Eisenhower's Home

Near the Gettysburg National Park is the only home that was owned by President Eisenhower and his wife Mamie. Eisenhower rose to prominence, having gone to West Point and then moving up and through the ranks to become the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, commanding the invasion of Europe and directing the invasion of Normandy in WWII. He was US President prior to Kennedy up to 1961 (for my friends at York U. he was President of Columbia University in 1948, until he became President in 1952. ) He and his wife bought this farm as a retirement place, but he hosted numerous world leaders including Churchill, DeGaul, Neru, and many others (including very surprisingly General Montgomery...who simply arrived at the farm uninvited...) and took them all up the road pictured in the photo to see his show barn with prized Angus cattle. He took them on tours of the Gettysburg battleground. We toured the house....there's Bev at the front door.

Gettysburg

For any of you who are into Civil War history, Gettysburg is a must-see. Arguably it is the battle that changed the tide of the war, the time when General Lee suffered his first defeat, a defeat that some say caused the Union to win. Close to 51,000 casualties resulted from this 3 day clash of confederate and union soldiers under the auspices of Generals Lee and Meade respectively. Three famous and fateful days...July 1,2 and 3 in 1863 during which 165,000 soldiers met, and through their bravery and with their strong beliefs, the tides turned in the Civil War. Later on, President Abraham Lincoln came to deliver his famous Gettysburg address and from those words a nation was inspired to heal and unite.

The pictures are of the battleground, some of the monuments in the park (there about 400 of them all attesting to various regiments, etc. who fought there).

Rain = Interstate 81

We had hoped to travel the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive, a route we enjoyed in 2005 with our neighbour Dennis. Unfortunately it was pouring rain for two days so we decided to take interstate 81 north which travelled through many states. Ultimately we arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Bev really was keen on civil war history and was looking forward to this town. Interstate 81 was great as long as it wasn't raining TOO hard and we could keep up with the trucks....BUT, unfortunately during heavy downpours we slowed down, Dave put his flashers on, but the trucks keep on moving and their heavy spray added to the rain. ..... not the most pleasant drive. At one point at a rest stop, someone said they had seen us on the highway and thought "wow,now there are a couple of hard core bikers...." so, who would'a thunk that was us.

Biltmore Estate

From Nashville we travelled east to Ashville and toured the Biltmore Estate, the largest private home in the US, with 250 rooms with an 8000 acre backyard making it an impressive place. It was built by George Vanderbilt of shipping and railroad fame and fortune.

Nashville

AKA ""Guitar Town "or "Music City" or the "Athens of the South"

Firstly, let us say it right out front.....there is NO comparison between Memphis and Nashville. Memphis is rough, dirty, unsafe, and with decaying infrastructure. Nashville is spotless, safe, and hugely rich with the local economy based on banking and finance and health care, and with 38 higher education institutions it attracts a different population. Apparently Nashville has the highest per capita income in the entire country. Indeed, they built a replica of the Parthenon for their centennial. Sure, both have music with Memphis Blues and Nashville Country, but Nashville has really spent money making it a beauty to visit. It is referred to as the Athens of the South because of all the universities and colleges (with a total of 100,000 students) and well known medical schools. They say that it is a good place to have a heart attack, if you have to have one, because the chances of a doctor walking by are staggeringly high or if not there would be a song writer to immortalize your last moments.

We toured the Country Music Hall of Fame (see photo of gold and platinum records), saw the famous RCA Studio A (where everyone from the Beatles, Elvis, Johnny Cash, Perry Como, The Stones, The Monkeys (!!), etc. all recorded there.....so ya don't have to be country to like or come to Nashville. One place that was a nice surprise was called the "Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum" and it was a tribute to all the background instrument players who backed up famous signers over the years; examples include the A-Team (Nashville), the Wrecking Crew (west coast), the Funk Brothers (Detroit) and the Memphis Boys (Memphis). Exhibits of instruments played for original recordings for Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hank Williams Sr., George Harrison, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Bob Dylan, Chicago, etc. were there....so, like we say, not everyone who records in Nashville is into country.

There is snap of a local beer joint called "Legends Corner", and another with the singer inside and one of Dave and Bev leaving.

Grand Ol' Oprey and Ryman Auditorium, Nashville

The Grand Ol' Oprey is not a place but, rather, a happening. It is a radio show that started in the 30s and it followed the Metropolitan Opera from New York....over time it was called the Grand Ol' Oprey from the south and it had a tremendous following which cut across many American states. Initially it was held in the Ryman which was a tabernacle, hence the bench church-type pews. Eventually it was moved to a newly built location in order to seat more (4400) though the Ryman still is used for 4 months of the year. We went and saw a number of acts, which included. The Ryman accoustically, is one of the best halls in the world and is still sought after by performers, current, world known and other...such as Springsteen and the Merrimans (see photo of a performance).

The pictures of the acts we saw include Terri Clark (a Canadian who recently hosted the Canadian Country Music Awards), Connie Smith (a star from the 60s who is in the hall of fame), Diamond Rio and the currently popular Joe Nichols. There were others, but we don't follow country so we didn't know them well.

The Nachez Trace Scenic Parkway

While having dinner in Clarksdale, we met Joe and Dorothy Middleton, causing two things to happen: (1) we decided that not just Arkansans were friendly, the WHOLE south was; and, (2) Joe changed our route for us. Initially, had the weather cooperated we would have gone right down to New Orleans and on to Florida but we had decided to swing north. Joe described the Nachez Trace Parkway and we changed our route. By continuing down the Great River Road and then crossing over to hwy 82 over to Indianola and on to the Trace.

THANKS Joe, it was really a relaxing and enjoyable road. We saw Indian burial mounds, and part of the original Trace. This was a trail first used by animals and then Indians and then the white men moving to the south west. The picture you will see shows part of the original Trace along with 13 graves of confederate soldiers who died along the trail during the civil war. The Trace really has no stops, rather overpasses and bridges such as the one in the photo over the Tennessee River.

While travelling, we came upon a "biker" with a dead bike (a suzuki). One thing about bikers, they help each other. We stopped and gave him moral support while we located a towing service from the GPS database. Bev had her trusty Harley card.....another part of the culture is for anyone travelling with a Harley driver; they can get help by calling the 800 number and a tow truck will be sent (to keep the Harley rider on the road...). The Harley people said that the closest dealer was in Jackson Mississippi, but since he had a Suzuki it would be better to get a more local tow truck as Jackson was several hundred km away and he didn't need to go so far since it wasn't a Harley. They were very friendly. Included in this post is a picture of Craig Chilton with Bev, near the sign where he broke down....can you believe it? It was "Friendship Road" so we just had to get a snap. Craig is a Catrina survivor who now lives in Tupelo, Mississippi, the birth place of Elvis. Hey Craig, keep on ridin' and you made the right decision for your daughter.

We left the Trace in search of food, got lost in Florence, Alabama, but found a great Mexican restaurant there and finally ended up in a motel in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, across the road from a Walmart that sold beer.

Tomorrow we're going to Nashville and the Grand Ol' Opry.

The Crossroads

From Beale street we traveled south down that 61 Highway to "The Crossroads" where in Clarksdale, the Blues was born. The Crossroads is at the intersection of highways 49 and 61, where legend has it that a young fellow with no musical capability sold his sole to the devil to instantly become a blues musician.

That evening we went to the famous Ground Zero Blues Club in downtown Clarksdale, owned by Morgan Freeman (we love his movies), and enjoyed some local blues talent. Downtown Clarksdale remains authentic, right down to the broken concrete parking lot, peeling paint on all the buildings and broken decrepid couches outside the bars. We loved it!

From there we continued south, taking route 1, the "Great River Road" an American classic road which moves along the Mississippi River taking people from the burger stands and corn fields in the north and giving way to the BBQ shacks and cotton plantations of the south. That said, we were a little disappointed that we couldn't see the River for the levees. The road didn't even wind, it was perfectly straight and was surrounded by flat cotton fields. As motorcycle roads go, driving the Mississippi delta is a bit boring !

On another note, live is realllll different down in the south. People are friendly, on the other hand they get chatting to each other and at one gas station, we left after waiting 10 minutes where every fillup spot was taken up with an empty car. NO ONE was in a hurry.

Gibson Guitar Factory

We enjoyed a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory in Memphis, a highly labour intensive operation that produces about 60 units per day. You'll see a series of pictures showing the evolution of the guitar as it moves from lumber to a work of art.

HEY, Terry Wright....wish you were here???

Memphis

We spent another day in Memphis, rode the trolley, saw famous Beale Street with its many blues bars and outside bands as well as the Civil Rights Museum (which is placed at the former hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 5, 1968). There is a picture of the balcony near room 306, on which he was shot. We visited the Museum of Rock and Soul which cronicles the sharecroppers who migrated up hwy 61 bringing their music to Memphis. It seems that Memphis was the hub for joining black soul and blues music and white country and hillbilly music and strains of other types of music blended to create rock and roll.

In the evening we went to see an Elvis tribute singer....Bev was relieved it wasn't the heavy guy with long sideburns and dressed like Elvis in the audience....phew, hey girls this guy can wear those tight pants.

Graceland

Well, this goes without saying...EXCEPT for that picture of Bev with the actual microphone used by Elvis the Pelvis in the photo behind her at Sun Studio where Rock 'N Roll was born. When Elvis was asked who he sang like, his response was "I don't sound like nobody" and history was born.

Elvis, his parents and his stillborn twin brother are all buried at Graceland and so it truly is a shrine.

Through the Ozarks to Memphis

From Monett, we headed south on routes 37 and 62 to Eureka Springs, which turned out to be an amazing destination. It has been designated an historic district and claims to be in the top dozen distinctive destinations in the US. Having never heard of it, in the end we decided that it would be a perfect destination for our friends Marla and Phil as it has oodles of antiques and Victorian era bed and breakfasts. It is all original from the 1880s and was initially established so that people could drink the spring water which was thought to have medicinal properties. It was the most beautiful town we have been in on this trip.....the terrain is so rugged that the main street is built over a stream bed, to get to the town you drop 648 ft in about .2 miles. You can see part of the town falling down behind Bev while she awaits her lunch. The town runs shuttles all over which is very convenient for bikers, though their rationale is much better. They want to keep down the number of vehicles on the narrow streets.

We continued on through Harrison on route 65, then went up a really lovely little road (route 66...but not THE route 66) through Mountain View and then on route 14 out of the hills and into the Mississippi valley where we stopped for lunch in Newport. It is here that we decided without second thoughts that Arkansans are the NICEST Americans! Everyone in the restaurant welcomed us and in the end a lawyer, James A. McLarty III, changed our route sending us along hwy 14....thanks James! (note: James said to me, "have you read any John Grissom novels? as I am the kind of small town southern lawyer he writes about".....to which I said, "but have ya been in a movie???"

Change of Route Plan

Well, okkkkkkk, so we have to agree that Ike and potential future hurricanes rule....we are going to skip New Orleans as well as Florida (apparently parts of Interstate 10 are closed). We will do that on a future trip another year EARLIER in the season!! We have moved east from our great friend Joe, in Wichita, and are headed to Memphis. We miss Joe already, what a great host he was. We saw parts of Wichita that we would have missed without him. In addition to Wichita's entertaining "Cowtown" and "Old Town", Joe took us to the Beaumont Hotel, a restored 1879 hotel (the only building in Beaumont). It hosts private fly-ins and motorcycle drive-ins on alterate weekends. The rooms have been beautifully restored. When in Beaumont the thing to do is to take a snap beside the last remaining wooden railroad water tower in the great west.....and there is Joe.

From Beaumont we continued east and drove a section of the infamous Route 66....do you remember George Maharis and Martin Milner....Bev had a crush on Maharis.

On Route 66 we crossed into Missouri and continued on to Monett.

Wichita AKA "Cowtown"

Cowtown comes alive at night with "cowboy" music.....which is different than "western" or "country" music....think of Roy Rogers signing beautiful story-telling ballads. We loved it. The group we enjoyed offered a chuckwagon dinner as well. They were called the "Diamond W Wranglers" and they are one of the top cowboy music groups in the States.

After the show, Joe took us to see the "Keeper of the Plains" Indian statue placed at the point where the Arkansas and the Little Arkansas rivers meet.

Salt Mines at Hutchinson

We 3 were going to bike together but with the rain, we decided to be regular tourists. We drove north in Joe's truck to the Hutchinson Salt Mines and took a fabulous underground tour at a depth of 650 feet where the temperature was a dry constant 68 degrees. The salt from this mine is used to melt ice and dissolve cars all over the US. The mined out areas are used to store all kinds of valuable things including: government documents; original prints of films (see Dave near some); Hollywood movie costumes; and all sorts of other valuable "stuff" -- eg., financial records from companies, etc. The picture of Joe and Bev is taken in one of the mined out rooms.

Wichita...in the great flood of 2008

After Dodge we continued on to Wichita to visit our friend Joe Schlabach. En route the rain caught up with us "reeeaall good", ultimately dumping 10 inches on Wichita and completely flooding numerous streets including the one where Dave had booked his Honda service. As he drove up West Street to the dealership through 10" of water he felt like he was on a jetski rather than a bike. In fact, the dealership only had Dave as a client that day.....I'm certain that after we left, they muttered "those Canucks don't know when to stay home!"

We have included a flooded field for your enjoyment.

Dodge City AKA "Boot Hill"

After crossing Monarch Pass we were chased down into Salida by threatening storm clouds. We went on with the storm behind us, staying in Pueblo, through La Junta and Lamar. As soon as we crossed the border into Kansas, a vicious crosswind picked up and we wouldn't have been the least surprised to see Dorothy and Toto go flying by !! Ultimately we stopped in Dodge City, the former wild west stop on the Santa Fe Trail and the current centre of the beef feed lots of the great west. Trucks full of live stock have replaced the cattle drives of the past, and they currently process 6,000 head/day, 6 days/week.

The picture of Boot Hill's graveyard, where you got buried with yer boots on....is of J.M. Essington who died in November 1882. It states that he owed a hotel and, while drunk and in a fuss, he was shot and instantly killed by the hotel cook. There a number of original grave markers and fascinating stories behind each.