Suebob's Red Stapler

On and on and on and on

Live in Person
In 2006, I went to the second BlogHer conference in San Jose. 300 women and a couple men, all bloggers. When we got there, many of us felt like we knew one another. When we left, lifetime friendships had been formed.

When I left Joliet, I headed for Springfield, Illinois, to see one of those people, Kelly Wickham Hurst, whose blog Mocha Momma features education, race, and her cute family in equal measure. Our afternoon was about the same – we talked about education and race and our lives, then bobbed around in her granddaughter’s other grandmother’s backyard pool for a few hours. There’s nothing more relaxing than propping yourself across a buoyant pool toy and chatting with a cute baby on a sunny summer afternon.

In addition to being a friend, Kelly has been my go-to resource for asking Stupid White People questions, for which she seems to have endless patience. I thank her over and over, because I want to be a better person, and her clear-eyed, sharp-witted honesty has taken me down mental paths I would have never thought to travel on my own.

Indianapolis
After a long journey through some very big cornfields, I arrived on the second stop of my friend tour to see Casey Coombs. I didn’t meet her until BlogHer 2007, but the moment I bumped into this tiny packet of glowing energy in a Chicago bar, I knew she was someone special. She was bouncy and cheerful and cute, but she had a depth that was revealed when she read a devastating piece about her pregnancy and hyperemesis gravis (morning sickness times 100) at the first BlogHer Voices of the Year event (where I also read, and Kelly did too, and Jenny the Bloggess and…you shoulda been there).

After she made me dinner, I went with her and her family to a safety fair, where small-town Hoosiers got to talk to policemen and firefighters and mental health workers and child safety folks while munching on hot dogs and bumping into one another. Her husband is running for judge, so did some very subtle campaigning (more like “Hi Bob!” than “I hope I have your vote”).

Columbus
Next stop, Ohio, to see Christina McEnemy, one of the OG bloggers from San Jose. She took me out for good pizza (FINALLY) and great ice cream (Jeni’s! Columbus is their home). She showed me a bit of Columbus, which was way more happening than I had anticipated. It’sa regular Portland on the Plains.

Christina is a powerful intellect and a warrior mom, as well as one of my secret band of Pokemon Go players.

Casey and Christina are both raising two girls and I’m so happy to see badass women rearing badass women.

Cleveland

We also visited Cuyahoga Valley National Park

I stayed outside of Cleveland in Streetsboro because there’s pretty much nowhere to park an RV within 25 miles of Cleveland. My very kind friend Kevin Charnas, who used to be local in Carpinteria until he decided to move back closer to his folks, drove all the way out to get me. Twice. That is a friend.

Kevin is one of the funniest people I know, which is saying a lot. He’s also handsome and really cares about people, running a program for people facing heart surgery at medical center. He gets them to write poetry and go on retreats and walk labyrinths.

I got to go to his great nephew’s first birthday party. Adorable. He and I also spent an evening at the delicious Cleveland Museum of Art, which has everything from an armor room to Tiffany glass to Mark Rothkos. God bless the rich folk who endowed it (admission is free!).

Franklin PA
I caught up with Michael again in Franklin for a stone-skipping competition. Like bloggers, it is another small tight-knit community, and they have taken me in as one of their own.

Somewhere in NY
And now I’m no to somewhere in eastern NY to see my old housemate and friend, Robina Bobina. It has been over a decade since I saw her, but I’m sure it will be like old times. And she has dogs and cats, and you KNOW how I feel about that.

So to summarize: driving around is fun. Driving around and seeing people you like is like eating Jeni’s ice cream on a hot summer night – perfect.

PS I always forget to take pics of my friends! I’m having so much fun I forget. My apologies.

The Rock in River Festival, Franklin, PA, founded by Michael’s friend Russ Byars

The winning number of skips was 44, on the other side of the board. Mike is 5th from bottom. “Airtight Alibi” is his nickname. 

Lake Huron Sunrise

Yeesh, three weeks since my last post. What happened?

I spent five weeks parked in my brother-in-law’s driveway. I didn’t mean to, but apparently I was tired and being around someone you love dearly is a great balm for that.

Off to Mackinac

Our first order of business was to travel about 54 hours (well, ok, 7 hours) north to the incredibly charming Mackinac Island out in Lake Huron. If you want a good look at the island, go see the move “Somewhere In Time” with Jane Alexander and Christopher Reeve.

The Island is all Victorian homes and lush gardens. There are no cars allowed, so horse-drawn carriages and carts ferry people, luggage and merchandise around the narrow streets. People rent and ride colorful bicycles up and down. The ferries leave back to the mainland every half hour, spraying giant rooster tails of water behind them.

The highlight for me was a butterfly greenhouse full of bright, gem-like butterflies gently drifting about and feeding on fruit slices. It was quiet and peaceful, a perfect little meditation spot.

Get Skipping

Michael (my BIL) went to compete in the 51st Annual Mackinac Island International Stoneskipping and Gerplunking Contest, of which he is a former winner in the Professional Division and an always-beloved competitor.

He tied for third this year with 25 skips. It was kind of a bad year for everyone. The water was choppy and the winner only managed a puny 29, but a good time was had by all. ESPN 3 showed up and televised it, so I imagine next year’s crowd will be bigger than the usual 200 or so who have watched in the past.

Judging stoneskipping is serious business

Summer Swim Passes

When we returned home, we mostly hung out. We bought passes to Cheney Pool, a public swimming pool, and spent many happy afternoons bobbing and getting splashed by overenthusiastic children. The cannonball will never go out of style, apparently, and boys will never stop trying to impress girls by annoying them.

The Simple Pleasures

We also sat on the patio under the light of a dozen strings of Christmas lights with Michael’s semi-feral cat, George, and watched a lot of Press Your Luck and Jeopardy.

Himself

We made excursions to his town’s growing number of really decent (thank you GOD) Mexican restaurants and ate a lot of guacamole.

As Usual, Church

I found a nearby church, Unity of Naperville, and went every Sunday to sing and listen and be among my people. I’d like to thank them for welcoming me, even the lesbian lady who butted in a little abruptly because she assumed I was coming on to her wife (we were just TALKING, honest, I’m not trying to pick anyone up).

We drove around in the summer evening and made blender drinks featuring large amounts of ripe watermelon. All in good fun.

When I met people, they would ask me “Why the heck did you come to Illinois?” but being with someone you love is better than a room at the Ritz Carlton, in my humble opinion (and I know from a Ritz Carlton).

Unity of Naperville is a groovy church.

The kid’s contest is Gerplunking – who can make the biggest splash. This is one of the winners, who is very happy with his “medal” (a rock on a lanyard}.

The boat to Mackinac and the Mighty Mac bridge

Pickin ‘and a grinnin’.

…and forgot to tell you about.

Grand Ole Opry

I was just going to stop by the Grand Ole Opry early in the morning to take a few photos, but when I heard an announcement coming over the loudspeaker “The backstage tour begins in 12 minutes,” I changed my mind, threw down some cash and got in line with eight other early birds.

I felt like a bit of a fraud because the other people were real country music fans, and I know about six Johnny Cash songs and can hum along with “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

But the Grand Ole Opry knows what they’re doing. The first thing you do is sit on couches in a comfy lounge for a 20-minute movie on the Opry’s history (projected on a cool fringe screen), and by the end, I had a lump in my throat, tears of appreciation in my eyes AND knew who Brad Paisley was. These people know showbusiness and how to work a crowd.

Peeping out from backstage.

The tour takes you through the hall of Opry members (I didn’t even know what Opry members were) and through the delightfully decorated green rooms, each of which has a unique story and use. Porter Wagoner’s is fanciest, of course, because he was famous for his elaborate costumes. Still, when they said “The next green room is decorated in purple and you can guess who that is for,” I thought “Prince?” Miss Dolly Parton always uses that dressing room when she plays the Opry so she can feel close to her old partner.

Porter Wagoner’s fancy green room.

The tour’s culmination is a moment on stage in the circle, where a mike is set up and you can sing if you want to (no one did on my tour. Everyone should have thanked me personally for not doing so). They shoot a photo (which is available in a variety of sizes and digitally for $25 in the gift shop, already printed and packaged for convenience. No, I did not. I’m cheap and I want LESS stuff, not more) and you get a chance, for a moment, to imagine the crowd cheering your debut.

If you’re going to the Opry to see the show, you should definitely do this tour.

Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary

Across Nashville in Mount Juliet, a pretty yellow building houses a place I have seen 100 times before, even though this was my first visit to Tennessee – the Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary. The reason I’m so familiar is that this home for dogs 10 years old and above has a famous live video stream. I find it relaxing to watch the dogs stand around and sleep, which is mostly what old dogs do, so I will visit the stream on one computer while I work on another.

They keep bonded dogs together for life.

They offer tours on weekends, just one tour per day for 10 people, at $10 each. This supports the shelter and is low-key enough that it doesn’t wear out the dogs, and also gives them a way to politely decline the hordes who want to stop by and visit every day.

The dogs who live there are old, grey, slow-moving, one-eyed, blind, three-legged, scruffy – but the most important part is they are happy. They snooze on couches and old recliners, walk around in the big yard outside, and hang out with each other. The shelter also has 250 foster dogs out in people’s homes and a full-time vet to go do home visits and to care for the shelter dogs.

The place smells like pee and you’ll get covered with fur, but also gives you plenty of chances to interact with dear old doggies and perhaps even to take a couple home, as one man on our tour did. I left with a t-shirt and some stickers from the irresistible gift shop. They take donations here. Places like this give me hope for humanity.

Mammoth Cave National Park

How are sandstone caves formed? Acidic water collects in depressions in the earth and begins to flow downward over centuries. The acidic water carries away limestone and leaves sandstone behind. Channels form and grow bigger.

350 million years later, you are left with the Mammoth cave. At 420 miles of KNOWN passageways, it is the longest cave in the world.

And yet somehow I managed to choose a tour that took us only about 1/4 mile back into a cave. It was cool (both literally and figuratively) and the Frozen Niagara structure was impressive (though a good deal smaller than the actual Niagara), but it wasn’t what I expected. The bus ride to and from the site was almost as long as the tour.

I was chickenly trying to avoid the tours that have 500 or more stairsteps, and a good thing, too, because my knees were feeling it when I went up the 50 steep steps on this tour (which are an optional section). I have to work out and go back when I’m feeling stronger.

The area around Mammoth Cave is filled with small private roadside-attraction-type caves and rock shops. There are fascinating stories of “cave wars”- different cave owners battling it out for attention when tourists began showing up after automobiles became common.

The best part of my tour was the time I spent chatting with a fellow traveler, a Canadian man who had lost his wife of 22 years to cancer the year before. He was on a US-wide tour of places they had been and had wanted to go. His grief was raw and real, but his determination to walk without her while at the same time carrying her memory by his side was pure and strong, and I’m glad I struck up the conversation.

My RV Gladis and I are partners on this trip. Sometimes we travel for me; others we travel for her.

A trip for Gladis is what led me to Middlebury, Indiana. Gladis needed her leveling system repaired and the manufacturer was nearby in White Pigeon, Michigan. We didn’t have to go there – we could have gone to an authorized dealer’s shop – but why not go to the source? I had to be in Illinois, right next door, on June 21, so north we went.

You know you’re not in the South anymore when you sight your first cheese curds

Indiana/Michigan

I didn’t know anything about Northern Indiana. I certainly did not know it was Amish country, which I had always thought of as Pennsylvania. I was surprised to see women in traditional clothing and horses and buggies clopping along the roads.

I had also thought of the Amish as being a small population, but when I went to Target, about half the people inside were Amish.

I HAD to try some Amish food, didn’t I? Peach filling.

Their ways are so foreign to me, and I was suspicious of their dedication to their dress and limited use of technology – what does that have to do with religion, and why do the rules change?

I learned that the rules are made in consideration of what benefits the community as a whole, not necessarily as a religious stricture. They change as the community discusses and modifies to account for their needs. For instance, when it became practically impossible to do business without telephones, they allowed them for limited use, but not for just chatting, because they felt communication should be face-to-face in the community.

Rurality

Being from a coast, I’m always surprised at the giant chunks of completely rural land out there. In that part of northern Indiana, towns were small and far apart. Near me, there was only a gas station and an ice cream stand, where on summer evenings, the line was often 30 people or more long.

It was lovely to stand in the setting sun with teams of Little Leaguers around me, eating their Blizzards and turtle sundaes. It felt like a kind of Americana I rarely get to experience in California.

Yup’s Dairyland is the place to be on a summer evening. 

Sunday 5:46 a.m. Shepherdsville, KY

“BWAA BWAA BWAA The National Weather Service has issued a severe weather alert.”

My eyes popped open and I scrabbled for my phone. Torrential rains. 60 mph winds. Flooding. Lightning. Right where I was, due in about 20 minutes.

I threw on some shoes and sweat pants and flew into action. The wind was already howling, the skies black.

I was in an RV park under heavy tree cover, prime for broken limbs. The entry to the park crossed through a gulley over a low bridge, barely above creek level.

Running around outside as rain began to hammer down, I turned off the gas, unscrewed the water hose and unplugged Gladis. Put the heavy things in the sink and tub, started her up, and fled, heart pounding.

I checked the storm path and headed in the opposite direction. Pedal to the metal.

There were some pretty good winds and the dark clouds stayed right on our tail, but Gladis and I skeedaddled to safety.

That’s too much excitement for before 6 a.m.

Every Day I’m Waffling

At about 6:30, we got to a Waffle House and I put on street clothes – I was still in my PJs – and got me a mound of fluffy hash browns and a fairly bad waffle while I listened to an 80ish man tell me about his college golf tournament days when he got to play in California.

My waitress, Kelly, was just a delight – loud and funny and exceptionally competent. I also heard her whisper to a co-worker about how her husband wanted something specific for Father’s Day that she didn’t have the money for. I left her $40 on a $10.87 bill and watched her mouth open and close in shock for a couple minutes, then break into a grin.

Getting the Spirit

She didn’t know I had just come through Louisville and had made a quick stop at Fourth and Walnut (now Fourth and Muhammad Ali), site of Thomas Merton’s spiritual revelation:

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

“This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

I just wanted to share the spirit of that in a small way, in the dark, on a Sunday morning rain in Kentucky.

I struggled with how much to say about visiting my brother’s family in Kentucky, because it was a great part of my trip, but they are also private people who don’t necessarily want to have their lives on the internets.

So I’ll say this: after 3 months on the road among strangers, there’s a deep sweet satisfaction to seeing people you love. It’s like water in the wilderness.

My brother and his wife moved to Kentucky to be close to the kids and grandkids, and they have put together a life that is so full of love and fun that anyone would be envious, and I’m lucky to get to share a slice of it whenever I visit.

I had such a great time that I forgot to take pictures for 4 days, except, of course, of the dog.

So here’s the dog, Pockets. Thanks, family, for the wonderful visit.

Going to Graceland

I got to Graceland late and left early, so no tour for me. It was a pity, because I was staying at the Graceland RV park, which is right across the parking lot from all the museums and shops, and about 1/4 mile to Graceland. I got to walk around the Graceland GigantoMegaplex™ and take photos, but skedaddled in the morning because it was supposed to rain all week and the Mississippi river was ready to flood.

I wasn’t down to experience Memphis in a flood, because the infrastructure there is already on the shaky side. The people, though, were so beautiful and the city is built on a foundation of pure soul, so I want to return some day soon.

Gladys was Elvis’s mom’s name. Gladis is my RV’s name. 

Going to Jackson

Heading down the road, I ended up in Jackson, Tennessee, a place I had never heard of and had never anticipated going. I always had assumed the Johnny and June Carter Cash song was about Jackson, Mississippi, but now I think it is probably about Jackson, TN.

Wanna Talk?

Jackson is home to the friendliest people on earth. People there will talk to you for an hour with little prompting. They just stop down and converse.

I was staying in a very odd, very pretty park. It was a mobile home park that converted empty mobile home spaces to RV spaces, so the two were intermingled. The only disadvantage was that you had to back up onto two long strips of concrete – the former mobile home foundation – very carefully to avoid being all catywampus and unlevel. This only took me about 10 attempts. It was a good learning experience.

The park was pretty, though, full of trees and flowers, and I got to know the residents and their dogs and cats through my walks around the place because, like I said, Tennesseans will talk to anyone. A group of the ladies had a feral cat spaying and feeding operation going and they gave me the lowdown about the cats and their personalities.

I had super-friendly neighbors, Dixie Lee and her son Marcus, who both loved the Lord and lived to tell about it. I had to watch out on my trips back from the pool, because I would be caught listening out there as the sun set and would end up getting absolutely eaten by mosquitoes. They were great, friendly people; the mosquitoes were jerks.

Abundant Life Temple

Downtown

Jackson is home to a pretty little, somewhat decaying downtown that will probably gentrify in the next 10 years. I could see little spots of it beginning already – the organic grocery with the 74 brands of CBD oil, some fancy brewpub type places.

Rockabilly Hall of Fame Mural

It’s also home to the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, to which my old high-school friend Benton Owsley is due to be inducted for his longtime internet radio station, Rockit Radio.

This is the best part of this trip – finding people I never thought I would meet and places that I had never even thought I was going to.

Rockabilly Hall of Fame Stage

Today is my 100th consecutive day on the road. Prior to this, I also took a 3-week trip in November to Oregon and a 3-week trip in January to the desert south of Palm Springs.

The stats: 100 Days, 9 states, 4425 miles (plus driving around town).

The prettiest drive? Sedona to Monument Valley, Tuba City notwithstanding.

My favorite place? Taos, New Mexico. Gorgeous mountains, history, deep blue sky, quirky people and good food and coffee.

My least favorite place? El Campo, Texas. It looked like the beginning scenes of every serial killer movie, and had this weird racist sign thing on the approach to town.

Best food? Austin. The rest of America needs to do better.

Worst food? Somewhere in Arkansas.

Arkansas “burrito”

Place you’re dying to get back to? Memphis. I was only there overnight because of rain and flooding, and damn, that city has soul.

Scariest Bridge? Lord preserve me if I ever have to drive the Calcasieu in Lake Charles again. I mean, look at that thing.

Nicest People? Tennessee, hands down. Hope you have time to talk.

Highlights? Seeing my brother’s family in Kentucky, Monument Valley, White Sands, the nice people in Jackson, TN, Ojo Caliente, the Georgia O’Keeffe museum.

Lowlights? Knocking a hole in the roof of Gladis with a monsoon storm approaching. Thinking a tornado was going to get me in Texas.

Learned anything? Americans aren’t terrible people when you talk to them. Pretty much everyone is polite, even when they disagree with you.

How do you feel? Profoundly grateful for the opportunity.

Where to next? Off to see my brother-in-law Mike in Chicagoland.

One of the retired bathhouses

I Love Hot Springs!

Remember how I went to Ojo Caliente? And remember how quiet and relaxing it was to lay in the New Mexico sun all day long, dipping in and out of mineral pools?

I realized I would be heading through northern Arkansas and decided to make a trip to Hot Springs National Park, the weirdest national park. No, it is. It has the typical wilderness kinds of areas, but is also part of a town, and commercial hot springs are mixed in with the national park in the town, and it is all very confusing.

In the middle of this cute little town, I found 2 baths still operating, and discovered they were the only way to bathe in the hot springs. Ok, fine.

A retired bathhouse lobby is now a nice air-conditioned place for a sit on a hot summer day.

Taking the Plunge

I picked one, stood in line and paid my money, choosing the most modest package of services. A trip up a creaky elevator took me to the second floor, where ladies only are allowed.

Some laconic looking workers told me to have a seat in a changing room. The other ladies and I sat in a row. Some were in sheets wrapped like togas. No one had told me to bring a toga. Was I supposed to bring a sheet?

No, because soon enough a woman ordered me into a changing booth and told me to lock my clothes and belongings in a locker and wait, naked, with my back to the booth’s curtain. She soon came along and wrapped my corpus into a toga, too, then ordered me back to wait in the line of chairs.

Shut Up, Suebob

Time passed quickly because I started talking with the lady next to me. We started talking racial politics and though she was black and I was white, I was far more radical than her. We were deep in conversation and I was just about to say “Respectability politics are bullshit!” when I realized two things: 1) the lady was calling me for my bath and 2) the other six white women had all stopped their conversations to gape at mine. Um…Read “So You Want to Talk About Race?” Bye!

Where are the Mineral Pools?

A woman named LaToya led me into an exceptionally hot, noisy and wet room. Women were lying on what looked like physical therapy tables, covered in sheets with towels draped over them. I was taken into one of a row of booths along the marble walls. The booth had a large bathtub already filled with hot water and a thing the size and shape of an outboard motor in it.

Huh. I guess this was a different kind of mineral spa. It looked for all the world like a 1900-era sanitorium.

She told me to step up on a stool and into the water as she deftly removed my toga with one move. I got in the tub, but she had obviously calculated the amount of water on a woman of…smaller stature, because when I plunked my large ass into the mineral water, a tsunami of water cascaded over the edges of the tub and onto the floor, adding another inch of water to the already sodden tiles. It was truly impressive. I could hear the ghost of Archimedes laughing.

Mind Your Toes

She gave me some instructions and turned on the outboard motor, which turned out to be the bubble machine. The one instruction LaToya neglected to give me was to keep my feet away from the intake, because that thing sucked onto my foot so hard, and LaToya was already gone. After a panicked second, I jerked my foot away from the evil sucker, inspecting it to make sure there was no lasting damage.

I perched in the pool and breathed in the scalding air as the other outboard motors cranked away around me. A large clock ticked away on the wall. LaToya had told me I had 20 minutes and she then would come get me.

She also brought me two tiny cups of mineral water. Hot mineral water. “Sip on that,” she told me. Ok, that’s just weird. She also came in and gave my legs and back a very perfunctory scrub with a loofah they had given me at the front counter. I had expected some Korean-level exfoliation, but nope.

Not for Germaphobes

Once my 20 minutes were up, LaToya again wrapped me in my sheet and led me to a soaking wet physical therapy table. She squeegeed off the table with the side of one hand and told me to sit there and wait.

I watched the proceedings as I cooled. LaToya and another attendant worked – literally feverishly – to serve the never-ending parade of bathers. In a precise, sweaty ballet, they moved toga-clad women from one treatment to another.

An ever-flowing faucet delivered a powerful stream of steaming water into a large tub sink. The attendants would come over, grab a clean, rolled towel, and saturate the towels in this straight-from-the-spring 143 degree (62C) water, then wring them out with powerful hands.

It was these towels that LaToya laid on my table, then had me lie down on, yelping at the scald. She put a cold towel on top of my head and gave me a cup of ice to suck on. I laid there and steamed for another 15 minutes.

Following that, I also had the option of a sitz bath (a bath for your butt, basically) and a steam bath (looking for all the world like an industrial kitchen steam cabinet), but I was hot enough, so I just got the “needle shower” (about 20 seconds in a shower with nozzles on all sides that had probably been needle-like in 1920, but which now just dribbled out a pathetic stream).

Another old bathhouse. They are so elegant. Gangsters, baseball players and Mae West were notable guests.

Sweet Release

And that was it. I was free. I tipped LaToya a lot because damn, that is one hard-working woman and she had to see me nekkid several times. I squeezed my damp self back into my clothes and descended the creaky elevator.

I went outside and sat on an Adirondack chair on the porch for a minute, wondering “What the hell just happened?”

It was hot. It was weird. But on the other hand, my muscles felt great for a couple days, and my skin was softer and silkier than it had been for decades.

It LOOKS relaxing!

Typical 70 degree day in Ventura

Person 1: “I’m freezing!”

Person 2: “It’s so hot for this time of year!”

One of the perils of living where the weather is perfect year round is failing to realize just how much the weather sucks in other places.

People keep asking me why I traveled to somewhere when I knew it would be too hot there, or too cold, or too windy, or too stormy.

The truth is that I’m clueless about all of those things. My family has been in California since the late 1800s (ask my sister Paula, the geneaologist). We don’t know from bad weather.

Change of Itinerary

All this is to explain why I never made it to New Orleans. I was in Lafayette and planning on heading east, but the mid-90s heat and humidity completely defeated me.

“Oh, this is NOTHING,” people kept saying.

I headed north in the mistaken belief that I would find some cool somewhere. North = cool, right? Shreveport begs to differ.

But I did spend a work week in Shreveport, parked under some tall pine trees, reveling in my fellow campers’ Louisiana accents, swimming every night in the only-somewhat-suspect-looking swimming pool.

My Modus Operandi

I usually travel on weekends and stay put during the week, because working all day, pulling up stakes, leaving an RV park at 11 a.m checkout time, working in some parking lot with no air conditioning all day and then driving and then re-setting up on the other end is just too much.

Greensleeves

My overall impression of the South is this: green and more green. From San Antonio through southern Texas to Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennesee and Kentucky – SO MUCH GREEN.

I come from a dry and brown place. Don’t let the postcards they make during the one green month of the year fool you: Southern California is a desert.

And the quality of the green is so much more vibrant and glowing than our green ever gets, probably because our water is alkaline and in most places back here, it is acidic.

I tried to drink in all this lush green as best I could, knowing that I’ll soon be in less leafy places.

Decay

I have a weird fondness for the rapid decay that happens in a moist and rainy place. I’m always taking pictures of overgrown buildings. I loved Highway 49 for all of the interesting decayed places I found.

On Highway 49

The sign used to say I (Highway Sign) 49

Not only could you get fresh livers n gizzards here, but there was a man, Clayton Dyess, singing the most beautiful gospel music with a guitar in the parking lot.

Hey, I found him on the internets!