Category: USA 2019

I’m convinced that Jolene can read my mind. If you don’t know who Jolene is, you will have to go back a few days and catch-up.

Actually, I’m convinced that MBW can read my mind too, but I guess that is to be expected after being married to her for 35 years.

But Jolene and I don’t have that much history, so it’s freaking me out a bit.

I’ll tell you more about that soon.

Today was a bit warmer. 11°C was the temperature the first time I looked at my phone today – around 8.30am.

11°C is quite a reasonable temperature to start the day. Much warmer that -1°C, but still cool compared to Brisbane winter temperatures.

We discovered the reason for the warmer start when we left our comfortable Nashville AirBnB this morning.

Overcast. Rain. 🙁

Not enough rain to need an umbrella, but enough rain that I needed to use The Don II’s wipers … or to be slightly more correct, to find out how to use The Don II’s wipers.

After all of those big, wide, blue Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South & North Carolina and Tennessee skies, that run of luck had to come to an end at some point.

So I figured out how to use the wipers and we set off on a bit of a drive in the Tennessee countryside.

Specifically, we took a drive out to Leiper’s Fork TN.

Now, today’s post needs some participation from you good readers. The question is, what is significant about Leiper’s Fork TN?

I certainly knew of one thing that put Leiper‘s Fork on the map, but then today I discovered a second thing about Leiper’s Fork TN.

So the challenge to you is to post your thoughts on Leiper’s Fork in a comment at the end of this post. There is no prize – only bragging rights and the warm inner glow of knowing something that nobody else did 🙂

After exploring Leiper’s Fork – and believe me, it didn’t take long – we headed off to Belle Meade Plantation for a guided tour.

We travelled on some beautiful rural Tennessee back roads.

Belle Meade Plantation was originally built in 1807 by John Harding, and the significance of this estate is that they were famous for thoroughbred American racehorses.

In fact, their most significant thoroughbred was called Inquirer, and we learned that out of 142 Kentucky Derby races, only 32 winners were not related to Inquirer. Pretty impressive!

In fact, since 2003, every horse that has raced in the Kentucky Derby can trace its bloodline back to Inquirer. Not every horse that has won – every horse that has raced!

After Belle Meade, we headed over to Franklin TN for a(nother) Segway tour, this time through historic Franklin TN.

Franklin was a significant site for the confederate war between the South and the North, over the use of black African-American slaves.

The battle of Franklin was a particularly bloody war, with 20,000 soldiers from the North, and another 20,000 soldiers from the South. The North had something like 1,500 dead and injured, while the South had around 12,000 dead and injured.

Don’t quote me on the numbers – that’s what we were told.

At one place during the war, the casualties were so tightly packed into a particular area that they died standing up – there was no room for them to fall down.

We saw houses that still show evidence of bullet-holes from the war, and others that had cannon-balls go through ceilings and walls.

Much of Franklin is being restored back to its historical past.

I’m beginning to think MBW will start referring to me as Calamity Geoff … last night I needed to duck out to the car late – in the dark – and on the way back I stumbled into a hole in the front yard of our AirBnB and twisted my ankle.

The one thing that riding a Segway requires is excellent balance. The one thing that I don’t have is … excellent balance.

Today on our Segway tour, I clipped a concrete step with one of my wheels and the Segway lurched to the left, so I overcorrected to the right and fell off – onto the road 🙁

Twisted knee, twisted ankle, sore neck, hurt pride 🙁 I’ll live though.

After all of that excitement, we made one last stop at Carnton House – another significant historical landmark. Carnton House was used as a hospital during the Battle of Franklin.

We arrived too late for the last tour of the day, but stopped and had a quick look around anyway.

Tonight we had tickets for a Grand Old Opry show at the Ryman Auditorium in the heart of Nashville TN.

We got back into downtown about 5.30pm for a 7.00pm show, so we dropped into Pucketts Restaurant for dinner. We were told that their fried chicken and brisket sliders are very good.

Wrong!

Their fried chicken and brisket sliders were AMAZING! Worth the trip to Nashville just for the food.

The show at the Ryman Auditorium was a country and western concert featuring several well known (and some not so well known) artists – John Conley, Kendall Marvel, Eric Paslay, and Dionne Warwick.

We sat in the nosebleed section with the other cheapskates, but it was still a great show and we are really pleased that we saw it.

I know that I have spoken before about the interstates – they are both amazing and confusing at the same time.

Speed limit signs are only posted with the words “Speed limit 55”. No red circle to attract your attention like we have in Australia – so I tend to choose a speed that is somewhere between the slowest and fastest drivers around me.

Coming home tonight from the Ryman, the traffic was not too bad so we sat on around 70mph for most of the trip. We still had one turkey pass us at something close to the speed of sound, which is a bit concerning.

One of the things that I love about the interstate is that there are no traffic lights, so if you have a straight run from, say Knoxville to Nashville, Jolene will tell you to continue straight ahead for 298km.

I mentioned earlier that Jolene can read my mind. There have been several times now where we have been rolling along at 70-75mph, in the middle of 5 lanes of traffic, and knowing that I need to merge onto another highway in 2km. I have either thought to myself – or possibly said out loud – “what lane am I supposed to be in” and Jolene has responded with “you need to be in the second lane from the right”.

Spooky.

Anyhow it’s late, I’m tired, and my various injuries are starting to stiffen up, so it’s time for bed … and to have dreams of becoming a country and western star and performing at the Ryman Auditorium.

MBW often reminds me that things happen in threes – so tomorrow might be an interesting day 🙁

We are having such a fabulous time here in the South. Other than falling off a Segway and being at risk of being run over by passing traffic, today was a blast!

Driving through rural Tennessee, seeing Leiper’s Fork with my own eyes, eating fried chicken and brisket sliders for dinner, and a show at the Grand Ole Opry was the icing on the cake – hence today’s song: Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen).

PS: Don’t forget to make a comment with your answer on the Leiper’s Fork puzzle …

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

I seem to have developed an unhealthy attraction to southern fried chicken.

Regular breaded fried chicken.

Spicy fried chicken.

General Tso fried chicken.

MBW: “What shall we do for lunch today?”

Me: “Fried chicken?”

So to be clear, we do have it with salad … but I suspect that I may have eaten my own body weight in fried chicken so far on this trip.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve consumed far too much coffee too. And chocolate. And possibly beignets also.

We stayed at Jaclyn and Katherine’s place last night in Knoxville TN. They finally got home and we had a nice chat with them, then hit the sack.

This morning it was -1°C again. There is a pattern developing that I don’t care for. That’s three days in a row now.

Jaclyn and Katherine’s AirBnB is one of those places where you actually live in their home, use their fridge and stove, etc.

MBW and I generally prefer to stay in places where we have a little bit of separation between ourselves and our host but that hasn’t always been possible.

But it was only for one night.

It’s a funny thing – in different countries you sometimes see things that you have never seen before and seem unusual.

This morning as we were leaving Jaclyn and Katherine’s house, a truck stopped out the front of the house, unhooked this huge vacuum cleaner hose, and proceeded to suck up all of the leaves that had fallen into the gutters.

After leaving the house, we took a spin into Knoxville downtown to have a look around.

Once again, nothing is open before 11.00am so all very quiet in the city.

We saw this sign outside a coffee shop in the city that was open. It’s the story of my life …

After deciding that there was really nothing much to do or see that early in Knoxville TN, we hopped into The Don II, pointed him towards Nashville TN and headed off.

The interstate was pretty quiet and it was a good run – about 2.5 hours.

I mentioned earlier about seeing things that are not common in Australia. On the interstate, it is not uncommon to see a truck towing a number of other trucks all connected to the back of the previous one.

We arrived into Nashville TN around noon today, dropped off our stuff at our AirBnB, and then drove into the city for a tour on a Segway.

Now I want my own Segway 🙁

After the tour, we went on our own walking tour of the city. What an amazing place, with live music in every bar, restaurant, and venue, with more buskers playing on street corners.

It seems like every second person is carrying a guitar around the street with them.

Jolene gave us some trouble tonight on the way home from Nashville TN downtown. We asked her nicely to take us home, and we were making good progress despite the traffic – not her fault – and we decided to do a really quick detour to our local Walmart to get some supplies for tomorrow.

The local Walmart is only a few minutes from where we are staying in Nashville.

She got us to change lanes a couple of times, then get onto a new motorway, then we were hurtling down the interstate at the normal 70mph heading in a direction that didn’t seem entirely consistent with my vague recollection of where we were staying …

Then I happened to look down at the screen and Jolene was reporting that we would arrive at our destination in 8.05 hours, after travelling a further 910km.

This was clearly an error and we corrected it by taking control back into our own hands again … getting us to Walmart and then home with no further mishaps.

No more news for today, sorry.

Tomorrow will be having a bit of a trip around the outskirts of Nashville to look at a Plantation house, and something really exciting tomorrow night … but I will save all of that for tomorrow’s post.

Today’s trip looked like this – 220mi or 352km.

We are now staying in Knoxville TN for 3 nights, so I suspect that we will be doing far more walking than driving for a few days. Should be a nice change.

The title of today’s post (and today’s song) is a country and western song and an ode to fried chicken.

One of my boys introduced me to the Zac Brown Band, and I’ve become a bit of a fan: Chicken Fried (ZBB).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

… what a wonderville … er, wonderful … world. Sorry about that.

I’ve felt a little bit like a Sara Lee pastry today – I’m wearing layer upon layer upon layer.

We stayed at Cindy’s AirBnB in West Asheville last night and it was a delightful stay. Our own sitting area, bedroom, bathroom and a little kitchenette area (if you can call a bar fridge and a coffee maker a kitchenette).

We met Cindy as we were heading out to the North Carolina Arboretum and had a brief chat. She told us that we were welcome to use the gas fireplace in our sitting area so we did, and it warmed the place up beautifully.

It was cold again today. I got dressed for the cold and took the suitcases out to put them into The Don II’s boot/trunk and I noticed that he had ice on his roof.

Hardly surprising considering that it was -1°C again.

I loaded up The Don II and then went back inside into the warmth of the house and started sweating like a fat kid in a marathon. It is really difficult to dress suitably for both inside and outside.

Layers. Layers are the answer.

We went for a drive into downtown Asheville after we left Cindy’s to have a look for some souvenirs and everything was closed.

Asheville is a pretty little township, but nothing too much exciting happens there.

MBW wanted to have a look at the 237 room Biltmore Estate which was built by George Vanderbilt on 8000 acres in the 1890s.

We got there to find that the tickets were approximately USD $100 each to get in a have a look around, and decided that we could spend our $200 better on something else.

Even the guardhouse is bigger than our house!

So we took a spin along the Blue Ridge Parkway instead. It is a really pretty, really beautiville … er, beautiful … drive in the Smoky Mountains.

Sorry again.

The drive was truly breathtaking. The photos don’t do it justice.

We got about 10-12 miles along the parkway and then the road was closed, so we turned around and headed back into Asheville NC to find another way to get to Waynesville, where we would enter the 441 to get over the Smoky Mountains.

Let me explain the whole “ville” thing.

Americans are many things, but in this part of the country they are not very imaginative when it comes to naming towns.

Asheville. Waynesville. Greenville. Linville. Tonight we are in Knoxville. Tomorrow Nashville.

We discovered today that Jolene has a bit of a speech impediment when it comes to pronouncing placenames.

Asheville is pronounced “Asher-ville”.

Waynesville comes out as ”Way-nes-ville”.

The Walmart Supercentre is a “sup-per-centre” with the emphasis on the “per”.

We got to Waynesville NC around 1.00pm, found Walmart and bought some supplies for lunch. They like fried chicken here.

Matter of fact, I’m getting pretty fond of it too.

We also bought some potato wedges to go with it. They sell wedges in North Carolina by the wedge.

So the conversation went like this:

Deli lady: “Can I help y’all?”

Me: “Can I have some fried chicken please?”

Deli lady: “Huh?”

Not a good start. And here I am thinking it was her that talked funny.

MBW came to the rescue and ordered some fried chicken, and then asked after the wedges.

Deli lady: “How many wedges would y’all like?”

MBW: “10 wedges please.”

Just for the record, we did have salad with our fried chicken and wedges 🙂

Now I appreciate that I am no fashion statement as we are travelling around, but I have noticed an increasing tendency of North Carolina men to wear bib and brace overalls. Even shopping.

I’ve always been of the belief that nobody can wear bib and brace overalls and make them look good, and that view has been confirmed in North Carolina 🙂

We found a little Baptist Church just down the road from Walmart, and set up there for lunch. It was still pretty cold so we ate in the car.

From there, we took off to get over the Smoky Mountains so that we could arrive at tonight’s AirBnB in Knoxville at a reasonable time.

The Blue Ridge Parkway was closed so we asked around and found that the 441 was the next best option. Apple Maps reported it as being closed due to weather, but Google Maps said it was open.

Jolene was confused.

We stopped at a McDonalds for coffee and asked the locals, and they confirmed that it was open. So off we went.

At the start of the 441 we came across an Indian Reservation visitor centre. They confirmed that the 441 was open but that we needed to take it easy and watch for snow and ice.

No 80mph over the Smoky Mountains.

It was a truly spectacular drive, and possibly the highlight of our trip so far.

And then we found it. The Tennessee/North Carolina border.

In the picture above, you can see a big patch of ice on the road.

We got into Pigeon Forge TN around 5.00pm and MBW got to try a funnel cake. I can’t describe it, but it’s the next best thing to having a beignet 🙂

And probably as fattening 🙁

Pigeon Forge is one weird place. It’s a bit like the Las Vegas of Tennessee.

These are some of the buildings on the main Street.

Hmmm.

We arrived at our AirBnB around 6.15pm and had breakfast for dinner. Don’t ask.

We were cold and tired and didn’t feel like going out again, and have probably exceeded our daily limit of fat, grease, coffee, and fried chicken … so we had granola and yoghurt and grapes for dinner.

This is what our trip today looked like – 194mi or 310km.

So here we are in Tennessee. And having a ball!

We haven’t met our hosts yet – hopefully they will be home soon and we can get to bed.

The title of tonight’s post and our chosen song is an absolute classic, and in recognition of the spectacular beauty we saw in the NC/TN Smoky Mountains today.

What a Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong) – 1967. Enjoy!

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

I was wrong.

Yesterday I said it was cold, but I was wrong. It was cold today.

We woke at around 7.00am to -1°C. On my way to the shower, I opened the door to the outside patio and I can confirm that -1°C is as cold as you expect it will be.

Last night we stayed at Ashley’s house in Harrisburg, a suburb of Charlotte NC, in a Granny flat. Not quite as spectacular as Will’s place the night before, but pretty good. We didn’t actually get to meet Ashley or her husband/partner, but we did get some messages from them so I’ll assume that they exist.

It’s quite funny looking outside, because you see squirrels running around the yard. Not quite what you expect.

By the time we had breakfast and were ready to roll, the temperature had climbed to a dizzying 1°C, and that was about as good as it got for the day.

We wanted to do a drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway today on our way to Asheville NC, so we headed off towards Blowing Rock NC which was the nearest place that we could find to get us access.

Traffic was pretty quiet heading out of Charlotte NC, so it was a nice stress-free cruise along the 16 towards Blowing Rock.

We had a bit of an issue with Jolene as we were cruising along the 16 this morning. If you don’t know who Jolene is, you will need to read yesterday’s post.

Jolene became confused and had no idea where we were. She kept shouting “proceed to the route” over and over, even though we were blasting down the 16 like she had told us to do.

I was beginning to worry that the world had ended and that all GPS technology as we know it had stopped working and we would be stuck in the USA forever … but then she consulted with Google Maps, or Apple Maps, and got her bearings again and we were OK.

So, the usual story of our lives, coffee + cold weather = unscheduled bathroom break, so we were looking for somewhere to stop and spied a McDonalds at a place called Hickory NC.

We figured that it was the right thing to do to buy coffee in return for using their rest rooms.

The team leader at the Hickory NC McDonalds – Stacey – was very friendly and decided that we “looked close enough to 55” to qualify for a senior’s discount … if only she knew 🙁 So we got two cups of bottomless coffee for … wait for it … $1.05, including tax.

That was a little embarrassing, so we searched their menu and discovered that they sell donut sticks, and we thought “it’s a sign!”. So MBW went up to the counter to get two serves of donut sticks and we got them for free because they “stopped serving them at 10.30am (it was now 11.00am) and they could not guarantee that they would be fresh.”

So, two cups of bottomless coffee and two serves of donut sticks – with chocolate dipping sauce – for $1.05 including tax.

In the interests of full disclosure, I need to add that the donut sticks that you can see in the above photo were what was left of my serve, after I had already eaten the first 5 donut sticks.

Stacey was keen to ensure that I got my free refill before we left, and came back with a jumbo sized cup brimming with coffee because my “first (small) cup looked like it had a few crumbs in it …”

I was at risk of caffeine poisoning 🙁

So we kept heading to Blowing Rock NC and found it to be a very pretty – very cold – little township.

As you can see above, they had received some snowfall the night before and some cars were covered with snow.

We discovered that there is not only a township called Blowing Rock, but also an attraction/lookout called Blowing Rock, so we headed there for some photos.

In case you are wondering, yes, it was cold. Still about 0°C.

So cold in fact that this little waterfall at the Blowing Rock was frozen.

After seeing the sights at Blowing Rock NC, we decided to jump on the Blue Ridge Parkway to head down into Asheville NC.

Unfortunately we found that most of the BRP was closed due to winter storms, although we did manage to catch a few miles of it … a very pretty drive.

We stopped for a bite of lunch at the side of the road near Linville NC. Ate in the car because it was still a bit cold out.

We rode the 221 all the way into Asheville.

I took a wrong turn – actually I turned too early – on the way to Cindy’s AirBnB, so Jolene punished me by taking us on a long winding detour through the bad side of Asheville.

I won’t make that mistake again 🙁

Tonight we went to the North Carolina Arboretum – which is the local botanical gardens. They (apparently) look beautiful during the warmer months, but in winter all of the plants die off, so they make a spectacular lighting display instead.

Photos don’t do it justice – it was spectacular. And cold. I don’t think that the temperature go above freezing (0°C) while we were there, but it was fun walking around looking at the lights with MBW, and talking to all the people with funny accents.

Today’s journey looked like this – 227mi or 363km. A bit of a lazy day really.

Tonight we are staying at Cindy’s AirBnB, and after the arboretum we have come back to the AirBnB and been sitting by the gas fire, thawing out.

I forgot to mention the significance of today’s song and post title. It was MBW’s choice tonight and a reflection on the Christmas lights that we saw tonight.

I know that we are not in Tennessee, but we will be tomorrow … hopefully via the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Near enough is good enough.

Tennessee Christmas (Amy Grant).

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

It was cold today. Really cold.

The forecast was for a range of 0°C to a maximum of 6°C, and when we woke at about 7.00am, it was already 5°C, so I was feeling hopeful … and then I took some suitcases out to the car and I had a reality check.

Back when I was young, conventional wisdom was that if you sat on a cold surface – like cold concrete – you could get piles.

If you don’t know what piles are you will have to Google it, or ask someone. I’m not explaining it here.

When you get into The Don II and he has been sitting out in the cold all night, you can be pretty certain that the leather seats are going to be cold.

Cold like a concrete floor. Cold like the type of concrete floor that conventional wisdom said would give you piles … and I’m not taking that risk because I don’t even know if piles is a medical condition that is covered under our travel insurance policy!

Now two things have occurred together to ensure that the potential piles crisis is averted.

The first thing that happened is that we discovered The Don II not only has seat warmers (because we knew that in advance), but has an option where we can set the seat warmers to come on when the engine is started.

The other thing that we discovered is that there is a button on The Don II’s remote fob that we have not used before, and we found that it allows us to start the car remotely.

That, my friends, is true technological innovation. I can stand inside the AirBnB, double-click the little button on the remote and watchThe Don II flash his lights, honk his horn, and start the motor … all safe in the knowledge that the seats are warming nicely for when I (and MBW) hop in.

So this morning we started The Don II, waited until the seats were warm, and ventured out into the cold to begin our trip to Charlotte North Carolina.

Those seat warmers are amazing – we hadn’t gone more than a kilometre or two and my buns were nice and toasty 🙂

So I mentioned yesterday that we lucked out with our AirBnB. We stayed with Will and Erica and their 3yo son Hogan. Will is a “golf pro” and I’m not sure what Erica does.

They live in a beautiful house in Marietta Georgia. The only thing that could have made it better is if there had been a few centimetres of snow on the ground.

The AirBnB space is called an “in-law” space. Fully self-contained, roomy, comfortable, everything that we could hope for.

The door on the left in the photo above leads to a private bathroom.

Seriously, if you are staying in Atlanta GA, this is the place to stay. We paid AUD$57 for the night!

So we got The Don II started, got the seats warming, and got on our way.

While I am certain that there are lots of fun things to do in Atlanta GA, we had a bit of an epic trip planned again today so we elected to get on the interstate, still heading east, and a bit north.

It was a bit of a slow start. The weather was a bit gloomy and overcast, and the temperature gauge in the car told us that it was 40° Fahrenheit outside. Now from my rudimentary understanding of the imperial system that I learned up until I was in grade 4 (?) at school, 32° F is freezing, so 40° is not much better.

Google tells me that it converts to just under 4.5° C. Brisk!

Now, please permit me to digress for just a moment. You may have noticed the title of today’s post and wondered if I have lost my mind?

There are a couple of reasons for the song that has been chosen for today’s post.

Firstly, we have been in hillbilly territory for a couple of days now and it seemed like the right time to pull out something appropriate for where we are.

As they say in the Blues Brothers movie, they have both kinds of music here – country and western!

The second reason for the song today is that we have increasingly been referring to our GPS as Jolene. Country and Western music always has a Jolene in there somewhere, and MBW is concerned that Jolene is going to take her man … and in fact Jolene has been very successfully taking not only MBW’s man, but MBW herself all over the south of the United States so far.

We fire up The Don II, give Jolene instructions on where we want to go, and she takes us there. Simple.

So I mentioned that it was a bit of a slow start today. Not The Don II’s fault. Not Jolene’s fault. We encountered the “Monday morning commute”.

Traffic was slow, everybody was going somewhere … so we sat in traffic and puddled along as best we could until Jolene found us a better way to go.

The trip from Atlanta GA to Charlotte NC was expected to take about 4.5 hours; more with stops.

After a couple of hours travelling, my bladder was sending urgent messages to my brain and then MBW saw those two little words that make her go weak at the knees – “Outlet shopping”. Yay!

Tanger Outlet is in the middle of nowhere near a place called Commerce GA (ironic, I know).

This outlet is like DFO on steroids. Seriously.

To get the whole centre in I needed to either take three photos, or do a panorama. I think that there was parking for like a bazillion cars … The Don II is out there somewhere waiting patiently for us 🙁

So we finished our shopping, MBW bought a vest (no surprises there), we used their restrooms, and got back onto the I-85 to continue our journey.

Today was another three state epic journey. Georgia, through South Carolina and into North Carolina.

Thanks Henry McMaster for your hospitality, but we are only passing through.

We did contribute to the economic prosperity of South Carolina because we stopped at the Welcome Walmart Supercenter (Welcome is a place, BTW) and bought some things for lunch – bread rolls, turkey and cheese, plus some more dairy products for coffee and breakfast – and headed on a little further to Greenville SC to stop and have a picnic lunch.

We actually stopped at a park for lunch in residential Greenville SC.

So here is a question – do you know why there are no children enjoying the park?

A: IT WAS TOO COLD!

The Don II was reporting that the weather had gone to a relatively balmy 50°F by this time (10°C) but if you take the wind chill factor into consideration it was about freezing.

Needless to say it was a quick and refreshing lunch.

Back into The Don II, new instructions for Jolene, and we were back on our way to Charlotte NC.

We crossed into North Carolina about 3.00pm and stopped at the visitor centre.

Here is another question: why do you think that MBW is sitting the way that she is?

A: It was really cold and the metal seat was super cold. No toasty buns there, but the remote start and the automatic seat warmers fixed that!

We arrived at Charlotte around 4.00pm and visited the Billy Graham library – a museum dedicated to the life and work of Billy Graham.

They had a live nativity scene going there, starting tonight, so we stopped and had a look.

When they learned that we are from Australia, they were very excited to tell us that they had a kangaroo in the lineup of animals in the stable … like we have never seen a kangaroo before!

By this time the temperature had dropped back down to about 6°C and it was time to head for home.

I have to say that all of those Christmas songs make a lot more sense now, when you are cold 🙂

Tomorrow is a relatively short run over towards Asheville, and a bit of a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We will have a bit of a poke around Charlotte NC before we head off … but that will be tomorrow’s news.

Today’s journey looked like this – 291 miles or 466km:

So to finish off, put your hands up all of you Dolly Parton fans … here is Dolly singing today’s song: Jolene (Dolly Parton).

There’s not a lot of people who can wear that outfit and make it look good 🙂

PS Google tells me that Asheville – home for tomorrow night – has a low of -2°C, so you can expect further commentary on the cold.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Last night we stayed at Emily’s AirBnB in Millbrook just outside of Montgomery Alabama.

Emily is a 911 dispatcher and has a really nice little 2 bedroom house in the ‘burbs.

There wasn’t a great deal that we wanted to do in Montgomery AL, so we had a bit of a lazy start, loaded up The Don II, pointed him south towards the Montgomery City Centre, and headed off.

The one thing that we did want to do was visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (a civil rights memorial). Noting that it is Sunday here, the place was pretty quiet in the city.

It was very sobering to walk around the memorial and understand the ways that whites tortured and killed black African Americans, up to as late as 1950 … and for the most menial of “crimes”.

The memorial has a plaque representing each county of each state, listing the names of each African American who was killed (they call it racial terrorism) that can be proven. There were obviously many, many more …

In some cases it is obvious that whole families were wiped out …

… and sometimes the names were simply not known …

… and sometimes there were simply so many killed that it was not possible to record their details …

… all for trivial crimes …

After the memorial, we wandered into the city to have a look around and discovered it was Rosa Parks day. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a while woman on 1 December 1955 and she was arrested and convicted, resulting in Dr Martin Luther King coming to prominence and a boycott of the Montgomery buses for over one year – the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.

We didn’t realise it at the time, but Rosa Parks day was today (1 December 2019) and they were in the process of closing down the city and unveiling a statue in her honour.

We then went for a walk down towards the river (the Alabama River). There is a great deal of history in Montgomery and they do not hide their history, even though much of it is very sad.

After browsing around Montgomery, we got back onto the Interstate and headed for our next destination – Atlanta Georgia.

We deliberately tried to stay off the interstate as much as we could so that we could experience some of the rural Alabama and Georgia countryside.

The roads and surroundings are absolutely beautiful at the moment with the leaves all changing colour and falling to the ground.

We stopped in LaGrange GA for lunch, not long after crossing the Georgia State Line, and feasted on fried chicken and salad.

Tonight we went in search of BBQ 🙂

Here’s a fun fact – in the USA they refer to the main meal as the entree, unlike in Australia where an entree is a starter.

Here is another fun fact – an entree is big enough for both of us, so we normally only buy one meal serve.

Now I know that I’ve previously had a rant about the drivers, speed and interstates generally … one thing that I have noticed is that everyone drives very respectfully, making space for drivers merging onto the interstate and (generally) pulling over to the right if another driver wants to get past you.

Another thing that I have noticed is that drivers seem to drive quite close behind you on the interstate – even at 80-90mph – on the assumption that you will not be stopping.

On our way into Atlanta this afternoon, I was in the fast lane with another car on my back bumper and the cars in front of me stopped quite suddenly … so I stopped quite suddenly. I think that the driver behind me must have been texting or checking his phone because I could see the whites of his eyes when he frantically hit the brakes.

We were really lucky not to be in a nose-to-tail 🙁

I’ve also discussed previously how you can merge from one motorway to another, without slowing down from 80mph. Some of the motorways and interchanges look like a bowl of spaghetti!

As we were coming in to Atlanta today, we were presented with this on the GPS …

… which looks like this on Google Maps …

… and then turns into this …

Overall, our trip today looked something like this (below) – 225mi or approx 360km. A pretty lazy day.

Tonight we are staying at Marietta, just outside Atlanta Georgia. We’ve really scored the jackpot tonight because we have a fully equipped in-laws apartment in a beautiful suburb – I’ll give you some pictures tomorrow.

While the weather was beautiful in Louisiana and Mississippi, it has been steadily getting colder as we go further north, and tomorrow’s forecast for Marietta is going to be cold.

Yep, a maximum of 6 degrees Celsius. Cold enough to freeze the you-know-what’s off a brass monkey.

All of the houses here are centrally heated, so while you can walk around inside in a tee-shirt and jeans, you are not prepared for how cold it is outside.

Me thinks we may need to look out our thermals for tomorrow …

Today was a 23 hour day thanks to the magic of crossing into another time zone, but I’m sure that I’ll get that hour back somewhere around Nashville Tennessee after we have been through the Smokey Mountains … but that’s not for a few more days yet.

We continue to have a blast. Loved Alabama and loving Georgia … particularly when we can get off the interstate and travel through the beautiful countryside.

Tomorrow we head towards Charlotte North Carolina.

We really love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to leave a comment. We will even take requests … want more photos of BBQ, fried chicken ….?

Thanks for tracking along with us.

Today’s song is Georgia (Willie Nelson). Enjoy!

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Today was something of a multi-state epic journey that the founding fathers would have been proud of … we travelled from Louisiana through Mississippi and up into Alabama.

If we had taken a short detour – or got lost – we could have picked up Florida also because it wasn’t that far from where we were in Mississippi … but getting lost was never an option because of the magic of Google Maps.

We had an early start today … well, earlier than normal. We woke to the alarm at about 6.45am. I made myself beautiful (about 5 minutes), and while MBW made herself beautiful (>5 minutes) I loaded the suitcases into the back of The Don II.

Just as we were getting ready to lock up 3041 Burgundy St, New Orleans LA and hit the road, Danny popped over to say goodbye.

The house is essentially what I would call a duplex, but in Louisiana they call it a ”double shotgun”, so Danny lives in the other half of 3041 Burgundy Street.

Now I am no fashion expert, but while Danny was resplendent in a fluffy red bathrobe, I thought that it clashed with his pink toenails. Anyhow, I’m not one to judge …

We had a nice chat with Danny about his house, living in New Orleans, his job (he is a bartender and makes 20 different flavours of Bloody Marys I believe), and also discussed the ghost that lives in his house … she steals spoons and unplugs appliances apparently. I’m probably glad that we had that discussion as we were checking out and not checking in …

So today’s final destination was Montgomery Alabama and while we were always destined to go through Mississippi, we elected to take the scenic route.

The scenic route started with a stop at Walmart about 20km outside of New Orleans because we had no milk, so we’d had no breakfast and no coffee. And while we can function OK with no breakfast, we don’t function well with no coffee.

Shopping in Walmart in Louisiana is an adventure on its own … the shop carries everything from fresh fruit and vegetables, sandwiches, all the usual tins, bottles, jars and packets of stuff you’d expect to find in a supermarket, through to clothing, shoes, toys, pharmacy and …

… guns!

While we were there we decided to buy a cooler bag to carry our cold stuff … but they have never heard of a “cooler bag” in Louisiana so we needed to go through all other possible word combinations to come up with something that described what we wanted (an ice chest, but a soft bag, not a hard container).

That game of charades led us to the sporting equipment department (yep, it’s a mystery to me too) … which led us to the discovery of guns.

Anyhow, we bought our guns … err, sorry … we bought our milk and yoghurt and fruit and cooler bag, and headed off to have breakfast and coffee in the Walmart car park.

Then we went into a service station to top up The Don II for the trip … that was another adventure, this whole pre-paying for fuel before you pump fuel when the pump won’t accept your Australian Visa Debit card so you have to go in and explain your plight to the attendant, who can’t understand a word that you say … Sigh 🙁

Jack Reacher has a list of rules that he lives by (known as Reacher’s Rules), and one of them is to eat/sleep when you can.

I have a similar rule – pee when you can, because once you get onto the interstate you may not get another chance, and at 80mph you need the least number of distractions possible!

What was unusual about our trip today is that it involved a couple of times where we were crossing large bodies of water via a very long bridge. This happened for the first time just out of New Orleans LA.

What I found most intriguing was the GPS’s advice to “stay on the I-10 East” … like I had any other option! It was that or swim.

In this particular case we were crossing Lake Pontchartrain.

The scenic route Involved getting OFF the I-10 as soon as we could and getting back onto the 90, which took us into Mississippi …

… along the beach road …

… through Biloxi …

… where we saw some stunning houses across the road from the beach …

… and on to Pascagoula where we stopped for lunch.

Lunch included crab claws, shrimp (prawns), oysters, fish, hush puppies (I can’t describe them), chips and coleslaw.

The beaches in this part of Mississippi are beautiful white sandy beaches and the weather was stunning … although there was nobody in swimming so I assume that the water was cold.

We were told that these beaches were all man-made.

So I’m just putting it out there, but if Queensland Rail wanted to open up an ICT Delivery office in Biloxi MS, I’d be happy to move there and run it for you Alison 🙂

After lunch we hopped back onto the I-65 (that’s the interstate heading north) and crossed over into Alabama.

Alabama highways have a totally different feel about them from other states – lots of wide open spaces and leaves turning brown (although to be fair, the leaves always turn brown at this time of the year).

There were indications from Google Maps that there was a bad accident up ahead on the I-65, and we were keen to see more of the Alabama countryside, so we hooked off the I-65 and onto the I-31 North and went through rural Alabama.

Wide open spaces, land that goes on forever, skies as blue as … a millionaire’s swimming pool.

The speed limits are a bit slower that than the interstate (55mph Vs 75mph), but it was all worth slowing down to get a good look at it.

Incidentally, if QR wanted to open an office in Alabama, I’d be OK with that too …

All up we clocked up about 346 miles (550km) today, arriving at Emily’s AirBnB in Millbrook Alabama (on the outskirts of Montgomery AL).

The other day I mentioned the number of RVs that we have seen getting dragged around the USA. This one (below) is not the biggest we have seen – we have seen them with three axles – but it is still pretty big!

The other funny thing that we have seen is RVs that are the size of a bus towing a vehicle behind it. Now I know that you sometimes see this in Australia, but in the USA, everything is bigger – RVs don’t tow a little toy car behind them, they tow a full-size Jeep or Ford Ranger equivalent.

Tomorrow we are heading over to Atlanta Georgia, so it will be a pretty slow day – only a couple of hours driving.

Today’s song and the title of today’s post was a no-brainer – Sweet Home Alabama (Lynard Skynard). Turn it up!

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019

Last night I got the memo with my first warning. To be honest, I’ve been expecting it so it didn’t come as a surprise.

I had been working through the reasons why I shouldn’t shave, but none of them really stacked up.

“Going for the Miami Vice look“ … except we are not going to Miami.

“Going for the Hawaii 5-0 look” … except we are not going to Hawaii either.

In the end the conversation went like this:

MBW: “It’s time you shaved”

Me: “As you wish.”

Now I’m sure that many of you have been worried sick about The Don II – there has been no mention of him for the last few days. I can assure you that The Don II is safe and well, waiting patiently outside 3041 Burgundy Street, Bywater, New Orleans, Louisiana.

This morning was planned to start in the usual way: ablutions, dressed, breakfast, and out the door for the short walk to the French Quarter to catch a New Orleans tour.

While MBW completed her ablutions, I noticed that our host – Danny – has a thing for farmyard animals. There are pictures of them all over the house.

So as we left the house to walk to the French Quarter, the front door at the other side of the duplex opened, and a man came out and introduced himself: “Hi, I’m Danny, your host”.

To say that Danny is … unusual … would be an understatement. While he was dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, his beautifully painted pink fingernails and toenails were a little confusing.

In the interests of full disclosure, below is a copy of Danny’s AirBnB profile photo.

That possibly explains a few things. Or maybe it just raises more questions?

So we had a lovely chat with Danny, and excused ourselves to get to the French Quarter to catch our tour bus. Somehow our booking got lost and we were unable to get in touch with the tour company … I mean, why would you bother answering your phones or returning calls on what is probably the busiest weekend of the year?

So we went to “Plan B” and instead bought tickets on the HOHO (hop on, hop off) bus. The bus does a big loop around and through the city including the French Quarter, Garden District, Financial District, and the Central Business District. Some of the sights that we saw include:

… and lots of other things that I just wasn’t quick enough to capture for posterity.

It was a good trip, allowing us to get our bearings, see the city in a couple of hours, and learn a good deal about the history of the city.

After the HOHO bus tour, we got off and wandered back into the French Quarter for a morning snack and coffee.

I have three favourite new words … Cafe du Monde – home of the beignet and chicory coffee. Unfortunately – like yesterday – the queues to get into Cafe du Monde for either “to go” (takeaway) or table service were out of control, so we went to a nearby Cafe Beignet instead. Coffee and beignets were just as good!

We were scheduled to do a “Free Food Tour by Foot” this afternoon just after lunch, so we went back to the French Markets to grab a quick bite of lunch before the tour started. To keep in the beignet theme, we had crawfish beignets and they were gooood!

We met up with Kayla (our FFTBF guide) and she recommended another food outlet before we headed off, so – because we haven’t eaten enough food, glorious food over the last few days – we got another snack for the road … boudin balls.

Yes, I know what you are thinking and no, I’m pretty sure that they are not. They were a bit like rice balls (or arancini balls MBW tells me) – spicy and served with a wholegrain mustard dressing.

We met up with Kayla again and started the tour – once again learning lots about the history of New Orleans, the meaning and origin of Cajun and Creole food, the architecture, other food history, places to eat, and we had a few more taste tests.

Kayla is the one in the green tee-shirt. Old Mate in the grey tee-shirt wouldn’t take the hint and move!

Antoine’s Restaurant can seat 700+ people twice a day. Waiters have to do an internship, and when people book to eat at Antoine’s, you don’t book a table, you book a waiter. Go figure! Crazy Americans!

After the tour – and because we hadn’t yet eaten enough – MBW and I went on a search for Po’boy and etoufee (like stew with rice in it).

The po’boy was shrimp and soooo gooood! Rice is a staple here, so you have it with everything.

On the way back towards home, we stopped in at the Roosevelt Hotel to look at the Christmas light display …

… stood and marvelled at the mighty Mississippi River …

… walked up Canal Street, which was the original dividing line between French and American settlers in New Orleans …

… and wandered back to the French Quarter.

We were getting pretty tired by this time (6.00pm) after having walked close to 18,000 steps again today, so we contributed to the local ride share economy here once again and caught a Lyft home for coffee, and to pack ready for another big drive day tomorrow.

So tomorrow we head out early to try and beat the Thanksgiving weekend crowds, the Bayou Classic crowds (a football game between two top-rated teams) and the Thanksgiving Day parade crowds … and we head up towards Montgomery Alabama.

Bring it on!

We have absolutely loved the atmosphere, culture, vibe, food and people here in Louisiana and wish we could have stayed longer.

While we had heard that the city is very dirty (it is), there are lots of beggars (there are), and crime levels are very high (we had no issues), we felt completely safe and had a wonderful time.

Shame though that we couldn’t understand most of what the locals said 🙁 … y’all. (If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say y’all …)

Today’s song and post title is Food Glorious Food (from the musical Oliver!).

Ciao

G&KTAKEUSA2019

MBW and I took a walk on the wild side today in New Orleans, Louisiana. It’s Thanksgiving here today, and the place was insane.

We started the day by having a sleep-in. We got up at around 8.00am after a good night sleep catching up on a couple of long days driving the last couple of days.

When I say “we had a good night sleep”, I actually mean that I had a great night sleep. MBW not so much.

I had heard that it can be quite noisy around where we are staying with reports of all the usual suburban noises, plus a train nearby. I often keep earplugs with me as I am not normally a good sleeper and easily disturbed, and so I put them in when going to bed last night, put my head on the pillow, and slipped straight into that coma I forecast.

The very next thing that I knew, it was morning and time to get up. MBW reported not sleeping very well because of “that train” – which it turns out runs along at the end of our street, and the driver (engineer?) likes to honk his horn at every level crossing. Long, loud blasts that I didn’t hear.

That plus all of the expected creaks and groans of a house that must be >100 years old, and the fact that the house is actually a duplex, so we hear the noise of the neighbours coming and going as well.

Anyway, we got up, did the usual ablutions, had some breakfast and coffee, and set off down to the French Quarter.

We walked down through narrow, quiet suburban streets that contain houses that are colourful and quirky.

Now I may have mentioned previously that it is only about a 20 minute walk from where we are staying to the French Quarter, so we got there by about 9.30am. A bit cooler again today so we were back into our long-sleeved tee-shirts.

The first thing that we found was the French Markets (typical!) …

… but MBW was particularly keen to get down to Cafe du Monde to try a beignet and coffee. They have been serving chicory coffee and beignets since 1862, and if I understand correctly, that’s all that they sell.

So we got to Cafe du Monde and found the queue of people waiting to get a seat …

… and it was like that all day long.

I mentioned Thanksgiving Day earlier – unfortunately that meant that many shops were closed today, but Cafe du Monde was open and popular.

We had a couple of things lined up for today, specifically a Food tour by foot and the Thanksgiving Day parade. Both were scheduled for the afternoon so plenty of time to kill in the French Quarter.

Beautiful architecture but everything was pretty dirty as we had been warned.

We had (or rather, we thought we had) a Food tour by foot just after lunch, so we had a quick snack on a ‘Gator sausage (don’t ask, because I don’t know … but it was tasty) before waiting for our tour guide …

…who never turned up. It turns out we had mis-read her instructions and the tour is for tomorrow (spoiler alert!!!), so we decided to try again for the coffee and beignet before the Thanksgiving Day parade at 3.30pm.

Success! The queues were short and we got a table in a flash, and before we knew it we were feasting on coffee and beignets.

We headed down towards the Bourbon Street part of the French Quarter and noticed how few people were waiting around for the Thanksgiving Day parade. We asked Siri to ask Google for some advice … and found that the parade is not held on Thanksgiving Day, but rather on Saturday (who would have guessed???) … so we missed that one also 🙁

So we headed further down into the French Quarter towards Bourbon Street, with a stop on Canal Street.

We finally made it to Bourbon Street to check out the sights and sounds.

We hadn’t had lunch, so we stopped in at the Hard Rock Cafe New Orleans for a traditional Thanksgiving Day meal (turkey, cranberry sauce, vegetables, mash, stuffing … and ended it with pumpkin pie.

By this time it was getting cooler and darker, so we did a final lap of Bourbon Street to watch the madness.

Lots of buskers around, lots of jazz bands all playing in competition with each other, some dude in a Star Wars costume doing a dance routine to music that was ear-splittingly loud, and lots and lots of beggars on the street.

New Orleans is one of those places where you can consume alcohol on the street, so it makes for an interesting atmosphere … jazz, kids playing drums on upside-down buckets, noise, people everywhere … a really fun, party atmosphere.

Buskers even take over the street so that cars have to wait until the performance is over. Below is a video of some kids playing drums on Bourbon Steet.

We headed back towards the top end of the French Quarter and booked a Lyft back home.

Tomorrow we have a bus tour of the city followed by a food tour on foot.

Today’s vital statistics are not measured in miles, but rather steps – almost 18,000 steps each today.

The title of today’s post, and today’s song is Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed). Not exactly about New Orleans, but appropriate just the same.

Ciao

G&KTAKEUSA2019

Welcome to New Orleans (or as they say here, N’Yorlens).

Yesterday I was telling you about how The Don (that’s The Don I) was taken back and exchanged for The Don II. When we took him back to the rental company, the attendant moved him over to another location to make it easier for us to move our luggage, while we went and did the paperwork.

When we went to do the changeover, he had written on the back driver’s side window “Rattle under dashboard” which accurately reflected my complaint.

Underneath that was written “CHECK BRAKES!!!”. I wasn’t specifically aware of an issue with the brakes, but experience tells me that if you spend your day doing 80mph on the interstate, you are likely to need brakes at some point – and potentially in a hurry.

So that was a good outcome. The new owners of The Don I will get him sans rattle and with working brakes. And we got The Don II that started out sans rattle and (I assume) working brakes. Win win.

Now I should also point out that The Don II is not without his own problems.

The Chrysler 300S comes with a mirror dimming feature … essentially the rear view mirror can be set to dim either automatically or on demand by using the handy dandy touch screen on the dashboard.

Unfortunately the rear view mirror in The Don II was permanently stuck to dim. We tried all combinations of button pressing, cussed at it, Googled it … hey, we even read the instruction manual in the glovebox … all to no avail. Permanently dim 🙁

Then about 24 hours after we had picked up The Don II we had a realisation. It wasn’t the mirror that was the problem. The rear window of The Don II was tinted black – much blacker than is legally allowed in Australia.

Now who’s dim?

Yesterday – and in fact for several days now – I’ve commented on the complexity of the interstate system here in the US.

It’s not unusual to get an instruction like “In 300 metres, be in any of the left four lanes to take the exit to SH-23 East and then merge onto the FM1724” … and then be presented with a picture like the one below.

A lot of information to process while making sure you are in the correct lane, otherwise … Alabama, here we come …

So this morning we woke up at Bernadette’s house in Lafayette Louisiana …

… and it was pouring rain!

So we loaded up The Don II, and had a couple of cups of coffee (hazelnut coffee – not my favourite) with Bernadette while she alternately ducked outside for another cigarette and coughed up a lung. I’m pretty sure that those two events were somehow related.

When she wasn’t smoking or coughing, she was colouring in her colouring book. I hear that it is very therapeutic … colouring in, that is.

When our caffeine tanks were full, we headed off towards New Orleans but not before getting a picture at the Lafayette sign in town. Apparently it is the MOST photographed sign in Lafayette.

By the time we had taken photos, the rain had cleared and the day had turned into another beautifully warm and sunny Louisiana morning.

Yesterday we had spent all day in the Interstate, so today – rather than take the interstate again – we decided to “take the 90” from Lafayette to New Orleans.

Just as a matter of interest, The Don II got almost 30mpg on the trip from San Antonio to Lafayette which is a bit under 8 litres/100km in the new money. But now that I know how cheap fuel is, I’m not monitoring fuel economy so closely. I’ve even taken the fuel economy display off the dash and replaced it with something else.

So we hopped on the 90 and had a relatively leisurely cruise down to New Orleans through rural Louisiana. Maximum speeds of only 75mph today, so it felt like we were just puddling along.

We stopped for a late breakfast somewhere near Franklin LA (very rural Louisiana) and then got back onto the 90 again to continue our journey.

The trip was as uneventful as the roads were straight and predictable. Nothing to see here but a constant stream of traffic in both directions, and a whole lot of rural agricultural activity going on.

One thing that we have seen a lot of is people hauling caravans around the country-side – and they are big vans. Imagine the biggest vans that you see in Australia – these are at least half as long again. Many have three axles.

I’m telling you, everything is bigger in the USA!

There are a few things that we have seen none of though:

• Road rage – everyone seems to be very accommodating and plays nicely on the road;
• Vehicle accidents – maybe they move them very quickly, but we have yet to see any evidence of accidents;
• Road kill – despite travelling hundreds of miles/km so far, we have seen very little road kill alongside the interstates. We have certainly not seen any dead kangaroos!

We arrived safely in New Orleans around 1.30pm and went straight on a swamp tour.

We saw lots of turtles, bald eagle, egrets … and of course some ‘gators.

After the swamp tour, we went to our AirBnB (Danny’s place this time on Burgundy Street, New Orleans) and unloaded the car. Our AirBnB is about 2km from the French Quarter, so a nice easy walk each day (or about an $8.50 Uber ride).

It’s a really quaint, historic little place.

Tonight we caught an Uber (actually it was a Lyft) into the French Quarter to do a cruise down the mighty Mississippi River on the Creole Queen Paddle Wheeler, including a buffet dinner.

Dinner was amazing – Seafood Pasta, Jambalaya, Gumbo, Brisket, vegetables, Corn, Chicken, Caesar salad, Corn Bread …

It was sooo goood, and despite having eaten too much BBQ every day for the last few days, I still vowed that I was going to eat until I needed CPR – and I very nearly succeeded.

Now I know that the picture above doesn’t look like much, but it was my third helping 🙁

For a warm day, it was surprisingly clear and cold on the deck as we came back into New Orleans at the end of the cruise – about 9.00pm.

So that about wraps it up for the day. I need to go and slip into something comfortable – like a coma – while I digest the way too much food that I ate tonight.

I’ve been looking forward to trying jambalaya and gumbo for some time. They were really hot and spicy – so I could be in trouble in a couple of days – but they didn’t disappoint 🙂

Loved Texas, and loving Louisiana!

Tomorrow we head down to the French Quarter and soak up some Thanksgiving Day atmosphere.

You don’t really need to be a genius to work out the significance of today’s song and the title of today’s post – jambalaya! A classic Cajun dish!

I thought that yesterday’s song with CW McCall was a treat, but wait until you see tonight’s song … there’s not a lot of groups that can wear matching cowboy shirts and get away with it: Jambalaya (Roy Clark).

I would have preferred to give you the Hank Williams version, but I don’t think they made music videos back then …

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA2019