Up North - For the Last Time

Leaving Ocean Springs, we headed North again - this is where our trip really starts to cover some ground. Having traveled the eastern US pretty extensively for a month, we were finally setting off to head north and west for good. I'm pretty excited at this point - we spent a week in the South, which is good, but it isn't the West. It isn't the totally unknown, new experiences that lay ahead at the Rockies and beyond, and I was ready to get moving and to get to see something truly new.

Monday took us to a campground in central Mississippi along the Natchez Trace Parkway. It was part of a small park at Rocky Springs, MS, a long abandoned town that was the focus of the park. We explored the trails through the town, but all that is left besides a brick church is a few safes and a well. We took some time to explore, hike, and even go on a short run in other parts of the park. It was good to stretch our legs, but sleeping was difficult that night - with no breeze and oppressive humidity, it was the most uncomfortable night of the trip so far.

We drove a long way on Tuesday, all the way across the Mississippi River and into the Mark Twain National Forest in southern Missouri. This drive along the river delta was a vast change of scenery; the gently rolling forests of the Southeast were replaced with flat fields and agriculture on a huge scale. Soy, cotton, and corn dominated the view and slowly transitioned to sorghum and rice as we headed north. (I was surprised at the scale of rice production we saw: Arkansas, of all places, is planted with rice for miles on end.)

Our campsite in the National Forest bordered a small creek: the water was vastly different than rocky eastern rivers; everything is flat, muddy, and sandy. A thick fog covered the campsite during the evening and the following morning, making it impossible to dry out our shower towels, dishes, or anything else. Since Katie's A/C hadn't been working in Ocean Springs, humidity, at this point, had been our toughest enemy for about a week and a half - all we wanted was a sunny, dry day.

A foggy, muddy creek at Mark Twain NF

Wednesday we drove through St. Louis at lunchtime and got an obligatory picture with the Gateway Arch. The structure is massive, much taller than I imagined, and even has a lobby, museum, and theater in a big underground complex beneath it. The Arch marks the starting point of Lewis and Clark's journey, so the museum was all about that journey. It was really interesting and exceptionally well-done; it's a place I could go back and take hours to read every plaque and quote, which is a rare feeling for me.

The Arch - probably more impressive on a sunny day.

The drive into Illinois was a majestic reminder that corn is king (along with corn's new comrade, wind energy.) There is corn everywhere, and to think that this was only just Illinois - nevermind Iowa or Nebraska - is almost scary. After staying Wednesday night at a wildlife preserve west of Chicago, we headed into the city for lunch and to say goodbye to Brett as he took the train back to Virginia.

It was a beautiful day in Chicago, and we first walked to see Cloud Gate at Millennium Park. This was a feat in its own - almost the whole place was a logistical mess since we unfortunately visited on the Thursday before Lollapalooza. This giant reflective bean is almost as strange as the life-size Parthenon in Nashville; it's one of those things that's neat but still bewildering. The intense blue and white contrast in the sky made for a really pretty and remarkable sight of the Windy City.

The bean

The obligatory 'mirror pic'

Clouds on Cloud Gate

After eating lunch beneath the Chase Tower, we said farewell to Brett, who was heading back home to get ready for VT in August - leaving just Jenna and I again until we meet up with my high school friend Drew later on in August.

We left Chicago but immediately ran into trouble - it took us five different roads and at least a couple extra hours to find an Illinois state welcome sign. For some reason, Illinois doesn't put up many signs, and even the one we settled for was half-hidden behind a bush.

After the sign ordeal, we hit the road to Ann Arbor, but we were stopped again by car troubles. The alternator failed that evening, meaning the van's battery wasn't charging and that there was no way we could run the lights to make it to Ann Arbor. So, we stopped, purchased a new alternator, and had to make our first impromptu motel room stay since there wasn't enough daylight to fix it on the spot. Although this was a hit budget- and schedule-wise, I swapped the bad alternator for the new in the motel parking lot at 7 AM, and we were back on the road the next morning with the electrical system working just fine. We made it to Ann Arbor on Friday, ran some errands, and met up with Sheila, Jenna's best friend from her Michigan-based internship last summer.


It was tough to hit car troubles, although we should be constantly expecting them - and this one was relatively minor. The alternator quitting was a hit for us, but it was made worse by the repair situation. It was early and in a parking lot, not to mention I lost a nut and had to walk to go buy a new one - all on top of the fact that it rained all morning. After a couple hours of cold and wet repairs, our spirits were falling pretty low. But, as it goes, the bad was balanced by some fortunate good: we were able to clean up and shower after fixing the van; the new alternator fixed the issue; and most importantly - we took a picture at the Michigan welcome sign. It was special because it was number 24 - halfway through the states. It was also special because it was August 1 - one whole month down and two to go.

Ultimately, that's what motivates me and inspires me, even with the big risks faced every day: despite having a long way to go, I have come so far already.

Ocean Springs, MS

Our camping trip through the South brought us to Ocean Springs, MS, where we spent a long weekend staying with Katie, a mutual friend from the MVs. Unfortunately, Katie's A/C had broken just before we arrived, so sitting around the condo all day in the Mississippi heat was more or less out of the question. So, we took some time to plan our next steps and explore on Thursday and Friday while Katie worked.

We made another beach trip, but it was far less exciting than the Florida beaches were. On our way, we drove through Biloxi, MS, a casino town made famous after being the point of landfall of Hurricane Katrina. The scars of the hurricane persist in very visible and depressing ways - entire blocks of the town sit vacant now, void of any buildings, covered in weeds and for-sale signs. Foundations, parking lots, and even stairs mark the locations of old houses and businesses that were wiped completely flat and have not returned.

A typical Biloxi block

We also visited a local restaurant called The Shed on Friday night. This joint is a BBQ joint that not only scored a spot on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, but it is even getting is own show on the Food Network starting this fall. To its credit, it is an interesting creation; it is literally a shed that has grown and now covers probably 3 acres, including three bars and a stage. Rumor has it that the place has burned down 3 times. The problem with The Shed, like most "famous" dives, is that your mind (and the Food Network producers) have convinced you that one meal there will change your life, when in reality it won't. Keeping my expectations in check, the food was very good, but again, like most famous places - you don't get much chow for your buck.

Just one small part of The Shed

Late Friday night, Matt flew in for the weekend to join us, and Saturday we went into New Orleans to spend the weekend. It's a place where I had to take the good with the bad - the city is so unique and interesting, but it is also extremely filthy; you feel grimy just walking around. We ate a Willie May's, a famous fried chicken joint, and then spent the evening walking Bourbon Street, which was actually more fun than the first time when I was there for the Sugar Bowl with the MVs. This time, it was far less crowded and crazy, so it was easier to take in the variety of interesting people, street performers, and even brass bands that dot the street.

On Sunday morning, we started with breakfast at Mother's (a must in NOLA) and explored the French market and French Quarter - more things I didn't get to see with band, but I'm really glad I was able to see now. This is where so much history and charm of New Orleans sets it apart from other cities; the market, people, and architecture in that section are very unique. We went on to explore Uptown and the Tulane area, where the money, cleanliness, and house sizes all increased dramatically - making it a fun part of the city to see.

Bourbon St. from above

The French Market

French Quarter style

After dropping Matt at the airport Sunday evening, we headed back to Katie's and on Monday morning set off on another camping journey up to Chicago and Michigan!

Through the Deep South

I know it has been a while since an update - we have had a very busy couple weeks recently but are now camping more and staying busy less, meaning a little more time to devote to writing.

Jenna, Brett and I left Nashville and camped down through Alabama for 3 days, staying once at the Tuskegee National Forest and then two nights at the Conecuh National Forest. At Conecuh, we stayed in a newly renovated campsite called the Open Pond Rec Area, complete with gravel driveways, a myriad of running water, and even showers! These more developed sites, we've learned, are good to stay at at least every other night or so - it keeps us fresh and our gear cleaner and nicer.

The campsites and forests were radically different in Alabama than we dealt with up North - here, everything was sandy and almost every tree was a pine. I took some time and explored Tuskegee during the evening we were there to take in these regional differences.

Our first day at Open Pond was rainy all day, so we retreated to a McDonalds to get some computer work and planning done. The next day, however, we took a short drive down to Destin, FL to both check Florida off the state list and get in a beach day!

The beach was beautiful - I have never been to a beach with such white, fine sand, clear water, and great weather. It really is the "Emerald Coast" - we had a great time there in the warm water and sun, and I will not forget my first 'real' beach experience.

The early evening took a turn for the worst though; a line of thunderstorms came through and blew away the tent. Jenna and Brett were in the shower cleaning up after our beach day; fortunately, I had just finished my shower and was there to witness it. The following scene probably looked ridiculous enough to be Hollywood-worthy: I, alone, was fighting the tent the 50 ft. back to our site while trying to pull the poles out to shove it in the van. 50-mph wind gusts persisted the whole time. I was eventually successful and somehow did not damage the tent in the process, but it was a memory and lesson for sure.

(Re?)setting up our site at Open Pond

After a good but wet few days on the road in the South, we finally made it to Ocean Springs, MS to stay with Matt and Katie!

Nashville, TN

On the 19th, we arrived in Nashville and finally met up with David as well as my dad who was in town for work. We had an excellent barbecue dinner at the famous Jack's Bar-B-Que restaurant, and then stuck around all night to bar-hop and listen to some good music - and it was a great success!

We visited 6 or 8 bars - some more than once - and heard a wide variety of music. Some artists were just okay, but some were fantastic and talented; highlights included girl-duo Smoke 'n Guns, hearing Johnny Hiland, and watching the Don Kelley Band play with 18-year-old Daniel Donato, who despite his age was one of the top 3 musicians I saw that night (Jenna, however, mostly focused on looking at the Jason Aldean wannabes.) I was mesmerized most places; I love watching great people play, and we were at some of the most historic, famous, and talent-drawing places in the country to watch people play. Many of the bars had some of the rarest and most interesting memorabilia I've seen. The music was great, the places were unique, and the crowd was surprisingly diverse. It was a great experience and so far a top 2 place to return to someday (along with Maine).

The benefit of Nashville stages - up close and personal

Downtown Nashville

We spent the rest of the weekend staying with Jenna and Brett's family friend Kathy outside of Nashville in Murfreesboro, TN. They had a nice house and a roomy place for us to stay (not to mention the ping pong table upstairs), so we spent some time relaxing there.

One weekend highlight (or something) was seeing the world's only life-size replica of the Parthenon. Yes, this is in Nashville, and no, I am not sure why exactly they chose to keep it. Originally built for a world-fair sort of event many decades ago, it was meant to be temporary, but was converted into a permanent concrete structure several years later. I was glad that our bewilderment at its story and existence was shared by people from the area as well.

To finish out our lesson in distilleries, we visited the Jack Daniels distillery in southern Tennessee. It was a neat tour, but it was much more commercialized and crowded than the others were.
 

Much of the process is identical to making bourbon, so the tour was very similar to the others. The exception is that Jack filters their whiskey through charred pieces of sugar maple wood that are burned, processed, and used on-site.

Jack Daniels is still made in the same place it was founded, and they still use the same water source - a tiny spring that (somehow) has been the source of water for every bottle of Jack Daniels and still is today.

I left really pleased with the weekend in Nashville and especially thankful to Kathy and her family for being hosts and letting us have a nice place to stay. We left on the 21st to start our trip into the Deep South to visit friends in Ocean Springs, Mississippi - hitting the campgrounds once again on the way down!

The Road to Music City

We left Cape Cod and drove to Ohio State in Columbus in one day - an 800 mile feat that having 3 capable drivers really helped with. We stayed with Jenna's friend Carolyn there for a night, during which we went out to check out the OSU scene - one that was much bigger and on another level than going to college in a rural Virginia town can prepare you for. Thanks to Carolyn's good friend on the women's basketball team, we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the men's and women's basketball facilities the next day, which I really enjoyed and was amazed by. They were equally on the next level compared to any of Virginia Tech's athletic facilities.

After a one-night stop in Cincinnati with more of Jenna's family that live there, we drove through Kentucky to Tennessee, the most interesting part of which was by far the bourbon distilleries there. We stopped and toured two of them (Wild Turkey and Maker's Mark) but there are about 10 in the area. I have little experience with whiskey - just a general knowledge from a wine class I took at Virginia Tech - but learning about the history and processes around Kentucky bourbon was really interesting.

Both tours were good - over an hour long - and we walked through the production all the way from grain delivery to bottling. Wild Turkey is a more widely distributed mass-production spirit, whereas Maker's Mark was a smaller, more high-end operation. The best part was the comparison of the two. Just one example - Wild Turkey uses 27 30,000-gallon stainless steel tanks to ferment in, while Maker's Mark uses just 9 century-old wooden vats.

Wild Turkey fermentation room

Maker's Mark fermentation room

Both brands, like almost all of them, still use charred wooden barrels and old barrelhouses to age in - the last thing you would expect to see at a modern, large-scale operation.

Quality control is, of course, also still done the old-fashioned way, no matter where you go.

Maker's Mark included a very educational tasting at the end. It was familiar territory since I learned so much about wine tasting this past year; we discussed flavors, where they hit on your tongue, and why they are expressed they way they are - similar to wine, but a little (or a lot?) too strong to be the same kind of enjoyable.

Maker's Mark tasting

After the long day of winding through Kentucky's tobacco fields, we arrived in downtown Nashville in time to meet my dad for dinner and check out the famed music scene - a whole story on its own!

Jenna and Brett... riding the wild turkeys?

Cape Cod, MA

On the same Friday we left Maine and hiked at Camden Hills, we went all the way down the coast and on to Cape Cod. The Cape is a very old-style vacation spot - small roads, small shops, and very large estates with a lot of old money. We stayed in a moderate-sized house about a 10 minute walk from the beach. Our 3 day stay included a lot of relaxing; we went on two short beach trips to see the sand flats and stones that cover the beaches and make it unlike any beach I had seen.

We did spend one of the days traveling to Provincetown at the very tip of the Cape. I did not learn this until I showed up there (silly me), but it's more or less a gay mecca for the East Coast (they were even celebrating the annual "Bear Week"... yes, I had to look that one up.) This, along with the very historical docks and shops, give it a charm, character, and culture that I really could not have pictured beforehand.

Downtown Provincetown

An old wharf

I enjoyed walking around and having lunch there - it was a great place to see and experience. My favorite part was the intense concentration of design shops and artists there; they are lined up downtown with different interior pieces, innovative furniture, scrap metal art, and more.

A design shop's Provincetown logo

It was also good to see some familiar faces - Jenna's mom and brother were also staying in Cape Cod. We even picked up an unexpected traveler; her brother Brett is joining us on the road for 2 weeks!

I know I'm behind, but I'm catching up on writing quickly - soon I'll have posts about the journey to and time in Music City!

Moosehead Lake, ME

After a string of damp camping days, we finally arrived at our Maine destination - Jenna's family friends have a cabin on the southwest shore of Moosehead Lake just outside of Greenville. We called the cabin home for three and a half days, and I loved it!

Our Maine home

Maine has a distinct feel - to its people, its towns, and its nature. The townies are resourceful, chatty, conservation-minded, and intellectual. It is a persona that I recognized from my mom's extended family, which is largely from southern Maine. Everything is farther apart than you'd imagine - part of the wonder of Maine is that the wilderness is so vast; that every scenic creek and lake is probably repeated one hundred times over throughout the state. And true to my aunt's one warning about Maine, the roads were frequently gravel rather than paved (even half and half in some places). There are some very scenic places in New York up through New Hampshire, but the rest of the Northeast is put to shame by Maine!

We arrived in the evening the day before the family crowd arrived, so we took advantage of finally having a kitchen and shower by cooking dinner and cleaning up well. The following day, we kayaked out on the lake for about 3 hours, and this gave me my first "beyond a picture" moment of the trip. The lake had 360-degree views of mountains covered in green pine forests, and the water had a cold, crisp, almost black quality to it. It was truly an incredible place and feeling.

The rest of our time included a hike along Gulf Hagas, dubbed the "Grand Canyon of Maine" (though this is a slight exaggeration.) The hike was very isolated from any kind of civilization, and the forest was as interesting as the canyon - swamps were common; inches-thick moss covered the rocks; 4-foot-tall ferns bordered the trail.

A smaller section of Gulf Hagas

We explored the town of Greenville, which naturally did not take very long. Besides a few gift shops and restaurants, there's not too much there, although I did get to eat my first (delicious) Maine lobster roll.

The majority of Greenville... in one picture!

A 20-mile drive north took us to Rockwood, where there were more breath-taking views across the lake, this time of Mt. Kineo, a local favorite hike, and even a view across the lake to Mt. Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine and an end of the Appalachian Trail.

Mt. Kineo

Looking across Moosehead Lake to Baxter State Park

After our stay at Moosehead, we stopped at Camden Hills State Park on the Maine coast to hike Mt. Megunticook. This mountain climbs 1400' in just over one mile, so the views at the top were again beyond pictures - the Atlantic Ocean stretched out, islands dotted the foreground of the shore, and the small harbor of Camden, full of boats, was also visible. The view embodied everything I had imagined Maine to be.

Our stay in the first of the country's four corner states was exceptionally good, and I believe it will be a highlight of the trip. I definitely want to return, at least to hike up Mt. Katahdin - not to mention, despite our best efforts, I didn't even get to see a moose!