The Mother Road

Any self-respecting journey across America should incorporate a good stint on the Holy Grail of roadtrips, Route 66.  The 'Mother Road' isn't really about getting from one place to another but carries with it the freedom and romanticism of a time before Wireless internet, GPS and Trip Advisor dominated our travel plans.  

But technically, US 66 no longer exists.  It was replaced by the Interstate Highway system in the '80s - by which time some had been overlaid, some of it realigned, and some stretches abandoned.  Route 66 is not even marked on ordinary maps anymore, but you can still 'Get your Kicks' (as the song goes), using www.historic66.com which includes a turn by turn guide across the entire 2448 miles from Chicago to LA.  Listening to people we met along the way, it sounds like most do a mixture of the faster two lane Interstate interspersed with stretches on the nostaligic 66, but there are also many fans and forums dedicated to the non-stop experience.  

Whichever route you decide on it is hard to imagine a more untouched landscape through which you can drive hour after hour.  I have to admit I found this kinda surprising.  I know America is massive, but all this talk about modernising the highway made me think there would be more stuff along the way.  There is not.  The Road stretches faultlessly to the horizon and even in 2013, almost 90 years since Route 66 was established there is a feeling of welcome isolation. Just you and the road.  And of course two toddlers, one husband driving gleefully, and several tons of essential luggage in the 'trunk'.  

We connected with Route 66 in Oklahoma City, a place I wasn't too sad to leave behind, and headed West to Amarillo.  For all of its admirable qualities, Amarillo is a good example of how not to organise a town. The Interstate goes directly through the centre and the hotels and restaurants are located on slip roads either side of the I-40.  This means that any housing near the main drag is also near a massive highway and a bit nasty as a result. I remember there was a great ad for whiskey in the 90s (Jack Daniels I think) with this old woman who lived below a busy junction.... "I like highways, that's why I moved here" she says defiantly.  I reckon she would dig this place. But what Amarillo lacks in town planning it makes up for in good Texan steaks, cowboys, and quirky places like the fascinating Cadillac Ranch (pictured below right).   

From Amarillo we took another heavenly drive into the sunset before we rolled into Tucumcari. 

Here the main street (the original Route 66), is filled with small 'Mom and Pop' businesses doing what they have always done for travellers along this road.  Old fashioned diners, motels and petrol stations with proper old school ticker counters - no digital in sight. There's even a drive-in tattoo parlour.  Where else can you rock up on a Harley, plant your boots and get some ink done?

We skipped the tatts and headed to the Blue Swallow Motel a 1939 establishment featuring neon lights and '100% refridgerated air'. As well as the cool air, the rooms come with rotary telephones, original toilets (!!) and an attached garage for your automobile.  And most excitingly for the little ones - the signage at the Blue Swallow featured in the Pixar film Cars.  (Lightning McQueen is a pretty big deal in our house).    

Tucumcari is nostalgic bliss, and pretty much sums up the emotion and respect that we have for the great American roadtrip.  Because even though everything has changed in our world, it feels like nothing has changed here.    

Enjoy every minute

One of the things I love about travelling with my boys, is that we end up chatting to people everywhere we go. We'll be at the supermarket or in a hotel lobby and the boys smile and wave, and before you know it we're talking like old friends with Bill and Jean, an older couple from Chicago who have two grown up children and came to Hot Springs to enjoy the baths and see the Bill Clinton library.  I enjoy these conversations hugely, we have met some amazing people who have great stories, even greater accents, and buckets of American charm. And as I read earlier today in this cool quote from Bill Nye the Science Guy: "Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't".   

But there's one piece of advice that I am routinely given when these folks see us with two young children, and that is this:  Enjoy every minute.  

Now then.  I enjoy every day with my boys.  I really enjoy the special moments.  I sometimes even manage to enjoy difficult moments.  But E.V.E.R.Y minute?  Hmmmm.  What about those (long) minutes when Mr 1 is teething and frustrated and Mr Almost 3 is expressing his turmoil about wanting to play inside and outside AT THE SAME TIME.  (Choosing is hard, right?). What about when they bump heads and both start crying, or they both want the same toy, or same book, or the exact same stone on an ENTIRE BEACH of stones?  What about the tantrums?  What about the broken sleep, followed by the tantrums?  What about the nappies, the spew the poo, the smelly shoes?  

Today felt like a hard day.  We are all kinda tired, and the whole fam has a bit of hotel fatigue.  The tension was building up a bit and then there were milk spills on top of a non eating lunch and everything was a bit arrghhhhh!  

But now it's the end of the day, the boys are in bed, and we are sitting here enjoying a cold beer (admittedly we are sitting in the dark - let's not wake the mini kaiju, right..?), and I am reflecting on the fact that today was actually a pretty awesome day.  We went to the Amarillo 'Discovery Center' this morning which was unexpectedly good.  There were a series of really cool hands-on experiments that should be in every school science lab - you could fire balls into a 'black hole', walk through a maze of ribbons, or run around on a shadow stage with freaky coloured lights.  And this evening we went to the Great Texan Steak Ranch, famous for its 72 oz steak challenge (I know, gross huh?!), although I found 12oz suited me just fine.  

Despite my earlier irritability  tonight I feel really lucky to be seeing these places.  I've been to tons of 'Texan' style steak houses but this is the first one that is actually in Texas.  Travelling is a massive privilege, these All-American experiences are pretty special, and I think it's really cool to be doing this when our little ones are still 'forming neurons' to quote a good friend of mine.  

So, enjoy every minute?  Nah, I don't think I'm going to try to enjoy every minute, whether refering to parenting, or travelling.  After all, some minutes are dumb and stinky.  But I am going to keep loving the good times, treasuring the wonderful people my life, and definitely definitely, appreciating each day.  

Both kinds

What kind of music do you usually have here?  

Oh, we got both kinds. We got country *and* western.

This has gotta be my Dad's favourite line from his favourite film, the Blues Brothers.  I must have heard him say this about a thousand times, and it kept popping into my head when we were in Nashville the 'epicenter' of country music.  There are bars on Music Row blasting live tunes all day (and night, I assume!), there are people on the streets who look more than a wee bit country (cowboy boots everywhere - love it!), and then there are buskers like the 'world famous Mandolin Mike' who has been playing on Broadway for the past 12 years.  Nashville really does the whole country centerpiece thing amazingly well, no matter what kind of music you like.  
It's no surprise that our time in Tennesse has been dominated by country and rock n roll.  We have been listening to this stuff non-stop, and we've been absolutely loving it.  Inspired even. As well as a huge appreciation for the music, I have also found myself strangely drawn to things like Johnny Cash's handwriting, or early box office receipts of the Johnny Cash Show, or Dolly's old stage outfits, or Elvis's cars (we all need a pink Cadillac in our lives).  

After getting in touch with our country side (ha), it was time to head to Memphis.  We were driving down the I-40 and all these lyric references we've been blindly singing along to for years started making a whole lotta sense.... For instance: 

•  "Drink my liquor from an old fruit jar" (Blue Suede Shoes) - meaning the Mason Jars that everyone drinks from here.  Seriously, I thought this was just something that just happened in the movies but everywhere you look people are drinking from 'hillbilly crystal'.  Mr Almost 3 was even served a blueberry smoothie in one of these jam jars.  
• "Catfish on the table" (Walking in Memphis) - Catfish is mega popular in Tennessee - they are really proud of the fact that it's from local ponds.  (well, I guess we are quite a way from the ocean now..). Also, did you know there is a National Catfish Day?  Who would have thought.  

It is a great feeling to be listening to this music when you are eating catfish, and drinking from an old fruit jar. Incidentally, if you are eating catfish, here's some helpful advice gleaned at the Cracker Barrell Country Store in Jackson, TN.  

Geek-Daddy: "Should I have it fried or grilled?" 

Bethany (our server): "Well, I'm a Southern gal, so I'm gonna say fried is always best"  

Anyway, back to the music.  When we listen to "Blue Suede Shoes" we listen with an ear that already knows the history and the awesomeness of The King.  So I was interested to see what the boys reaction would be to Elvis.  We left a pretty low grade brekker at the Heartbreak Hotel - I'm certain the coffee was made from sticks - to walk over the road to Graceland.  Despite being sans-caffeine we were excited and filled with anticipation.

Picture this.  It's around 9am, sweltering heat, size-able queues are already forming for the Graceland Mansion. Elvis is blasting over the load speakers and there are swarms of visitors standing around, many of these folks have traveled hundreds of miles to make the pilgrimage but all of them are looking decidedly annoyed. Queuing sucks, right?  Enter, two toddlers with no grown-up-hang-ups about the time of day OR the heat, and they are bouncing (in the case of Mr 1), or they are jumping like crazy (in the case of Mr Almost 3), and they're generally just rocking out to All shook up.  Ahhhh, what do the die-hard fans know about how to have fun?  

As well as lovely memories like this one, our musical education of the past days and weeks has had another positive outcome.  Mr Almost 3 has been asking me to play Elvis, Johnny Cash or Dolly Parton pretty much every time we get into  the car.  (No Wiggles CD on this roadtrip.. result!).  So I think we can put this down as a musical win.  

Ok, here are the rest of our fav Tennessee places and eats:  

• Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
• Johnny Cash Museum 
• Nashville Public Library for it's wonderful children's section and the free puppet show
• Memphis Botanical Gardens and the extraordinary 'Big Backyard'.  Such a great place for kids.
• Shelby Farm Park Memphis playground.  More great places for kids.  
• General usage of 'Y'all'.  Especially 'How are Y'ALL?/Where y'all from/Y'all have a great day now
• Graceland, especially Elvis' cars and the planes  (I may possibly be turning into a boy). 
• The tremendous happy vibes brought by the Peabody Ducks who deserve their own blog post.  
• Gus's Fried Chicken.  Artery clogging goodness.   
• Silkys Barbeque on Beale Street and the oozy pulled pork and de-lish ribs  
• Outstanding Pecan Pie from a slightly dodgy looking roadside stop just out of Nashville. 

Goodbye Tennessee and thank you for the music.  I think I better go eat a salad now.

Sweet sweet times in Virginia. Not so sweet on the NSA. (Chocolate helps).

As we left Virginia today with the Blue Ridge Mountains behind us I thought about our time in three very different corners of the state and how wonderfully friendly everyone has been.

It started in Willoughby Bay, Norfolk the very first day we arrived.  (I wrote a bit more about our time in Norfolk in this post: 'Sitting on the dock of the bay'). That first sunny afternoon we walked down to the beach for a quick swim and everyone - I mean EVERYONE - waved hello to us. People were waving from their cars, from their porches and from their bicycles. I was with Mr Almost 3 later that evening when three ladies cycled by, yelling a big old friendly hello and one of them actually HIGH FIVED me as she rode past.  I kid you not.  I mean, how cool is that..!??!

This continued in Charlottesville where we stayed in a charming little apartment downtown. Charlottesville not only has a great name but has a really cool vibe and is another immensely friendly part of Virginia.  A lady we chatted to in the street even offered us her house keys if we needed somewhere to hang out.  (I think she mentioned us seeing how a 'real life American' lived.  Nice.)

But the best was yet to come.

We spent our final few Virginian nights just outside of the super cool town of Floyd along the Blue Ridge Parkway. As described to us by a local, there is just one set of traffic lights, and going by the latest census figures less than 500 people live in the town.  But in this tiny spot in the middle of Appalachia you will find a dedicated organic food community, an awesome coffee roastery (the guys even gave us a tour...  thanks Red Rooster Coffee!!), beautiful art stores, a strong sustainability focus, one of the most impressive computer museums my geeky husband has ever seen, an enormous chocolate shop and, if that's not enough, the Floyd County Store - famous for it's Friday night Jamboree gathering of bluegrass music.  Floyd is so cool that I could consider living here if New Zealand wasn't calling for me so loudly right now.  Oh that and the small issue of the greencard.  (By the way, I can't wait NZ.  I CAN'T WAIT).    

What made Floyd really special for us was that we stayed in the guesthouse of a family who were as impressive as the town itself.  They were so welcoming and charming, and invited us for a fab dinner last night where we sat around the fire chatting about everything from Syria to bizarre weddings to gangs in the Cape Flats in South Africa. We were talking about a friendly phone call that had taken place between Washington D.C. and Floyd about politics and we later had a bit of a laugh about how the government could be listening in.  I have had this same joke a few times with friends and family about how conversations we've had - either skype, email or on the phone - could have been recorded. But I have been thinking more about this today, and wondering why we find it so damn funny that our private conversations are being analysed and quite possibly tagged by an algorithm and then listened to by a real person in the NSA.  Is this because we don't really think this sort of computing power is possible?  (It is.  Well, it must be because I saw it on that TV show, 'Person of Interest').  Or is it because we think our conversations wouldn't be that 'interesting'?  Or because as we see it we have nothing to hide?

During our drive to Tennessee today we listened to the news about the latest Snowden leak around government hacking into our encrypted emails.  I think when we start to really really accept that our conversations are being listened to (this hasn't happened yet - I reckon we might all stop laughing at this point), that this will have an impact on how we relate to each other.  I was even wondering if one possible silver lining to the dark dark cloud of government snooping could be that we spend less time connecting with each other on the internet and more time face to face. But one problem with this is that our online lives and our 'real' lives are so intertwined.  And regardless of whether we can take ourselves off Facebook, the fact remains that questioning government is something we should be able to do freely, not something we have to hide in some 1984 style thoughtcrime fashion.

Ok, off my soap box now, and back to the chocolate box (care of County Floyd, Virginia).   These dark chocolate almonds are heavenly.

Before I indulge, a few other favourite moments from our time in Virginia.

• Mr 1 taking his very first steps on Ocean View Beach - bucket and spade in hand
• Mr Almost 3 riding his first rollercoaster at Busch Gardens
• The big waves of Virginia Beach and the boardwalk icecreams afterwards
• Our very own personalised travel guide for the area from our dear kiwi friends in London (thanks H and P!)
• Escaping the humidity in historic Yorktown and eating hushpuppies and drinking $1.50 draft beer at the 'Beach Delly'  
• Watching folks fishin' on the longest free-standing pier in North America.. "What kind of fish is that?" .  "That there is a Mud TOAD".
• Mr Almost 3 perfecting his Southern accent while repeating "That there is a mud TOAD" on a daily basis 
• Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and taking in the view from Rocky Knob.