pork fat and there's an old meat store on the corner.

We drove on north on Hwy 61, the highway so many people followed north out of the delta for a better life in the industrial north: Memphis, St Louis, Kansas City, Chicago. Endless cotton fields with bales of cotton standing everywhere waiting to be picked up.

We drove into Tennessee and the outskirts of Memphis past the King's house, paid our respects but didn't stop[ in the wind and rain.

Coming into Memphis from the south we passed much blight, learn ing later it is the poorest and most distressed part of the city. But amusing in its own way.

The Mississippi River cold and windy from our hotel,

we walked down the trolley line, hoping for a ride,

past Beale Street, the neon just lighting up

down a side street to Central Cafe and a rack of Memphis style barbecued ribs, moist, tender, full of flavor and a glass of Hop Project from Yazoo Brewing in Nashville. A most satisfying end to a cold and blustery day, Piglet.

Vicksburg to Clarksdale, Mississippi

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 05:04:00 +0000

Nothing keeping us in Vicksburg, we drove north on Hwy 61 then 1 up the Mississippi delta, wide and flat as far as the eye could see, and much of it cotton, already harvested or ready, most of the the land subject to heavy industrial agriculture.

The Mississippi is bordered by a high and wide levee - maybe 50 feet high by a couple of hundred feet wide, keeping the big river from spreading across the delta. The levee was built and is maintained by the US government, yet another example of conservative folks bot acknowledging just how much they need government, in this case, directly providing their livelihoods and sparing their lives from the river. We drove over the levee into a wildlife preserve, but not much to see.

Back on hwy 1, many old buildings, floks living in trailer houses and worse, many signs of poverty among ever larger fields, farm machinery, grain bins (soybeans, I think).

Just north of Greenville, we saw an unusual, large mound off the road which turned out to be the largest, at 55 feet high, of a complex of eleven Indian mounds protected in a state park.

The park was the result of hard work by a few local women, who helped the state acquire the property and prevent further damage to the mounds.

We climbed to the top of the largest mound and had a fine view of the delta.

The park includes a visitor center constructed to fit into the landscape, with some nice photos, including one of the 1927 flood when the Mississippi River filled the delta all the way to Greenwood, some seventy mikes to the east. Big river indeed.

Still driving north, looking for the world of Son House and Charlie Patton, but those days seem long gone, for better and worse. Much of the delta is a grey landscape, many old buildings, some nicer houses, much poverty, black folks somehow getting by.

In Rosedale, we drove off the highway a few blocks to one of the many blues highway signs in the delta. The town, like so many, seems a collection of shacks and burned out or just empty buildings, people hanging around doing not much, or not much you would want to know about, but a colorful church. Good place to look for the devil, if you wanted to learn to play the blues.

On up the highway, more of the same.

These are the compactors that make the loaves of cotton. The round bales come out of the back of a dung beetle like combine.

And into Clarksdale, where Son House, Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and so many others played the blues. Back in their day, Clarksdale was a thriving town, now the downtown is hanging on, living off blues tourists, but barely.

We had fried catfish and listened to a decent blues band at one of the handful of clubs in town, this one owned by a local lawyer who lost in a runoff for governor a few years back. It was fine but not what I had hoped for, but then I guess although the music lives on, the days of Son, Charlie, Robert and all the rest are long gone.

Selma, Alabama to Vicksburg, Mississippi

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 05:03:00 +0000

Selma in the morning, a town that was once a bustling small city, now trying to make something out of what is left - and a lot of brick to work with, on the banks of the Alabama River - along with the fresh histories of the Civil Rights movement. Have to wish them luck, they'll need it. Like so many of these town, it is hard to imagine what might happen for them to spring back to life.

On down Hwy 80 past fields, more ragged forestlands with trucks hauling slash pines to a big paper mill, smack in the middle of the Black Belt, a geologic formation that through the coincides of cotton and slavery is now also a sociological description. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_(U.S._region)

To Demopolis, a pretty little town with an interesting history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demopolis,_Alabama

Motoring on east on Hwy 80, we dodged into Meridian, home of Jimmie Rodgers,the singing brakeman. More old brick, more potential. Maybe.

Soon after Meridian, we dropped south through Chunky, near yet another Civil War tragedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunky_Creek_Train_Wreck_of_1863) to Hickory,maybe the quietest, in some ways most attractive little town I've seen.

After Hickory, we drove Hwy 15, up into the forest, surprising and cool on a hot day, with many small, neat houses, folks taking advantage of the cool green.

At the top of the hill, the plainest of churches under tall, full loblolly pines and oaks

and what prompted this, one can only imagine, but there must be interlopers out there among the congregation at their rest.

Winding around the forested hills of Mississippi (who would've thought) through Montrose, Bay Springs, Sylvarena, Pineville, Puckett,

enjoying the unexpected beauty, although this is logging country with trucks coming and going , as well as the signs of things run down and abandoned at every turn.

More wandering around, we finally hit Hwy 18 and rode it up into Jackson, and to the capitol, built in 1901. We think of the south as an impoverished wreck after the Civil War, but most of the brick towns and the capotols in Montgomery and Jackson we all built within 30 years after the war. Clearly, there was money, or money was made. The capital in Jackson was built with a million dollars the state received in litigation over back taxes with the Illinois central railroad,so that was northern money. It is one beautiful buildings,all domes (three) and marble and gold leaf and stained glass.

No stained glass of slaves working cotton fields.

We drove around downtown Jackson, hoping to see signs of the heat Johnny Cash was gonna find, but no luck. Like Montgomery, some nice buildings but the town dead quiet even at rush hour. We did happen on an historic bus depot that lifted our spirits at the great courage people had at a time when the south was exceptionally harsh.

Barely a few blocks from the capitol, houses and buildings empty and falling down and children playing in the dirt.

We left Jackson at dusk and drove the thirty or so miles west to Vicksburg, the "Gibraltar of the South" and site of a long siege, now casinos below the bluff, held by big retaining walls. Not for us, we trundled off to one of the many motels that apparently serve the many gamblers.

Tallahassee to Selma, Alabama

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 03:38:00 +0000

Tuesday morning, I packed up and headed northwest toward Montgomery and Jackson, perhaps the heart of the South. Ree decided to ride along, to see the sights and visit Memphis. We drove north out of Florida, across the southwest corner of Georgia to Bainbridge, then through Donaldsonville over the Chattahoochee River and into Alabama through woodlands and hay and cotton fields.

On a hilltop, as usual,a church, this one with a cemetery, big oaks tree, and sweeping views to the
northeast.

We drove north through small farming towns to Eufala, pretty town with a treefilled boulevard down main street and quite a few business open, including several cafes.

We then turned west through more farming and woodlands

to Montgomery, streets of antebellum slavemoney mansions spared by Sherman and a handsome now ceremonial state capitol

the chambers restored as they were in 1861

as the were when the Articles of the Confederacy were drafted in the Senate Chambers. A statue of Jefferson Davis commands the front steps, and reminders are everywhere of succession, the Confederacy and its ongoing aftermath.

We drove through downtown, Sunday morning quiet this Tuesday afternoon, good brick downtown

and a lovely restored train station, not enormous but classic lines

a fresh short waterfront along the Alabama River where slaves once loaded cotton

and a baseball stadium for the Montgomery Biscuits.

The town has a nice setting, it looks clean, and seems to have a good stock of buildings that would make good loft and condo projects

and a new in the last few years alley entertainment district with several bars and restaurants

but at least this afternoon there was no one around. We had drinks then drove west to Selma under a long vermillion sunset.

Wakulla Springs

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:58:00 +0000

Monday, another lovely 80 degree day in Tallahassee, we drove south of town to Wakulla Springs, a 185 foot deep limestone spring that pours out a river of clear water. The spring was developed in the 1930's as an unusually tasteful resort with a Mediterranean style lodge and a few scattered outbuildings and a platform over the deepest part of the springs for swimming and diving.

The springs were used for several of the Tarzan movies, also The Creature in the Black Lagoon. Now it is a place for swimming and picnicing, and for taking a ride on one of the small old tour boats, as we did, with a delightful older man from Georgia as our guide.

The springs area is a wildlife preserve and only the little tour boats are allowed, so the place has many turtles, birds, alligators, and manatees.

I believe these are moorhens. More alligators.

cormorants, turtles, ibis

also anhinga, a bittern and green heron that I didn't get photos of. Manatees, hard to photograph but we saw at least a dozen on our hour tour.

Finally, yet another alligator with several brighter colored little ones, maybe a foot and a half long.

Wakulla Springs has been a local favorite for many years, and it truly is a national treasure.

St Marks River

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 01:14:00 +0000

Sunday afternoon, Ree, her friend Scotty and I took Ree's motorboat for a slow putt up the St Marks river from the little town and marina of St Marks. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon on s pretty river lined with cypress tress, with birds and turtles keeping us company.

Tallahassee and St George Island

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 00:20:00 +0000

One day we drove east a few miles from Tallahassee to visit a park with an Indian mound. Pretty countryside outside the city, and the mound was in a lovely park with towering, moss-clad live oaks.

The next day we drove west from Tallahassee, then south through the Apalachicola National Forest. Once out of the city, we drove through miles of loblolly pines, most of them tree farms,with occasional roads running off through the red dirt.

Once at the Gulf, we drove west, then across the shallow bay to St George Island and down to the state park at the end of the island. We had a fine afternoon walking the beach, swimming in the still warm (to me) gulf and enjoying the sunny, eighty degree day.

We settled into the 70's Buccaneer Motel overlooking the gulf

then drove back across the bay to the town of Apalachicola for dinner, on the way enjoying a long sunset spread out across the western sky.

We woke to a red sunrise

after breakfast drove down the coast to St Joe State Park. The last 8 miles of the spit is wilderness, so we parked and walked a couple of miles on the beach. It was a warm but stormy day with a good breeze, but we had a fine walk (I forgot my camera, so it goes.) We drove on down the coast to Mexico Beach for drinks and shrimp at the Toucan.

Back to Tallahassee in the rain,greeted by a Shriner along the way.

Okefenokee to Tallahassee

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 00:05:00 +0000

After another rainy evening, I woke to a fine sunrise,

I showered with the tree frogs

and drove out of the Okefenokee and west toward Valdosta.

Valdosta yet another town with the strip smears around nice, mostly empty old downtown

I drove west through farmland to Boston where the peanut harvest was in progress.

then south through cotton fields where I stopped and picked a handful of cotton

and into the rolling hills of the north central Florida panhandle, the first hills I'd seen since leaving Washington, DC.

I drove through Monticello, a pretty little town with a big courthouse, oak lined roads and the Brahma Motel.

to Tallahassee and friend Ree's house for welcome rest and visit.

St Marys to the Okefenokee

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 21:40:00 +0000

I had good day in St Marys, learned a little more about the town history,

then paddled some first in a pretty strong breeze on the on the St Marys River, then I caught the tide down on the Crooked River almost to Cumberland Island, still breezy but a nice paddle, ending in the rain the last half hour.

Another night at Crooked River State Park, woke to rain and decided to pass on backcountry camping in the rain on Cumberland Island and instead turned the van and headed west, still much to see but it felt good to know I was on the way back home.

I drove east under I95 to Folkston, and the Flolkston Funnel where all the trains heading south into Florida are funneled through that little town, sometimes 60 trains a day. The few minutes I was there a freight train came lumbering through going south and a few minutes later Amtrak came roaring by also headed south on another track. Big doings at the Funnel!

I drove north timber, scrub, low wet country to Waycross Georgia to pay my respects to Mickey Newbury and the Waycross Georgia farm boy in San Francisco Mabel Joy. Like so many towns, Waycross is a long strip of new cheap retail around an emptied out old brick downtown. They've done their streetscaping and the big downtown Phoenix Hotel has been renovated, you can only hope people will come.

Ironically - and I'm no fan of irony - the small downtowns of the hazy golden past, of small local businesses where people all knew and traded with each other, those town are alive in city neighborhoods, in cities like Portland, where old retail strips that had been hollowed out by strip malls and chains have come back to life and are flourishing. Whether this is possible in small old towns, I guess we'll see.

Continuing a circumnavigation of the Okefenokee swamp, I drove on to Homerville and yet another empty brick downtown. Once upon a time, there was enough money even in this small town to build a very nice building for its time.

Down the west side of the swamp, I stopped just outside Fargo where the highway crossed the black waters of the Suwanee River coming out of the swamp.

I turned north and drove twenty five miles north through scrub and timberland to Stephen Foster State Park in the Okefenokee.

I rented a kayak and had a fantastic afternoon kayaking in the Okefenokee, all alone on the amazingly reflective black water with the cypress trees, water lilies, birds - trees of egrets and wood storks - and a small alligator.

I came back in a pounding rain, but a warm rain on a warm afternoon, and saw the eye of what I think was one big alligator just looking out across the water.

After one of the most memorable paddles I have had, I docked the kayak and drove to the campground, again a lovely, almost empty night in the trees.

Edisto Beach to St Marys, Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (Charlie Landman) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:20:00 +0000

I left the Edisto campground in the golden dawn, hoping to spend some time in Savannah before driving to very southern Georgia for the night. Once again, I am reminded this is all low country, all of it tidal.

I drove the back roads past the turn to Hilton Head Island the across the Savannah River on another newer suspension bridge, more riverside industry than I had expected.

I parked in downtown Savannah and proceeded on my bike directly to the most important land mark in the city. I can't think of another person who had such a positive impact on so many people over so many years.

Downtown seemed busy,with several nice old theaters still in operation, the scale smaller than I had imagined, no towers around, perhaps because like Charleston so much of the city is historic.

The waterfront is a series of low brick buildings where the factors - agents - used to meet to arrange transactions, most importantly cotton. Now it is restaurants and shops with cobblestone alleys leading down to a nice walk along the river.

I rode back through downtown and around several of the many parklike squares that are a unique and defining feature of Savannah. The squares slow traffic and soften the city, have interesting monuments and are surrounded with nice old building and churches, including an unusually ornate Lutheran church that played Nearer My God To Thee at noon. The squares also create one way streets that make for some creative bike riding.

Savannah is home to what they say is the second largest art school in the US. Whether or not that's true, there are many kids around, but no hip strip that I found. I did finally find a good coffeeshop by one of the squares that seemed like a local hangout. Having enough of Savannah, I decided to drive I95 south to make some time, more fields, rivers, what looked like a big paper mill in the distance.

I95 is the main drag up and down the east coast and probably always busy.

The entire east coast from Boston to Miami feels full of people, more than I'm used to, especially in the open country of the west. Using the numbers from my atlas, something like 100 million people live in the states on the east coast, many within a few hundred miles of the ocean, No wonder it feels crowded.

Off I95, a stretch of older strip malls led into St Marys, a pretty, old one time shipbuilding now marina and tourist town on the broad St Marys river.

I rented a kayak, loaded the boat and drive the fifteen miles out to Crooked River State Park, where I found a group of ACA Instructors camped for weekend of training paddles in the area. Kayaking has taken off everywhere, and there is a lot of fine water all along the Georgia coastline for paddling.