Unfortunately, I’m too busy at the moment to be particularly clever or insightful. However, you have all been clamoring to see pictures of Marisa’s and my trip to the south. So, without further ado, here you go:

• Lexington, KY
• Nashville, TN
• Memphis, TN
• New Orleans, LA

A few of my favs:

• Getting a Daiquiri from the drive-through Daiquiri place in New Orleans.
• Meeting my first alligator.
• Beale Street in Memphis.
• Our campsite in Nashville - about a mile from the Grand Ole Opry.
• Taking silly photos of Marisa: Holding up the pyramid, posing tough, hanging tough with the New Kids on the Block fans, and, Mom, we have big news (just kidding).
• Acting silly, sillier, and silliest at a New Orleans theme park.
• The bayou outside of New Orleans.

The rosy fingers of dawn spread over day 5 of our road trip, and after 2 nights sleeping in a tent, we decided to enjoy having a real bed and indulged in sleeping in. Marisa was feeling a little better so we decided to make a full day out of Memphis.

It all started with a trip to the Civil Rights Museum which is built into the Lorraine Hotel. This is the hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and is now an incredibly well done and important museum that covers the history of black Americans from the late 1600’s all the way to Martin Luther King, Jr’s death in 1968. If you’re ever in Memphis, you should definitely add this to your list of places to see. I think it’s a very important part of American history that most of us never really learn in school and it’s something we should all be aware of.

For example, as late as 1960, Mississippi had laws in place that kept less than 5% of the entire black population from voting. Or that 9 black boys were falsely accused of raping a white girl and some of them spent up to 19 years in prison - much of that time even after people knew they were innocent. Or one of my personal favorites was the story of James Meredith - the first black to attend Mississippi State (Ole Miss). At one point in time, Bobby Kennedy had called out federal troops to confront the Mississippi state police and National Guard that had been ordered by the governor to stop Meredith from going to classes. Imagine that: A state governor calling out his troops against the United States military to stop a young black man from going to college. It’s crazy to think that happened just 50 years ago in our country. So again, if you get the chance, spend the $12 and go see this museum - it’s probably more important than making the trip to Graceland.

After the museum, we made it our mission to find some good Memphis food and we succeeded. Wandering around the back streets of Memphis, we came across a place called the Green Beetle. Unlike the tourist trap of the night before, this place wasn’t crowded, had delicious food, and some of the most amazing service I encountered on our trip. So get yourself down to the Green Beetle when you’re in Memphis and ask for Jason - he’ll be the guy with the green eyes and the green shirt. I highly recommend the pork chop with mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of fried okra and Marisa said her quesadilla was equally tasty.

After lunch, Memphis had one more attraction and an unexpected surprise for us. The attraction was Mud Island. You can take a gondola over or, as we did, you can walk across the gondola bridge for free. Once across, you can enjoy the 2100:1 replica of the Lower Mississippi River (complete with wading in the cool water), see some great views of Memphis, and enjoy a soda pop on a picnic bench. It’s a nice relaxing way to spend an afternoon.

The surprise? The New Kids on the Block were performing a concert! Other than my one trip to the Dufrin Hotel in Vancouver, I’ve never seen so many late 30’s women dressed up like prostitutes - and many of them with their 8 year old daughters in tow. We actually considered getting tickets (and by “we” I mean “Marisa”), but in the end we decided to walk back to the car and head to New Orleans.

On the way back to the car, we came across Memphis’s “water park”. It was a series of about 30-40 geysers that shot water up to various heights. Since it was about 147 degrees outside, we decided to take a quick detour through the water park and enjoy splashing through the various fountains of water. It was a fun and refreshing end to our stay in Memphis.

Our road trip had started off to be one of the best road trips I have ever been on. So Murphy’s Law decided to intervene to try and dampen the festivities.

Wednesday morning dawned another beautiful and hot southern day. I got up and went for a few laps around the camp site, showered, we tore down camp, and headed towards Memphis. I had been there about 10 years ago as part of a theater troupe and was excited to get back to the great Blues music and BBQ. However, as we drove south, it became obvious that Marisa wasn’t feeling well.

A short interlude about diets is in order. While I’ve been eating healthier than ever the past few months, I’ve pretty much been in road trip eating training since I’ve been a child. The McCormicks cannot exactly be classified as health nuts. In fact, considering that my dad routinely uses an entire stick of butter on his popcorn and his favorite cooking “pot” is a deep fryer, it’s safe to say that my stomach has been conditioned to endure almost any culinary disaster - including my mother’s cooking.

Not so with Marisa. She is a very healthy eater and has even flirted with vegetarianism on several occasions in her life. While I love the meat, she loves the salad. The end result is that her body was not ready for the rigors of road trip eating.

Somewhere between the steaks my cousin’s wife made us, the several breakfasts of southern biscuits, and the slow roasted ribs of Nashville, Marisa’s stomach finally cried, “Uncle!”

So we decided to take it easy in Memphis, but while our couple of days there were subdued, that doesn’t mean they weren’t incredibly fun. First, I’d like to state for the record that Marisa is a trooper. When I’m not feeling well I’m a complete baby about it and expect everyone to feel sorry for me. Not so with her.

We decided to splurge on this one night and found ourselves a good hotel near downtown Memphis. We then put on our walking shoes and headed to Beale Street. This is probably the most famous street in all of Tennessee and it’s easy to see why: Live musicians on every corner, BBQ joints and bars all along the strip, and, best of all, you’re allowed to drink a beer while walking down the street. This last item will arise again and reach new heights when we get to New Orleans, but you’ll have to wait for that post.

The only disappointment about Beale Street was the food. We stopped into a place that looked to have a great menu and had a live band on stage. However, the food was mediocre and the service atrocious. Moral of the story: Enjoy Beale Street’s music and drink but stay away from the tourist trap food.

After two days of non-stop excitement, we decided to slow things down a bit for day 3. We slept in, or rather, attempted to sleep in but by 7 am the tent was bathed in the Tennessee sun and quickly transformed into a human roasting machine. So we got up and lounged around in the shade.

One of the cool things about the Jellystone campsite, of which there are many cool things, was that the whole campsite had free wi-fi. So we spent some time in the morning researching what to do with our day. The final conclusion? A trip to the Grand Ole Opry! Can you say, “yee haw” and “hell yeah”?

After booking tickets online and checking some email/facebook we discovered that Marisa gets mean and intolerable without coffee. This meant an immediate change of course from relaxing to finding a Starbucks. After my Magellan like navigational skills got us lost 2 or 3 times, we finally stumbled upon a Nashville Starbucks. This was a slightly different experience from living in Seattle where the trick is to stumble anywhere without running into a Starbucks.

After some coffee and air conditioning time, we headed back to the camp site for a little more fun in the pool. This time we were inspired by a toy we had seen at Walmart the day before. One of us stood in the pool, leaned our mouth in the water, and made a high pitched “pinging” sound while the other one, with eyes closed, swam under water and tried to hone in on the pinging. I’ve decided to name this game, “Hunt for the Red Dork” and if you’re ever in a Jellystone park pool, I recommend you play. It’s especially fun when there’s a bunch of random southerners gathered around the pool wondering what the hell they teach those damn Yankees up north.

To continue our relaxation for the day, we climbed out of the pool and headed back to the campsite. We found a nice shade tree, threw down our Thermarests, and took a nap in a refreshing Tennessee breeze. It was very Rip Van Winklish thing to do and it’s another thing I recommend doing the next time you get the chance.

Finally 6:30 rolled around and it was time to head to the Grand Ole Opry. I’m very happy we did it, but I definitely don’t feel the need to go back again. It was a different format than what I expected. Basically, it was a two hour long variety show where each act got 15 minutes in which to perform 2 or 3 songs and tell a few stories and/or jokes.

Here are the highlights:

1. Aaron Tippin singing, “Kiss This.”
2. The closing act of the night, “Cherry Holmes.” They were a family bluegrass band that really jammed. I’m definitely going to try to catch them doing a full show some time.
3. “Little” Jimmie Dickens! This guy was about 90 years old and 5 feet tall. While his voice is not what it once probably was, he was an amazing entertainer. He told a number of jokes between songs. Here’s one of my favorites: “My wife is weird. For example, I asked her the other day if she’d ever cheat on me and she said, ‘Well who else would I cheat on?’.” Or another one: “I’ve got a stiff neck. I think it’s because I took one of those tiny blue pills for men my age and it got stuck in my throat.”

After the show was over we headed back to our campsite. We tried to pick up some firewood but apparently campfires aren’t a big deal in the 80 degree heat of a Tennessee night so we couldn’t find any wood. That meant no traditional camp fire. But my Mac, the free Jellystone wi-fi, and Marisa’s never ending ingenuity came to the rescue again. She pulled out my laptop and found a website that was nothing but a camp fire playing on the screen. My marshmallows didn’t get roasted quite as well as they would have over a real fire, but it was still a great end to another wonderful day.

Given the incredible start to our southern journey, it’s hard to imagine that we could have any aspirations of surpassing our day one adventures. However, Marisa and I were up to the challenge.

After about 6 cups of coffee and a couple hours of conversation with cousin Pete and his lovely wife, Marisa and I headed out. We made a quick pit stop at Teresa’s favorite Lexington breakfast joint, The Coffee Pub, for some chicken tamales, which they were out of, and then we headed even further south to Nashville, TN!

We decided to save a few bucks on lodging in Nashville and got ourselves a primitive campsite at Jellystone Park - complete with showers, free wi-fi, mini-golf, and a pool. More on the pool later.

For now, a slight digression: I’m writing this while driving from Memphis to New Orleans and the radio, called “The Pig,” is blasting: “She’s not my mama, she’s my monster-in-law.” Gotta love country music in the south!

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post…

After setting up our tent we realized we needed some provisions. Being in Tennessee, the natural stop for any shopping trip is your local neighborhood Walmart. For those that don’t know, I love Walmart and despite her protests, so does Marisa. After about an hour of shopping for groceries and a cooler, Marisa pleaded for a few more minutes to check out the sexy fashions on the discount clothes rack. I conceded. Then, after we checked out and were just about back to the car, Marisa pointed out that we had forgotten grilling supplies for supper. So we had to go back in for round two. What a great time!

After visiting the shopping Mecca, we headed back to the campground where it was about 147 degrees in the shade. This prompted a trip to the pool where we did underwater races, one-armed swimming races, breath holding contests, and Marisa kept doing hand stands in the pool. In short, we had a blast acting like we were 7 years old again. Well, I was acting like a 7 year old and Marisa more like a 5 year old, and it was still a blast.

Then it was time to find some BBQ and listen to some music. The first was accomplished at Jack’s BBQ (which was tasty) and the second was begun at The Stage next door. The Stage was a “traditional” honky tonk (aka: well decorated tourist trap) that had a fantastic country cover band playing. We drank a couple of Miller Lites and then headed to a much more local establishment called the Station Inn.

The Station Inn was a small, dingy building that was absolutely packed with people there to see a 12 piece band called Time Jumpers. Now I’m occasionally prone to exaggeration, but in this case, it’s true, there really were 12 people on stage and they covered the full spectrum of music known to man from bluegrass to country to western. This was a truly fun experience.

And that was the end to day two. I’m really not sure how day 3 stands any hope of surpassing that but I have no doubts that Marisa and I will give it the old UW-Madison college try!