I previously mentioned that this blog is not only for my trip to Korea, but my summer on the whole. My first domestic trip of the summer is my road trip to Los Alamos, where I'll be spending the summer doing an internship at the Laboratory. Having done a similar trip two years ago, I know that I-40 is a drag. I have had the "privilege" to have driven nearly the entire length of I-40, which starts in Wilmington, NC and ends in Barstow, CA. The only portion I haven't driven is the length between Nashville and Knoxville. That said, I believe there are only three parts of this 2,555 mile stretch of road that are visually pleasing: the Appalachians between Asheville and Knoxville, the Sandias between Moriarty and Albuquerque, and the area surrounding Flagstaff. Only the first of those is en route to my destination, so I decided it would be worthwhile to go off course. So I've packed up everything I could fit in my Jeep, which is barely anything, and headed west.
Alabama
The first leg of my journey takes me to Birmingham, AL where I met up with my mom, who was nice enough to accompany me on my journey. Apart from a trip to Miami when I was younger, the deepest I've gone into the American South is Helen, GA, a Bavarian-themed town nestled in the Appalachians, hardly the heart of Dixie. I drove through Charlotte and Atlanta on my way to Birmingham without stopping for anything except the CMP South Store in Anniston, AL. The Civilian Marksmanship Program is a government-chartered program that focuses on youth and adult oriented shooting and firearm safety programs. They are also the go-to place for U.S.-military surplus firearms. Through the CMP a civilian who meets certain requirements can order "obsolete" refurbished military firearms such as the Krag-Jorgensen (Spanish-American War), the 1903 Springfield (WWI & WWII), and the famous M1 Garand (WWII and the Korean War), among others. However, these are surplus firearms, so once the supplies dry up they stop selling, as is the case with Krag-Jorgensens and 1903 Springfields. With a little bit of money burning a hole in my pocket thanks to some travel reimbursements, I decided to browse, and may or may not have made a purchase 😎.
After arriving in Birmingham my sights were set on local fare. As is typical in the South, Alabama has its own style of barbecue sauce. Alabama's specialty is "white sauce", a mayonnaise-based barbecue sauce that's smothered over smoked meats. I got food at Saw's Soul Kitchen, which is one of the four Saw's locations in Birmingham. One interesting sounding thing was "Sweet Tea Chicken Sandwich", which I did not try. The chicken and sauce were good, but I think the turnip greens were the best part of the meal. Saw's was in a historic area known as Avondale, which looked like it was undergoing the very first steps of gentrification. Everywhere I went in Birmingham looked run down and impoverished, which I suppose is to be expected in Alabama, but there did seem to be a strong local pride. I definitely wouldn't mind spending a weekend in Birmingham for a conference or on a road trip or something, but I can't see myself seeking it out as a destination.
Mississippi Blues Trail
The next day we continued westward into Mississippi, which is home to the "Mississippi Blues Trail". The name is somewhat misleading, as it implies a Point A-to-Point B trail, although in actuality it's a collection of roadside markers spattered about the state and affiliated museums. The first stop in Tupelo, MS needs no introduction: the birthplace of Elvis. On this site is Elvis' birthplace, an Elvis Presley museum, the chapel he attended in Tupelo, and a chapel dedicated to him. Elvis was born in this house, which stands on its original foundation, and lived here until his family was evicted due to not paying the mortgage. His family lived around Tupelo until he was a teenager when they moved to Memphis. Later in his life, Elvis purchased the house. I never knew Elvis was so impoverished in his youth, and the museum had a movie with terrifically bad acting illustrating this and his relationship with his mother. While not strictly a blues artist, Elvis obviously has enormous cultural significance and was instrumental (pun intended) in bridging the gap between the black blues scene and white America, eventually leading to rock 'n roll.
Our next stop was the home of Mississippi John Hurt, but to get there we had to drive through Mississippi's "hill country", the foothills of the Appalachians. While I have recently taken an affinity to pre- and post-war blues music, I am certainly no expert. I have read that not only does Mississippi have a style of blues all its own, but regions in Mississippi have their own distinct styles as well. Oxford, MS, named in a (successful) effort to inspire the state's legislature to open the state university there, is home to Ole Miss and several musicians, notably R.L. Burnside, a relatively contemporary blues artist who had been active since the 1960's. R.L. plays with a style that is hard to describe, and I have not been able to come close to mastering it yet. He uses his right hand thumb and fingers to play a constant rhythm on the strings and occasionally places subtle emphasis on certain strings which ends up sounding like there are two guitar players: one strumming a rhythm and the other playing a melody.
We were only passing through Oxford, however, and the real destination was the Mississippi John Hurt Memorial and Museum in Avalon, MS. Nevertheless, our tummies were rumbling, so we stopped in Water Valley, MS, home of Casey Jones for lunch. My mom found a place called "The Crawdad Hole" on Google, so we had to go. I should note here that credit for many of these pictures (especially the ones I am in) go to my mom. I have had crawdads once, and the experience was not pleasant for two reasons. The first is that they are a lot of work for very little payoff. It's basically 4 times the work of eating shrimp in the shell with a quarter of the meat. The second reason is more complex; those who know me probably know I have a bad nail biting habit, and the crawdads I ate were spicy, which put all the small cuts on my fingers in immense pain. For these reasons we got shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes, all of which were delicious.
We continued on to the Mississippi John Hurt Museum. The Museum is the house John Hurt grew up in, and tours are offered through the website. Since our schedule was not concrete I didn't want to commit to doing a tour. This ended up being a good decision, because we did not arrive until around 2pm, when I planned on arriving at noon. We had a somewhat hard time finding the museum and John Hurt's grave because signage is minimal in this area, and one does not need to get far off the main road to find themselves on a dirt road where 4WD is potentially necessary surrounded by dense trees. In fact, we gave up on finding John Hurt's grave until my mom spotted some headstones while we were driving back to the main road.
After seeing John Hurt's grave, the last stop before Clarksdale on this blues tour was Robert Johnson's gravesite. Robert Johnson is a very famous musician for making around 30 recordings in the 20's and then mysteriously dying. Among these recordings are some of the songs that define blues and rock music, such as Crossroads, Sweet Home Chicago, and Dust My Broom. Also surrounding the mystique of Robert Johnson is the famous "Devil at the crossroads" legend, although this has also been attributed to musician Tommy Johnson. My internet research tells me that those that knew him claimed R. Johnson learned guitar uncannily fast and played extraordinarily good in all styles of music. He could reportedly play a song, no matter how complex, after hearing it just once. This, combined with his mysterious death and famous song "Crossroads" (which, lyrically, has seemingly nothing to do with the famous story), associates him with the crossroads myth most.
Ironically, in addition to his life and death, Johnson's afterlife is also a mystery. The only written accounts of his burial have him buried at "Zion Church". For a long time he was believed to be buried at a Mt. Zion Church where an obelisk exists today honoring his legacy, but in the 90's a well-regarded blues historian determined that the location of his gravestone was at the Little Zion M.B. Church near Greenwood, MS. There also exists a third location, but that seems to have no traction.
Finally we were on our way to Clarksdale, MS, unofficial home of the blues. Clarksdale is close to the Mississippi River and is home to the Delta Blues Museum, an effort largely funded by ZZ Top, and the Ground Zero Blues Club, part-owned by Morgan Freeman. Several other blues clubs exist in the town as well, such as the semi-famous Red's. Clarksdale is also the home of Ike Turner and John Lee Hooker, the coolest bluesman to ever exist. Muddy Waters also grew up close by. Also, the aforementioned purported crossroads reside in Clarksdale. We rolled into Clarksdale around 4 pm and found ourselves hungry again, so we went to Levon's Bar and Grill where I got brisket sandwich, which was very good, and my mom got gumbo, which also tasted delicious. There was live music here as well, but it did not start until 8 pm.
My impression of Clarksdale is that it is a tourist town waiting to be discovered. I'm surprised there is as much going on as there is in town, since much of it is completely empty. There are virtually no open businesses downtown except the blues clubs. However, I personally think this area of Mississippi is beautiful (although hot) and I would love to own a small house here and listen to the blues every night. This is also a popular place for biker road trippers to visit.
The Delta Blues Museum was putting on a free show of soul and gospel music, and we later went to the Ground Zero Blues Club, which had an excellent band playing some 70's standards. I was the youngest person there for most of the night by at least a decade if not more, though, but I guess that doesn't matter when you're listening to good music.
The rest of the trip can be summed up as spending a hellish amount of time in a car in one of the most boring parts of the country: western OK and TX panhandle. Overall, I loved visiting the South. It's true that Southern Hospitality is a thing, and everything there has a down-home vibe. I will post more about my camping trips that I'll do throughout the summer. Thanks for reading!