Travel Narrative

San Francisco to Carmel May 14-19,2009

2009-05-31T14:39:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Streetcar
May 14,2009

Robert asked me what I wanted for my birthday. His birthday is a couple of weeks before mine so we celebrate it jointly. Last year we took a car trip to St. Louis & Memphis. I told him I wanted to fly somewhere.

He found a deal on Southwest Airlines, $99 one way to San Francisco. Normal fare is $399 per person one way.

Yahoo.com Travel section has itineraries & an option to check rates on Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels.com. We decided to stay downtown for a couple of days. After that to rent a car to see outlying areas for 2 days, turn the car back in downtown & stay another day near Union Square. Parking in town is impossible & expensive even if you can find it at all. The cheapest rate is over $25 a day plus 25% city tax, making it around $50.

Hotel Serrano
405 Taylor/O'Farrell
415-885-2500

Everyone who had stayed there seemed to love the Serrano, a boutique hotel owned by Kimpton which specializes in older luxury facilities. There was a charming virtual tour. Instead of $200 we were able to book for $109 on Thursday and $124 on Friday. We liked it so much that we made reservations at another Kimpton hotel nearby, the Sir Frances Drake for the last couple of days of our visit. Of the other hotels mentioned on Yahoo Travel the Larkspur seemed like a good value when we stopped by to look around.

Larkspur Hotel
524 Sutter St
415-421-2865

It was a mistake to wait until the day before we needed it to reserve a rental car. There was a big road race on Sunday, Bay to Breakers. This was the 95th year for the 12 km race and 62,000 visitors participated in it. Enough of these runners were not locals and rented cars so that by Friday there were none available at Hertz and Alamo. Thursday the rate for rental cars was $40; it was $79 the next morning. We were able to get a Chevy Impala from the Enterprise Leasing offices in Hotel Nikko. There are extra charges if you book online or if you pick it up at one place and drop it off at another such as the airport.

222 Mason Street
415-837-1700
http://www.enterprise.com/

We purchased Protege 2 section rolling duffle bags from http://www.walmart.com/.
It is 30x14x16, weighs less than 8 lbs, has a handle & separate zippered bottom compartment for carrying shoes or wet swim suits. Item 157271579.

If you order it to be delivered to a store near you for pickup there is no shipping charge. Website indicates what most bought who purchased the same type item plus there are reviews of the item researched. It is a great bag.

We decided we needed new bags because our old ones would be too heavy when packed to make the weight of 40 lb per person & that we would each need a bag. This travel duffle was too big for hand carried luggage but if the other passengers all put a bag in the overhead compartment there won't be enough room so our bags would have to be checked after all.

Hand carried bags are limited to 10x16x24. Checked luggage can be no bigger than a total of 62 inches. Southwest Airlines allows 2 bags per customer if they weigh less than 50 lbs apiece. Any additional bags were $25 each. Many of the competitor airlines are charging for any bags you bring, carryon or checked. American Airlines charges $15 for even one bag.

An improvement since we last flew is that you can check in online 24 hours in advance & pirnt a boarding pass before ariving at the airport. If you are not checking a bag you go right to your gate.

I had custom luggage straps from England that have our names woven into the strap which makes it easy to find the bags on the lugage carousel, ordered it from one of those in flight magazines in 2002. http://www.thestrap.com/. 1-888-307-8727

It is a good idea to get a name tag with a clear pocket for your bags so you can make temporary name tags that can be changed out. You make double sided address labels with the destination address on 1 side & your home address on the other. You flip the label over when you fly home. If a thief reads your luggage tag at the airport he could rob your home at his leisure since you are going to be gone for a time. If your bag is temporarily misplaced it will be sent to your hotel.

Our flight left New Orleans at 10 am with a brief layover in Denver, arriving in San Francisco at 5 pm. Locals in the Denver airport wore shorts and sandals although it seemed cold outside to us.

There were neat displays of pioneer tools and a crazy quilt with sampler stitch book in the Denver airport.

Our options from the airport when we got to San Francisco were to take a Speedy Shuttle bus for $17 a person or the Bart transit for $5.35. We took the bus but if we had known that the Bart station was around the corner from our hotel we would have used that. Our driver gave us a $4 discount coupon to use on the trip back to the airport but it turned out to be with a rival service, not Speedy Shuttle.

Doorman John asked if we were the Schneiders, teasing us about what took so long to arrive from the ariport. You can play a hand of Black Jack with the desk clerk when you chek in. If you win you get a bottle of red or white wine. We had a score of 21 & chose the red, a Chilean carmeniere, Carmen wineries. The hotel has free wine tasting every afternoon from 5 to 6 pm in the lobby. They were doing the carmenire & a sauvignon blanc which we tried the next evening since we were too late for it that day. There were vintage board games on a table in the lobby such as Monopoly, Trouble & Sorry. The samples were generous for the tasting, a regular large glass of wine.

If you like the wine they are serving there is a large wine store next door to the hotel.

Our favorite concierge was Ed Gomez. He gave us a tour book & map on wine country. Sonoma is closest to San Francisco. Napa had more brands that I see at the stores in New Orleans. He was fond of the Russian River area.

Our room was just like the picture. The morning we checked out I opened the closet door for the first time, discovering these fuzzy $10 socks, lounge wear sets & leopard print terry robe. If you even tried on the robe they would charge you for it. They could tell if you had because there was a paper band on the inside waistband that tore when disturbed. The robe was made of scratchy material that I didn't care for. The bed had pressed sheets with high thread count that felt like Egyptian cotton. The room was quiet. We slept soundly.

They had complimentry supplies for guests so we had them bring us some toothpaste. I packed some new travel toothbrushes with built in toottpaste that we saw on the Today show but we needed the toothpaste after we used them the first time.

After unpacking we walked 2 blocks east to purchase a 3 day cable car pass at the downtown end of the street car line on Powell Street. The other end of it is on Beach Street in front of Fisherman's Wharf. We took the Powell-Hyde car to Fisherman's Wharf. We never did walk south of Powell as it borders the Tenderloin district. There is also a Powell-Mason cable car. Although they start at the same point & end at the same point Powell and Hyde are 4 blocks parallel to each other. We regretted later not purchasing a week pass for $24. One way is $5, 3 days is $18, a month costs $40.

It is important to watch where you sit on the street car when taking pictures. Make sure the sun is to your back for best results. Before noon sit on the left side of the car going to the Fisherman's Wharf (north); in the afternoon sit on the right side going toward downtown (south).

There was a herd of homeless panhandlers everywhere we went, looking for something for nothing & street musicians getting nothing for something.

sign: "why lie, it's for beer"

The funniest was a man by Pier 39 who had one string on his violin; the rest were flying in the breeze. He couldn't play but at least he wasn't singing. It sounded like he was stepping on kittens during a fire drill. Another guy wearing a Dalmation costume had 3 dogs wearing hats sitting on a park bench.

We ate supper at Boudin's Bakery/Museum. They pronounce it "bow deen". We told the cashiers that we pronounce that word 'boo-dan' and that it is a sausage in New Oreans. They didn't believe us. A transplanted Minesotan at the museum sales counter said they have a sausage up there like boudin made with potatoes instead of rice. Supper was their clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl, very good.

There was no restroom in Boudin's so we had to use the public facility outside. Robert told me there was a homeless drunk in the men's room trying to keep warm under the hand dryers. It was so cold that I purchased a black fleece hooded genuine San Francisco jacket for $12 from a souvenir shop near Pier 39.

harbor seals, Pier 39

San Francisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea May 15

2009-05-31T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hiking San Francisco May 15

On our first day we followed the walking tour outlined in the AAAA book starting at Union Square. There are heart-shaped sculptures at the 4 corners of the square, symbolizing the heart of downtown.

The statue in the center of the square symbolizes the Goddess of Victory. There was an art show in the square for the week.

The Westin St Frances has a big clock in the lobby suspended from the ceiling where everyone used to meet. When women wore white gloves & dressed up for lunch the hotel had a man who cleaned coins for customers so their gloves would not get dirty. The coins were intended for staff tips & never left the building.

Neiman Marcus has a beautiful stained glass domed ceiling from the City of Paris department store.

Around the corner on Maiden Lane there was a brick wall designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Next to this wall was a 2 story galleria shopping mall with glass ceiling.

Wells Fargo Bank Building was on the corner, #44 Montgomery Street. There was a stagecoach robbery museum in the lobby. Kids played on the simulated stagecoach ride upstairs. If you could guess which person was the culprit based on a list of clues/evidence you got a plastic sheriff's badge.

We watched a silent movie about a stage coach robbery then took a quiz. Questions were about the robber's descritpion, how many robbers there were, what kind of guns they used, which direction they rode in, description of their horses. There was a plaster cast of 3 suspect robber boot prints & 3 horseshoe prints. You were supposed to guess which one to follow on a pursuit.

Hotel Nikko was designed with the Chineese business executive in mind

222 Mason St

415-394-1111

We walked up Telegraph Hill to the top of Coit Tower, chatting with a New York fireman & his girlfried who is an accountant. I think we climbed every hill in town. I can't see how we missed it if they had one more staircase.

The base of Coit tower has murals from floor to ceiling of the lobby

We ditched the walking tour. It seemed that it was designed by a deparved manic depressive patient. You would be on one street, told to turn the corner, go down this lane, take a left at the next corner, then a right, but wait! go back to the first street half a block from where you started. It wasn't just that, it was also up & down hill at the same time. We were no longer speaking to each other. This had never happened to us before. We both love to walk. When we lived in Old Metairie we used to walk for hours in the evenings. We were fed up, were just going to take their word about anything historic/ folkloric. It was time for lunch at Pier 39, the Wipe Out Restaurant.

After lunch we took the thrilling jet boat tour of the Bay. It ruined us for any other tour or boat ride. Forever.

Bridge by AT&T Ballpark that was designed by same man who designed Golden Gate Bridge. He designed this when he was 12 years old.

cheap souvenirs, Pier 39

octopus sushi, Fisherman's Whart

Musee Mechanique is a penny arcade anchoring Fisherman's Wharf. Robert met the owner, Daniel Zelinsky, a man about his age whose grandfather had started the collection. Daniel has retooled the machines to take quarters instead of pennies. He keeps busy making sure they all work.

I put a coin in a fortune telling machine. It spit out a card that told me I talk too much & to stay home next time. No revelation there.

Rare steam powered motorcycle that still works

http://www.museemechaniquesf.com/

Other tours available were a double decker bus, rented bicycles, a fire engine across the Golden Gate Bridge, the duck, segway, & a two seater go cart/motorcycle with self guided tour. The segway cost $70 for 2 1/2 hours. Most of the tours are based on Beach Street. Duck tours are based on Taylor/Jefferson Street. Go carts are on O'Farrell.

On the way back we made reservations at Cobb's Comedy Club on Columbus Street in Little Italy. Our neighbors at the next table that evening were Melanie Moffett, a wine exporter & her husband Don who is an executive with Kaiser. Besides Jeaneane Garofolo comics Marc Maron, a Jewish philosopher & Paul Gilmartin, a Republican politician, entertained us.

Columbus Street/corner of Lombard

415-928-4320

http://www.cobbscomedy.com/bscomedy.com/

We returned to Boudin's for a tour. We learned there were several foods invented in San Francisco. Sourdough bread in 1849; Joe's Special in 1850 (scrambled eggs with hamburger & vegetables); the martini - 1860; Chop Suey - 1860; the Mai Tai by bartender Vic Bergeron at Trader Vic's - 1940; the fortune cookie - 1914; Irish coffee - 1952; Crab Louis - Hotel St Frances. This dish has lettuce, Dungeness crab, hardboiled egg & pink dressing.

View in microscope of live bacteria in sourgdough yeast.

San Francisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea May 16

2009-05-31T10:15:00.001-07:00

Muir Woods - Napa Valley May 16

It was our last morning at the Serrano. We had breakfast at Sears Fine Foods. In the 1970's Jay Leno interviewed a waiter from Sears Fine Foods named Sidney who was 108 years old and seated 50 customers per hour.

Robert had the Swedish 18 mini pancakes; I had the sourdough French toast. We ate at the counter. The waitress gave us a token to play the slot machine on the way out. Somebody did win it while we had breakfast. If you hit a jackpot you get a free meal on your next visit. Breakfast is served until 3 pm.

439 Powell

439-786-7000

We picked up the car and drove to 1000 Lombard for our turn down the 9 hairpin curves of San Francisco's most crooked street.

this is also the view from the top, standing at the top looking out and not down

This flyer advertised an apartment close to the top of Lombard for $4,300 a month. One advantage to walking down or up the hill. I recommend down as a person who has experienced this hill in every known dimension.

Other transportation we saw were Zip cars and some by City Share. These type cars are shared by several drivers with a choice of compact sedan, convertible or truck. The car is parked in a lot with the key left in it. Reservatons are made by phone or online 24/7. The driver gains admission with a magnetized metal card which he scans out when he exits the car. A bill is submitted immediately online. Gas and insurance is provided, enough to cover $1 million per incident. Drivers get the car by the hour for a few hours a week for $5 an hour and 40 cents per mile = $6 an hour or $40 overnight per 24 hours and 10 cents a mile. Drivers have to commit to at least $50 a month useage, pay application fee of $30 and come up with a refundable $300 deposit. There is a trial program, $30 for 60 days with no contract or fees. If you are using the car to donate to Goodwill they give you $10 useage credit for up to 4 times a year. There are also discounts at other merchants for members. They clean & wash the car once a week.

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, stopped briefly in Sausalito then hiked for an hour in Muir Woods to the left and north of the bridge. It is free to cross from San francisco but $6 to get back to San Francisco from the other side. The other bridge into San Francisco, the Oakland Bay bridge costs $4 to get back into town. The other route is Hwy 101 if you are on the San Francisco side of the Bay and there is no toll.

Muir Woods is the closest stand of redwood trees to San Francisco. It is in the mountains 17 miles north of the bridge.

We saw the wine train in Napa Valley. It goes from Napa to St Helena for lunch and dinner. If you must ride the train it is $50 a person. A 3 course meal is $99 and a ride in the dome with a 5 course meal with one glass of champagne is $125. You don't get to tour any wineries.

We toured Domaine Chandon, paying extra for a tasting plus the tour. Chandon came here in 1973 from france and had its first American vintage in 1978. They make still wines here plus sparkling wine. Their guest reception building has a roof that looks like a half cask and the lights in it are different sized globes and different heights to look like bubbles in a glass of champagne.

There was a garden of different vines to show us what the difference was. Chardonnay leaves are the broadest. There is a cousin of pinot noir, pinot meunier which I had not heard of before. I can see as I type this that the spell check on the coputer is as unfamiliar with that word as I was.

Domaine Chandon is a patron of the arts. There were some smudgy oil paintings, figure studies in the lounge. I commented that it was a good thing their wine was better than their art and another guest agreed, pointing out that the female figure in one nearby looked like a man. I said it was a man because you could tell due to his elbows being highter than his waist in the picture. She quipped, "Admit it, you are the artist."

Our tour guide was Denise. She served samples of a year old pinot noir in the cask room.

Our bartender was Marc in the tasting room. Robert had 3 glasses of a still premium wine, called a flight of wine. He had Chardonnay carneros, pino vnoir and pinot meunier. We did not care for the pinot meunier. It was sparky and sharp. The carneros was good and the pinot noir was ok.

I had a choice of premium or standard champagnes. I chose the premium flight. The Etoile chardonnay chanpagne was sublime, tasting of honey and almonds. The Etoile rose champagne was also very nice as was the pinot noir champagne. I prefer the chardonnay champagne. Champagne comes in 5 levels of sweetness - deux, demi sec, extra dry, brut and naturelle. There is no sugar added to naturelle. The difference between champagne and still wine begins with extraction of the juice. Still wine is crushed and chamapagne is pressed. Only the champagne made in France may be called by this name. Elsewhere it is called sparkling wine.

Etoile = stars. Champagne was invented in the mid-18th century by a monk named Dom Perignon. It was a lucky mistake. His comment when he first sampled it was " I am tasting stars!"

Curing rack invented by Madame Clinquot, originator of Veuve Clinquot

Some of the other guests were celebrating a special occaision. Their driver, Tab Borge waited in the parking lot with his 1947 Packard convertible. He told us he had purchased this vehicle from someone in Georgia and refinished it himself. He charges $125 an hour for a minimum of 5 hours for winery tours. He is a retired paralegal and was proof reading a deposition while he waited.

707-226-9227

http://www.ccwinetours.com/

We had supper at a nice restaurant in Napa called Brix. It had beautiful flower gardens, herb gardens for the restaurant and producing citrus trees. Service was available on the patio under an arbor. It was so charming. In San Francisco it had been cold but it was about 90 degrees in Napa. The wine list was as extensive as it was expensive. $11 a glass, $40 a half botle for brands we had never heard of. There were bottles on the menu for up to $425 apiece so we had herbal iced tea.

Robert had the filet and I had the steak. My steak had a bed of spinach and was great. There was a basket of garlic toast and pieces of herbed biscuits with creme fraiche. This meal and the one the next day were the 2 most expensive meals we have ever eaten. It was over $100 for supper and this was with no dessert and iced tea to drink.

707-944-2749

7377 St Helena Hwy, Napa

There was a dearth of places to eat and places to stay in the area that we could see. All we found on the highway from Napa to St. Helena was that restaurant and a mom and pop delicatessen. All the hotels inthe AAA guide were asking for a two day minimum, over $200 a night.

We have Best Western membership so called the reservation line and were able to get a room for one night in Napa after all. Our room had a lovely balcony and it came with a free breakfast at Denny's next door. There was also a Jacuzzi plus the swimming pool. With discount it was $175.00 + tax. My best guess is this is about twice what it should be worth.

Best Western in the Vines

100 Soscol Ave, Napa

707-257-1930

There is a delightful film just out in dvd, Bottle Shock, based on a true story set in the Napa Valley. It was completed just in time for the January 2008 Sundance Festival and got a standing ovation later at Cannes. It is about Jim Barrett, lawyer who bought a broken down chateau with vineards and sets out to produce a world class wine.

Chateau Montelena was built in the 1880's by Alfred Loving Tubbs. The property originally had 476 acres. In 1972 when he was about 45 Barrett purchased 250 acres for $273,000, replanted Chardonnay vines and brought his brand, Cahteau Montelena to market within 4 years.

At that time California wines were not recognized by European connoisseurs. A Britsh vintner from Paris, Stephen Spurrier challenged California vineyards to a blind tast testing as a publicity stunt intended to prove the excellence of French wine.

The end result is that it changed the wine business permanently and wine from other countries and not only California began to get seriuos attention; South America, Australia, New Zealannd, Africa, Canada. Alan Rickman as Steve Spurrier is perhaps the actor in this film most are familiar with but it also stars Bill Pullman, Chris Pine, Freddy Rodriguez, Dennis Farina, Bradley Whitford, Miguel Sandoval, Eliza Dushkyu and Rachel Taylor. If I may say so it was perfectly cast and masterfully done. It is a great screenplay. One critic said it best, calling this film the equivalent of Rocky for wine afficionados.

San Francisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea May 17

2009-05-31T08:16:00.000-07:00

Monterey to Carmel-by-the-Sea

May 17

On the way out of town we stopped by the local supermarket, Trader Joe's. They had a huge floral department. Prices were good. Orchids that went for $35 in New Orleans were $13 here. Assorted bouquets with calla lillies were $9.

The decor was Hiwaiian. I half expected to hear Tikki music. We enjoyed samples of cinnamon croissant with raspberries & sliced mango. There was a free glass of fresh squeezed chilled organic orange juice.

Ground meat was $1.99. There were also good prices on wine. I found a Vouvray champagne for $8.00 which was not bad as it turned out when we had it that evening. I did not know there was such a thing as Vouvray champagne & was happy about that. Vouvray is my favorite white wine & I like champagne even better than white wine.

There was a sale on a wine label Trader Joe's had purchased from a winery going out of business. The label was Blue Fin. Bottles were $3.99. I should have purchased some to see if my rule of thumb was correct. Normally I say nothing under $4, nothing with dust on the bottle , nothing with a frou frou label. That one had all of this.

There was a Whole Foods store next door. Prices over there were high. Noticed their parking lot was full but Trader Joe's was doing all the business. The deli in Whole Foods had some disposable forks that looked like they were made of plastic but were actually made of potato starch.

Out of curiosity we walked through a Costco first thing in the morning before the door greeter started checking membership cards. If I had never been to a Sam's Club it would have been impressive. It was apparent that Walmart had copied Costco down to the last centimeter.

I had heard a few years back that Costco had caskets for under $400 so looked on the back aisles. It turns out they didn't stock it at this location though they do at some others. I looked up caskets on http://www.costco.com/ . Costco sells them in 34 states but not Louisiana or Mississippi.

It has to be billed & shipped to the same address. The manufacturer is Universal Casket Company. Standard shipping is Monday by noon, Wednesday by 5 pm although it can be expedited for a fee of ordered by 2 pm Monday with delivery by 5 pm Tuesday. 18 guage steel was $924 - $2999; a flag case was $89; 32 oz copper from Edward Casket Company on this site was $2599; floral spray was $299-$329.

I looked up casket suppliers on the internet. http://www.dignifiedcaskets.com/ had 18 guage caskets for $995 as well. woden caskets cost $2300.

Costco members paid $2.45/gallon at the station in the lot. Other stations locally were $2.56. A couple of days later in Silicon Valley gas was $2.71-$2.85.

The Jelly Belly Factory is in Fairfield. Jelly Belly brand came out in 1976. They offer a free tour. We learned it takes between 7 to 21 days to make their jelly beans because they brush on the layers of flavor one at a time. The beans have to dry between applications.

Before the brand came out they were making jelly beans for Govenor Ronald Reagan. He was trying to quit cigarettes. His favorite flavor was licorice. They created blueberry jelly beans for the inaugration when Reagan was elected President for a red, white & blue display. They also invented a dispenser that wouldn't tip over for use in Air Force One. There were mosaics on the walls created by a San Francisco artist of Princess Di, Ronald & Nancy Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Donald Duck, Elvis, Walt Disney. There was a 3 D tableaux of a mallard swimming among cattails. We got to sample a tangerine bean & received a take away bag of mixed flavors. The factory is closed on weekends so we saw movies of production. It was a great tour.

#1 Jelly Belly Lane, Fairfield

800-955-5592

www.jellybelly.com

It was hot in the area near Gilroy, farming country. We saw artichoke farms, big strawberry operations. It went from 104 degrees to 65 in half a mile as we neared Monterey.

This is the world capitol of garlic. I recalled watching a documentry 20 years ago about the International Garlic Festival held here annually, a film titled Garlic As Good As Your Mother.

We parked in Monterey by the beach. The water was crystal clear.

We walked toward the world class acquarium, had lunch at a gourmet restaurant overhanging the water called FishHopper. We had abalone, grilled scallops & prawns with mashed potatoes. There was a marinated artichoke appetizer that was great. Dessert was hot fudge sundaes at a Ghiradelli icecream/chocolate candy store.

700 Cannery Row

http://www.FishHopper.com/

There was a 17 mile scenic drive to Pebble Beach and Carmel-by-the-Sea

Shepard's Knoll Outlook

Spanish Bay Outlook

Restless Sea Lookout

Brandt's Cormorants need to sun themselves after catching fish because their feathers aren't waterproof & need to dry.

Samuel F.B. Morse founded Pebble Beach along the edge of the 5,300 acre Del Monte forest

Lone Cypress Tree is 250 years old.

We stopped at the Pebble Beach Golf course, visited the gift shop,purchased Robert 2 shirts & an ink pen. You do not want to know what the pen cost. The shirts were on sale, $35 apiece. I was hoping Robert would decide to retire a couple of his faded golf shirts that he has been wearing for the last 10 years. They must be his lucky shirts. Apparently he will be keeping them all.

We rejoined Hwy 1 and drove through the village of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Clint Eastwood was not to home.

Fog rolled in at 6 pm. A lifeguard told the surfers over a loud intercom to leave the water in 2 minutes because he couldn't see them.

This bucolic villate is one mile square. Many folks had yards where all the space was flowers or landscaped flowering trees. It reminded me of a Yorkshire hamlet. It was hilly there. The streets resembled a country lane. Houses for sale were represented by Sotheby's.

We had reservations with best Western Lanai Gardens in San Jose. I asked the reservations agent to help me find a room at a place on I-101 between San Jose & San Francisco. He was no help at all. Good thing we had the AAA book.

We knew the way to San Jose thanks to our gps but it was hard to get to our hotel due to a 4 lane interstate in front of it & a 4 lane street on the side of it. For a time it seemed like a mirage.

The new owners are Vietnamese & were very nice. The book says the pool is heated but it was not. They also had a box fan in the lobby to circulate air instead of central a/c working which made us wonder if it was also not working in our room but the system in our room functioned just fine. We got there in time to watch the 2 hour season finale of Desperate Houswives.
The room was discounted with AAA membership to $71.00. The free breakfast was nice, with make your own Belgian waffles.

1575 Tully Rd., San Jose 408-929-8100

San Fancisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea May 18

2009-05-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

San Francisco Encore
May 18

San Jose is 57 miles from San Francisco. The next morning it took us two hours to get to Enterprise Leasing downtown to return our car. It was Monday; there was lots of traffic but it moved smoothly. Entrances onto the freeway are controlled with traffic lights. Approaching San Francisco it looked like a fire but was just low lying fog. We passed the headquarters for Microsoft, Yahoo, Intel, Walmart.com. There was a dirigible hanger for the Good Year blimp. We had seen a blimp flying over the bay earlier in the week advertising the disney film 'UP'.

We put 480 miles on the rental car.

It was time to check our bags with Eddy the personable doorman at Hotel Sir Frances Drake. The hotel stored them for us until our room was ready that afternoon.

Hotel Sir Frances Drake has had 6 owners. Kimpton has owned it since 1995. Eddy & Laban were the doormen we met. They have been working there for over 10 years. Laban told us he got his start with the company at Hotel Serrano.

450 Powell Street
415-392-7755

We got on a different street car than the others we had ridden earlier in the week, ending up by the Levi Strauss offices/museum.

Lynne Downey the company historian was being interviewed by a Dutch journalist with a European fashion magazine.

There was a jacket displayed from a contest in 1974 where fabric artists were invited to submit Levi jeans jackets they had appliqued.

We watched a film on how they recreate vintage jeans, copying them down to the last rip and worn crease.

There was a display of check blotters that were given away with purchase in the early 1960's to put under your check when you wrote one with a fountain pen so the ink wouldn't go through the paper onto the writing surace underneath.

We walked up to Union & down Lombard Street, saw the wild parrots in some magnolia trees on an upper terrace. You could see them flying around & hear them but when they were in the trees it was very hard to see them because they were the same color as the foliage. A parrot sat with his back to me. He kept turning so all I could see was his tail feathers. I remarked that no one would want to see a picture of the bird's backside. Another photographer commented not to be so sure, that this was San Francisco after all.

The address is 1000 Lombard, corner of Union Street. The best way to get there is from the cable car at Pier 39.

On the corner of Vallejo, bottom of Lombard we found a famed coffee house, Caffe Trieste. It was founded August 28,1956, by an Italian named Johnny Gianni, known as Papa. He dropped by while we were there, played a couple of Nat King Cole songs on the jukebox, Sweet Lorraine & Sunny Side of the Street. The jukebox has records from the day the place opened; artists such as Connie Frances, Frankie Laine, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Sinatra, Caruso, Lawrence Welk. It is a very cozy place with shiny red concrete floors, murals on the walls. There was not room for one more picture on the walls, black & white celebrity photos such as Pavarotti or Bill Cosby fixing his own coffee behind the counter.

Caffe Trieste was the first coffee house established on the West Coast.

It was lunch time so we had cafe au lait and a turkey with cheese panini. It was the best coffee I have ever had.

415-392-6739

http://www.caffetrieste.com/

Washington Square, a park shaped like a parallelogram, was around the corner. There were yellow caution strips set out in the middle of the park for a dog obedience class that started as we watched.

There is a big church facing the park, Church of Saints Peter & Paul. There were several statues in the park, such as one of Benjamin Franklin in a grove of trees & a badger by a pond.

On the corner of the park we saw Joe DiMaggio's Chop House. It is open for supper, looked expensive, a place where you would wear a suit & tie.

After that we toured the cable car museum which was free. Cable cars travel at 9.5 mph. There are 40 cable cars with a maximum of 26 operating daily. Cable cars are single or double ended. Singles run on Powell-Mason & Powell-Hyde. This type has to be turned around at the end. Doubles on California don't have to be turned around; the conductor just switches ends of the car.

There were black & white photos of the April 18,1906 earthquake. Fires burned over 400 blocks of the city. The oldest streetcar was on exhibit, Clay Hill #8 from 1873. It is loaned to Chicago for the Columbian exposition & disappeared, turning up in Baltimore at the Baltimore/Ohio railway museum. After this discovery it was returned to San Francisco.

We caught the California to Van Ness streetcar back toward Powell, enjoying a lively tour from our favorite loquacious conductor Chris. Most of the other conductors didn't say anything or visited with their coworkers.

There was a massive Edwardian brownstone facing California Street that seems to take up the entire block known as the Flood Mansion. It is now a private gentleman's club. Chris told us Bill Clinton is a member there.

We ended up near Ghiradelli Square, site of the candy company that is now a shoppping center & condominiums. It is a series of brick buildings. The Clock Tower building dates back to 1916; Mustard bldg 1899; Woolen Mill bldg 1864; Cocoa bldg 1900.

There is a photo contest at the moment where if you submit a winning photo of Ghiradelli Square you can receive a $100 gift card. http://www.ghiradellisq.com/

Another shopping center nearby is known as Cannery Row & was a Del Monte canning plant.

Quite a few of those submitting San Francisco trips on Yahooo.com mention eating at a fast food place called In & Out Burger. There was one on Beach Blvd so we gave it a try. We had cheeseburgers/fries & a coke and it was $9.50 for the both of us. It was very good.

Our room was ready at the Sir Frances Drake Hotel. It was a corner room on the 14th floor, #1428, with a view of Union Suare. We loved it. Beautifully furnished, king bed, nice sheets, quiet. The closet looked as big as my office at home.

The bell hop brought us a box of cookies & a couple of bottles of Sir Frances Drake water that had a picture of the 3 doormen on the label. Normal price of our room was $479.00 according to the sign posted on the back of the door. We paid $165.00.

There was a hardbound San Francisco city guide in the room. It recommended The Stinking Rose, a restaurant on Columbus Street that was also mentioned in the Yahoo trip guides & AAA book. We made reservations. The voice on the answer machine messsage sounded like Dracula. One of the options was if we wanted to speak to a dead person to push button #4. The concierge at our hotel said the rabbit there is terrible. During Shakespeare's time garlic was called a stinking rose.

sign: 'we season our garlic with food'

Robert had the porterhouse pork chop. I had the 40 clove roasted chicken. My chicken was cooked on a bed of garlic cloves. All 40 of them were on my plate.

There was fresh pesto & house brand olive oil to dip our herbed yeast rolls in. The rolls were on a plate that sat on a cast iron stand over a candle to keep the plate of rolls warm, a nice touch. I had the garlic icecream with brown sugar sauce for dessert. Robert did not care for it but I thought it was delicious.

I thought about Oscar Wilde's quip that you never know how much is too much until you over do it. We both had garlic aftertaste in our mouths until the next day however, no matter how many times we brushed our teeth and used mouthwash.

325 Columbus St

http://www.thestinkingrose.com/

415-781-7673

There are a ton of good restaurants as well as mom & pop groceries on Columbus Street

sign: 'may dog be with you"

sign: 'enough with the plywood"

We learned that there was a worldwide psychiatric professional convention meeting here this week. Conventioneers from America, Norway, Sweden and Denmark were fellow guests at the Sir Frances Drake. One of them, a Norwegian blonde explained she was attending it & that the convention will be held in New Orleans next year.

San Francisco Scientology Center

San Francisco to Carmel-by-the-Sea May 19

2009-05-30T17:58:00.000-07:00

Adieu San Francisco

May 19,2009

On our last morning we got up before 6 am & rode the streetcar to Beach Street. It intersects Columbus Avenue near there.

We ate breakfast at Joanie's Happy Days Cafe. There was a Google map & critic review taped to the front window. He liked the place but hated the music on their web site.
http://www.jackspics.com/

Other items on the menu that were different besides usual breakfast fare were a breakfast burrito, bowl of chili with cheese, hamburger patty, corned beef hash, chicken breast, steak with white gravy. Besides regular hamburgers they also had an avocado & bacon burger. Royal's Scrambled had hamburger, spinach, mushrooms & onions. Hobo Scrambled had ham, onions, country style potatoes plus Jack, Swiss & Cheddar cheeses.

I had Eggs Benedict made with crab under the spinach. The place is decorated with subtle taupe wallls and tile floor and has black & white photos of San Francisco street scenes.

1328 Columbus Avenue

415-928-4843

We saw kids start walking to school around 8:30 am. School is from 9-5.

We walked down Lombard. The best way to see the crooked part of it turns out to be catching
the Hyde streetcar at Pier 39.

We had cafe au lait at another charming coffee shop, Caffee Sapore. It is located at the bottom of Lombard/corner of Taylor Street.

"Foreign places are not meant for you to be comfortable in them. They are desgned for natives of that area to be comfortable. If you do not like it go home & stay there." Clifton Fadiman

Home again.

Of course an online quilting magazine sent me a feature on fabric stores in San Francisco the day I get home. There was one shop I saw on Geary Street, Britex that was mentioned but did not go in. It would have been nice to buy some special material for the next quilt I will be starting soon. It looked like they had specialty shops for Chineese silk & Indian saris, novelty shops for theatrical costume materials. Besides several in San Fancisco there were a few in Berkley & Oakland.

Britex 415-392-2910 146 Geary St
Mendel's Far Out Fabric 415-621-1287 1556 Haight St
African Outlet 415-864-3576 524 Octavia St
Fabrix 415-221-4111 101 Clement St
Satin Moon 415-668-1623 32 Clement St
Black Cat Quilts 415-337-1355 2608 Ocean Avenue
Stone Mountain & Daughter 510-845-6106 2518 Shattuck Ave, Berkley
Silk Road 510-763-1688 272 14th St., Oakland

It's always nice to purchase some special souvenir distinctive to the area you visit. I regret for example not purchasing some hot & cold water faucets in France that read 'chaud' and 'froid', or a kitchen ceiling lampshade typical of country farmhouses, lampshades that look like a chinaman's hat with a lace handkercheif draped over it. On this trip we purchased caps for opened champagne bottles that keeps the fizz in after the bottle is opened, wine & food pairing charts from the Chandon winery.

Two ways to save for your next vacation are when you make a purchase for cash set aside any $5 bills you get in a vacation fund.

The other is to round down the amount of your paycheck when you balance your account, then round up the total for any checks you write so that you have more money in your account than it looks like. Keep a running total of the excess. At the end of each moth take that out & deposit into the vacation savings account.

We took 1,368 digital pictures on the trip.

It took us 36 hours to edit them and write this story.

Merna and Robert Schneider May 22, 2009

Louisiana Book festival

2008-10-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

There has been an annual free book festival in Baton Rouge
on the grounds of the State Capitol every year since
2001 except for 2005 due to Hurrican Katrina the month before. It is just for one day in the fall, sometimes the first Saturday in November unless there is an election scheduled. This year was the 7th annaul event on October 17. There are workshops with a reasonable fee as well held the day before in diverse topics such as screenwriting, how to self publish, writing and illustrating children's books, freelance journalism for profit.

The first thing I would like to say is that I am not mentioning authors in any particular order, just trying to get all the ones in that I can think of over the years who I have enjoyed hearing what they had to say.

Toni McGee Causey is one of the authors who conducted
workshops the day before, on screenwriting this year.
She has a series on a female detective named Bobbie Faye and firmly believes that if your character should carry a gun
in his line of work he ought to have one. One little tidbit I did pick up is that one minute of film = 1 page of screenplay manuscript.

Louisiana authors or writers of interest to people in Louisiana
give a talk for an hour or participate in panel discussions in
two floors of the capitol building as well as in the state library
next door and in the state museum across from that. Normally
there is an admission charge to the museum but it waived on
the day of the book festival.

Last year we attended a panel
discussion in the museum featuring a cajun fiddle player
Amanda Shaw, star of the Disney channel and two men who write music. Dave Eagen composes blues and Jim Mccormick works with country
artists. Amanda's latest hit "Pretty Runs Out" is a
collaboration with Mr. Jim. They concluded with this song
writing advice:"Don't bore us, get to the chorus" and
'Never write nor burn a bridge unless necessary".

The museum is excellent and has been there 6 years.
Since there were panel discussions that day and admission
was free more people went there who hadn't been before.
The third floor has a great folk exhibit. There is a display
of decorated lawnmowers from a lawnmower parade
and much of the floor is dedicated to either Mardi
Gras or Louisiana musicians. In an alcove there is a platform
in front of a screen with a film shot from a big night parade
like Bachus or Endymion Uptown so it looks gives the viewer
some idea what it is like to ride in a Carnival parade.

My mother is a volunteer worker with the children's division of her parish library and she was the one who told me about it. She did attend the first year and says that the organizer modeled our festival after one in Texas. When we attend a talk in the House of Representatives or the Senate in the state capitol building we like to sit at the desk of legislators who were elected under their nickname.

There are tables for authors selling books lining the sidewalk
up to the capitol building and several tents for exhibitor booths,
a Barnes & Nobles temporary book store, food booths,
a tent where cooking demonstrations are conducted
and a music tent. There are also arts and crafts
vendors. There are storybook characters such as
Clifford the Big Red Dog strolling the grounds and
activities for children as well. This year was blessed with the mob
from Where the Wild Things Are.

In 2003 just as we were leaving for home a classmate of my kids, a young man named Bryce Turgeon purchased a book, The Fat White Vampire Blues, from a new writer, Andrew J. Fox off a table that was in a group of tables along the sidewalk between the book tent and the capitol building. Andrew wasn't there when Bryce bought the book and we found out later it was because Andrew had to leave because his wife was delivering their first child.

I started reading it aloud on the drive home and we never laughed so much. Andrew Fox worked with the poverty nutrition program in New Orleans for the public health department and had seen figures stating that people in New Orleans were the fatest in America. The premise of the novel was what if there was a vampire in New Orleans and all he had to drink was the blood of New Orleaneans who were fat people. Wouldn't that make him fat too? The protagonist of this novel was therefore a taxi driver weighing over 400 pounds. The next year we enjoyed his sequal, Bride of the Fat White Vampire.

If you get there early enough there is a farmer's market
next to the parking garage in downtown Baton Rouge a
couple of blocks from the state capitol grounds. It is free to
park at the garage on this day. An alternative route is to take the Capitol Access exit off I-10 going toward downtown Baton Rouge. This will put you on an majestic oak tree lined drive passing by the govenor's mansion and up a drive with parking next to the capitol building.

At the end of the day the symphony conducts a concert
on the steps of the capitol building. All this is free
of charge! It worries me that ever since 2005 attendance
is down. I wonder if it is because not as many people are
living here any more. I don't think enough is done to promote
this excellent event. The website is:
http://www.louisianabookfestival.org/.

This year the festival mailed a program ahead of time to anyone who attended previously as well as contacted them by email. On the internet there was a full agenda posted so you could see all the events for the two days. Some libraries posted the program on the front door but not all that I visited in the weeks before the festival. There was the occaisional feature in local newspapers but nothing on National Public Radio or public television. Country Roads magazine did a good job promoting it ahead of time. This publication is free and available in coffee shops and also via internet.

Music lovers and their pets at the sunset concert Saturday evening.

Zachary Richard was the last musician of the afternoon this year in the tent by the food booths. Earlier this year I attended a talk by the Lt. Govenor who said he brought Zachary up to Canada to meet with the prime minister in an effort to develop tourism in Louisiana. The Lt. Govenor sponsored a golf trail and a history trail and now a bird watching trail and Zachary loves birds. Since he is like the Elvis Presley to all of French speaking Canada it was an instant entree when the Lt. Govenor requested an interview with the prime minister, telling them Zachary was with him. The man in front of me in line to greet Zachary after his set was a tourist from Ottowa.

It is possible to find an opportunity to chat with your
favorite author here. The dilemma is having to chose
between favorites scheduled at the same time.

Hans Sternberg has a book, We Were Retailers out about his years with Goudchaux's Department Store headquartered in Baton Rouge. He was my boss when I worked there for a time after graduating from LSU before moving to New Orleans. I think I remember his mother still working at the store as well. He and his brother Josef were always on the sales floor and they were the nicest people. The store, founded in 1936 was a marvel and featured in Guiness book of records as the world's largest building built and intended for a department store. It was between the cemetery and railroad tracks downtown at the end of 3 dead end streets. Innovations pioneered by the Sternberg family were interest free charge accounts and the concept of the gold card . They extended credit to newly divorced women and others trying to establish credit who were having trouble getting started financially. It was a step up from the regular charge card. Members paid $30 a year to have it and got free parking and other discounts and priveleges. American Express bought the idea from the Sternberg's. Hans told of the mayor of Baton Rouge going to New York and seeing that the Birmingham orchestra was playing Carnegie Hall. Not to be outdone by the smaller city of Alabama he campaigned and won a date for the Baton Rouge symphony to play Carnegie Hall. Goudhcaux's Department store and Eric Sternberg, Hans's father underwrote the event, not only supporting the orchestra but also supplying audience members from Baton Rouge and the state of Louisiana. Afterwards they found out the other orchestra from Birmingham was professionals from Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, Alabama. Hans told of his father sponsoring over 150 people escaping from Nazi Germany in the late 1930's due to his position of having a retail business that could employ these imigrants. He said his father was very glad that they did not in fact see most of them after they escaped Hitler because he wouldn't have known what to do with them all. I would recommend this book to anyone who would care to read about the good old days of the big name quality department stores. The Sternbergs were master retailers and very brilliant about it. I also appreciate them for giving me a position even though from the start I told them I was moving to New Orleans within 6 months.

80% of the authors featured this year were first time guests.

Louis Maistros debuted The Sound of Building Coffins in March 2009. He played guitar and sang an original tune during his talk about the book. If you look him up on You Tune you can see a video of that very song. His wife was initiated into voodoo in Haiti and together they have a business venture called Louie's Juke Joint and Botanica on the internet. For a year they operated a shop selling records and esoteric voodoo paraphanelia at 1128 Decater Street in the French Quarter in the location of the former Record Ron's. Besides being a skilled novelist Louis is also a marvelous artist and photographer. You can purchase his book, the photography and some great Dr. Bob art from http://www.louiesjukejoint.com/. If you have never heard of Dr. Bob I will discuss him when we get to Roy Blount.

Angus Woodward and Dixon Hearne did a joint presentation.
Although they had never met before this event they were a good match and an interesting contrast. Both their work is good but it was more interesting hearing them together.

Angus moved to Louisiana from Minnesota and writes about the contemporary Gulf South in contrast to Dixon who has moved to California and writes about about the days of his childhood when he used to accompany his father , a traveling salesman during summer vacation. Both of them have a collection of short stories. Angus's is titled Down at the End of the River; Dixon's is Plantatia. They proceeded to read the lead sentence from each chapter of their excellent respective books.

In other years authors we have enjoyed and what they talked about include: Julie Smith, a former reporter with the
Times Picayune writes stories set in New Orleans starring
a debutante detective. She explained the elements of this
genre and what it takes to get published during her 45 minutes.

John Ed Bradley quarterbacked at LSU and was featured
in Sports Illustrated, writing about what it was like playing
football for coach Charlie McLeandon. He talked about
investing in southern WPA artists and research on a love
triangle between famed Mexican Diego Rivera, his wife
Norma and an alcoholic but prolific free lance Yankee
photographer who was doing a series on decaying antebellum
homes at the time Diego was painting the murals in the
Fairmont hotel Sazarec lounge. Mr. Bradley's first novel,
Smoke, was very funny and was about a fictionalized
South Louisiana town and the affect on local business
when a mass merchandiser caled 'Monster Mart' comes to town.
His book last year was another narrative about playing college
football, It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium.

Sue Eakin was my college history teacher and was still writing books at age 91. Last year she talked about her lifelong research into
the life of Solomon Northup who was subject of the 1853 book
12 Years A Slave. She says in 1968 a colleague at LSU wrote an
updated version using her research and put her name on the cover
along with his but it was a poor effort so now she has published
the definitive book on the subject of Solomon Northup.
Mrs.Eakin was the epitome of the phrase "mind as sharp as a tack". She was working on 11 unpublished manuscripts at the time of her death last summer. I don't know if any of these will see the light of day since a close relative went through those manuscripts and expurgated family infomation which was deemed sensitive by this relative.

John Burnett is the NPR reporter from Austin, Texas
who broke the story about the weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq when he was imbedded with the troops, explaining
that he didn't check his sources before going on the air.

Dr. Nick Spitzer broadcasts an excellent weekly radio program,
American Routes from New Orleans and talked about
Louisiana music and musicians. His radio show is two hours long.
Each week he showcases two musicians for an hour apiece.
After Hurricane Katrina he brought a tape recorder when he
returned to his Uptown residence for the first time after
evacuating to inspect the property and pick up a few things for
his family and Ira Glass ran this tape on This American Life in
a segment titled This is Not My Beautiful House. It was great!
You can listen to this on the archives for the show from
September 2005 at http://www.thislife.org/

Michael Lewis is from here as well and is famous for writing
about the stock market both here and in Europe and characters
we have all heard about in the news. He also wrote about Jim
Smith who started the internet and was working on a book,
Money Ball about the Oakland A's baseball team. He did a book
on the team because they have the lowest payroll and the highest
rate of wins. He said the reason is that they hire by stastistics and
not appearence.

Roy Blount,Jr., a great American and the closest thing we have to
Mark Twain read selections from his great book about
New Orleans, Feet on the Street last year. It is a collection of character sketches and stories about his time here when he was a reporter for the States Item newspaper. That man really got around when he lived here. I really enjoyed his discussion of Dr Bob, king of the Bywater folk artists. Dr. Bob makes or decorates
found signs with an embellishment of strips of corrugated tin
and Barq's soft drink bottle caps. A favorite of those who love
his work is the admonishment to "Be Nice or Leave".

This year Roy has a book about the meaning of words. He quipped ' I prefer my oysters fried for then I know my oysters have died' and explained the derrivation of a new phrase he has coined, 'antipentultimatum' which means when your mama is hollering at you and you know you have two more times of her hollering at you before she comes over there with the belt. Something else he said was when meeting new readers of his work they frequently comment " I didn't think you would look like that'. He says his response is "That is what I think too when I look in the mirror sometimes these days'.

Dr. Christine Vella was a repeat speaker this year. I had heard her give a presentation on Intimate Enemies, a study of Madam Micaela Almonaster Pontalba several years back and read the book afterwards. It read like a novel and I couldn't put it down. Dr. Vella did a wonderful job on this book because there was very little about Madam Pontalba to go on. Most of what there was consisted of court cases. Madam Pontalba built the apartments on Jackson Square and also a home in Paris that is now the American Embassy. I will say no more about that here but encourage everyone to read it.

This year Dr. Vella discussed Dorothy Dix the newspaper columnist who died at age 90 in 1961. Most people didn't know that she wrote her columns in New Orleans and thought she was from their home town. She got her start at age 32 when she was recuperating from a nervous breakdown living in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi next to the editor of the Times Picayune who hired her to write obituaries. From there she was hired by the New York Journal to be their crime reporter. After 17 years she moved back to New Orleans in hopes of reuniting with her husband and wrote advice columns for another 22 years from here. She worked 18 hour days for nearly 60 years and at the height of her popularity in the 1920's and 1930's she was getting over 2,000 letters a week and answered them all with the help of one secretary. She coined a term, 'the perjury of courtship' about lies men tell women in order to have their way with them and did say that when you enter a restaurant and see couples engaged in scintillating conversation just enjoying themselves, having a delightful time, those couples are married but to other people.
Her 10 Steps to Happiness still holds true today: Make up your mind to be happy and be happy now, not in the future; smile; make the best of any situation you are in; don't take yourself or anyone else seriously; don't hold a grudge; don't worry about what might happen because most of that stuff never happens; have as many interests as you can find the time for; don't brood over past mistakes; do something for the less fortunate and keep busy.

When she died she left an estate of $2.5 million.

This is Dorothy Dix's family tomb in Metairie Cemetery, plot 167. It is not unusual to have the name of the person interred there because it is a family crypt, also remember that Dix was her penname. Her maiden name was not even Dorothy, it was Elizabeth Meriwether. She had married her step mother's step brother, George Gilmer when she was 21.

Several times a year it is the custom in New Orleans to have a florist deliver an arrangement to the cemetery, for example All Saints Day November 1 and Mother's Day in May. Some people don't go to the cemetery but just pay to have it done. I have worked for several florists in the past and had the chore of locating one of these tombs where the person's name the flowers was for was not on the tomb at all so had to do research in the cemetery office that could be quite time consuming.

Wally Lamb spoke in the House of Representatives chambers in the morning and was also on a panel that afternoon. He was one of the first selections of the Oprah Book Club when it started in 1996.

In contrast for the last couple of years former Times Picayune columnist Chris Rose gave a talk about his self published book One Dead in The Attic that was illustrated by British photographer Charley Varley and later picked up by Random House. This book was a compilation of his newspaper columns for 6 months after Katrina. I really liked it but part of the charm was the Charley Varley photographs. I was disappointed that Chris dropped Charley from the book when Random House picked it up and did not insist on taking the work as a package deal. Random House wanted a contract just with Chris Rose.

Chris regaled us with a story of how he was on Oprah's tv show but wouldn't sign the waiver about not discussing Oprah the after taping so the show didn't run. He was irritated because Oprah wanted to slant the show to the topic of depression in post Katrina New Orleans and would not let him mention his book or even have it on the set. He could tell at the time that the show would be biased because he said the promos showed him standing on a balcony staring vacantly off into space. It was true that he had been depressed after the hurricane but he had sought treatment and was in fact recovered. Because he wouldn't sign the waiver they didn't run the show but what he did do is write a column about Oprah and the non-show which immediately made its way around the internet gaining alot more audience than the show ever would have.

Post Hurricane Katrina we heard Dr. Ivor von Heerdon, director
of the LSU Hurricane studies center, the Rutledge brothers who published a book of stories one month after Katrina called Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans? and Phyllis Montanna who starred in Spike Lee's movie When the Levee Broke and now has a book
of her own out, Not Just the Levee Broke. Phyllis gave a fascinating heartfelt account of her first hand experience of staying in New Orleans during the storm and surviving during its aftermath but she is the first author I have ever heard say that when her book was published she did not know what was in it.
What's up with that?

I really loved Do You Know What It Means. It had stories from a variety of contributors about the New Orleans of the good old days as well as what it is like now and featured some wonderful maps of the 19th century French Quarter. There was an account of what it was like to be a Boy Scout working on a carnival float with his friends in Junior High school, and a recipe plus the account of one of the editors of this book having to steal a car to leave New Orleans after the storm.

At the end of the day last year as I mentioned earlier the
symphony played movie themes, including several by
composer John Williams. Lieutenant Govenor Mitch Landrieu
was master of ceremonies. He noticed a young man in a
wheelchair on the front row, Calvin Constant who was there with us.
Calvin had never been to a symphony concert before and was
fascinated to watch the interplay of the instruments and to learn
the names of each during the concert.

After the program Lt. Govenor Landieu was very kind to
take a minute to kneel down on one knee and talk with
Calvin before we left. Calvin is 20 years old. He was so
inspired by the opportunity to chat with Mitch that he
registered to vote after that and did vote for the first time in
the election this year, hopefully for the Lt. Govenor's sister
Mary but I am not sure how it turned out as I did not
bring him to vote.

This year the Lt. Govenor opted for the more casual route and after introducing the program he enjoyed it with his daughter along with the rest of us on the steps of the capitol.

May 2008 Memphis to St. Louis

2008-10-14T05:06:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1 Natchez, Mississippi

May 15, 2008
4 am

It was raining torrential buckets when we set out for Baton Rouge, the type of storm in movies with a South Seas typhoon. We had a breakfast of cafe au lait & beignets at Coffee Call on College Drive near LSU while we waited for the rain to clear up so we could see to drive.

This picture was taken on the day Robert purchased this car in July 2006.

Fields are flooded off Hwy 190 from Port Allen to Oppelousas in places that have not been known to flood. We noticed some new oil wells since our last trip out that way do to oil going to over $130 a barrel.

The plan was to pick up mama and be in Natchez for lunch. Robert & I have a diffeence of opinion regarding car trips. He prefers to begin after dark, drive all night, arrive when the attraction opens, spend a full day riding the rides. I tried that when we went to Schlitterbahn Water Park in New Braunsfel, Texas. We left at 10pm, drove 12 hours, were the first customers of the day. I felt abysmal from lack of sleep although we did make the most of our time. It is inadvisable to drive all night in an area where you haven't driven before. This was a pleasure trip; getting there is half the fun. It is better to see the sights, possibly photograph a few because were were driving the scenic route.

It was sunny by the time we got to the farm. From there we drove up Hwy 71 to Pineville, then Hwy 28 east to Natchez. I brought some recorded books & music on cd for the trip barrowed from the parish library, cranking open Walkter Cronkite's memoirs when we were near Jeana, where the road heads east to Vidalia. Cronkite discussed his career - Kennedy's assassination, LBJ's presidency, Vietnam, the space program. We enjoyed it but that was the last thing we agreed on as far as listening went for the duration of the trip.

Crossing the riverwe continued through the south side of Natchez to Hwy 61, passing by the turnoff for Longwood, the octagonal antebellum home that was never completed, one of dozens of historic Natchez homes available for tours.

Longwood was the 100 acre country estate of a wealthy doctor & cotton farmer who owned 3 plantations named Dr. Mudd. Construction began in 1857. The basement was finnished & the family lived there while the rest of the house was constructed but it was never finished due to outbreak of the Civil War. Materials for it were paid for in advance but captured by embargo. The doctor died of pneumonia & a broken heart in 1863. His widow was in residence until 1897. The house remained in the family until 1957 when relatives sold it plus 10 acres to the Natchez Garden Club.

It is not as bad as it sounds, living in the basement. The family had 8 children. The basement had large well appointed rooms radiating around a central atrium with dining room, kitchen, library, 6 bedrooms. The basement alone was the size of what we could call a mansion in these days of the typical suburban 3 bedroom 2000 square foot ranch home. Although no pictures were supposed to be allowed I was able to photograph the house plans using no flash. You can tell it too.

The house has a roof so the interior has been preserved. The first 3 floors of the 6 were in various states of partial completion. The attic still has packing crates for a piano stamped addressed to Longwood with the manufacturer's return address. The 3rd floor had alcoves around the perimeter intended for life-sized marble statues of Greek gods. I felt this was a bit over the top for what I would want in a home place but other than that I was inspired to try to think of ways how we could tweak our little home. Other than the concept of hanging draperies at ceiling level instead of the standard 3 inches above the window wasn't able to think of anything else so just bought a lottery ticket and hoped for the best on a new ponderosa someday.

These burnt orange/red curtains were 4 panels that originally gathered at the top. I sewed 2 panels together on each side, lining them with white material so the sun won't fade them out.

I cut a 5th panel into 4 pieces, pleating each piece horizontally 5 times to make the header 8 inches tall. I added that to the top of each panel so the draperies now would hang long enough to go to the ceiling level.

I then sewed vertical tubes 3 inches apart in the header, reinforcing it with cardboard tubes from gift wrap rolls to give it body. The draperies were clipped to the rod with cafe clips.

Here is the picture of some curtains where I got the idea for that. This is how my curtains turned out but you can't tell it in the photo because of the scarf valence I installed over it.

I cut one scarf so that it was just the length to go to the corners, hemmed the panel so it was the same width as the scarf, running that across the front to join the scarf on the other side. On the other scarf I also added a piece in the middle so it would go up to the center, creating a poof in the middle.

Here is a picture of some scarf valances that illustrate what I was trying to do with the ones that I made. You can see what I am talking about better with this illustration due to the use of two colors of material.

This job required installation of a double curtain rod at the top to hold the red curtains with opaque panels in back of it. In addition I installed brass c clips at the corners for the scarf. There is a piece that looks like a lyre in the middle for the poof. There are silver/ mother of pearl finials on the decorative rod as well as matching silver/ pearl tie backs where the scarf is gathered 3 feet from the floor.

Although these curtains look bizarre a word of explanation: it all started with a shower curtain at the house we moved from.

The first thing I thought when I saw the bathroom in that house was that the former tenants must have been drinkers who liked to shop for paint and accessores when they were inebriated. That bathroom was painted a pepto bismal pink on one wall, mint green on another, had beige ceramic tiles in the shower with black light switch covers & a black door knob. The shower curtain went with all those colors, yanking the room together. Normally one would say 'pulling the room together' but that is too mild a term for this color pallette.

Later I found some sheets that matched the shower curtain. I used a set of those sheets to make a quilt, the flat sheet for the back of this quilt, cutting up the fitted sheet to use for the color square in the star on the quilt. It is a 19th century pattern called 'Blackford's Beauty".

I was so happy there for over 7 years, might be there still if not for a neighbor who coveted the little rental shotgun house. He bugged the landlord incessantly for over 4 years into selling it to him. The new owner gave us little notice; he wanted to gut the place & reconfiture it, planned on renting it out for twice what we were paying.

We had no down payment but found an adorable home that had been repossessed & fixed up by the bank for resale in the next town. To save money I used curtains from the old house when we moved to the new one in August 2004.

These curtains in the guest bedroom were patched together with contrasting sheets that I had on hand which went with the left over material from the quilt project. 4 years later these draperies were faded from the sun. The curtain rods weren't holding up so well. It was time for a change.

It was noon when we pulled into the parking lot of Mammy's Cupboard restaurant at the city limits on Highway 61. This circa 1940 restaurant is in a building that resembles a giant Aunt Jemimah. It is open Tuesdays through Saturdays for lunch, 11 am to 2 pm. The management accepts cash/personal checks only. When it is open there is not a parking spot available; when it is closed there is nary a vehicle in sight. Desserts for $5, plate lunches for $9 are the house specialty. There are two dining rooms, a kitchen & pantry. The first room is round with red walls/white trim. The second is square with black & white tile floors. The kitchen is up a douple of steps with an open door. There is a bathroom at either end of the back room, with a man's hat or a woman's bonnet on the dooor to designate the correct one. Diners are greeted by a sign asking one to wait for seating. After a time one of the cooks looks out at the line of customers, points with a knife, asks how many in the party, says 'Y'all sit over there". The Thursday special was a plate lunch; pork roast, green beans with bacon, tossed salad, wild rice caserole & herbed cornbread. Both this & the blueberry lemonade on the menu were delicious. Other entrees were soup, salad, or a sandwich with potato salad. The sandwiches were generous, made with bread sliced an inch thick. Dessert is either pie or cake. All the pies have a meringue that is 4 inches tall; coconut, chocolate & lemon. All the cakes have cream cheese frosting with pecan bits & are similarly lofty; carrot, hummingbird, red velvet, Italian creme cake. The first time I was ever here I had to tell them the origin of hummingbird cake. They wre unaware that it is a recipe from Hummingbird Hotel on St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans.

In 1993 I had the opportunity to chat with Bertha Hillensbeck, the owner of Hummingbird. Her father had originally built it in 1947. It originally had 50 rooms. In 1990 after a $500,000 renovation to get it up to code it had 13 rooms, half of which were occupied by the original residents from the 1940's.

Bertha remarried a man who also had children from a previous marriage. Together they had 12 kids. The only indication at first glance that it had been removated is that before the work was done the blinking neon sign outside read 'Hot l pen 4 hours'. After rennovation it read 'Hotel open 24 hours'.

The first floor had a restaurant with buffet salad bar. It was a popular spot with folks who had been to soirees. For some inexplicable reason people in New Orleans seem to like to eat breakfast before going home after being out all night. They really do love to stay out all night there. Movie stars wishing to keep a low profile stayed there. My favorite memory of this place was a sign above the pay phone which read 'No talking to invisible people".

Hummingbird cake is a recipe of a chef at this restauarant. It is like carrot cake but has bananas & pineapple in it. It has a cream cheese frosting, is garnished with pecans. It is 3 layers that have been split into 6 after baking when the frosting is applied.

Recipe 350 degrees 25 minutes

You will need three 8 inch greased & floured cake pans

3 c flour

1 c sugar

1 tsp each soda, cinnamon, salt, vanilla extract

1 c oil

1 c pecans for batter + 1 c pecans for frosting

3 beaten eggs

2 c mashed bananas

1 eight oz can crushed pineapple for batter + 1 small can drained pineapple for frosting

After cake is cooked & cooled split into 6 layers. I like to put the pineapple bits between the layers when frosted and garnish whe frosted cake with pecan halves. The Mammy's Cupboard recipe calls for 1 c coconut as well.

Frosting

1 stick butter

1 pkg cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla

1 box powdered sugar

You can add meringue powder if frosting is too soft. Meringue powder is also good for preventing the frosting from separating if this cake is on display at room temperature for any length of time such as it would be at a reception or a good old fashioned visitation after a funeral. In case you are wondering what is meringue powder it is powdered egg white. Where you can find it places that carry supplies for creating wedding cakes, such as the wedding aisle in crafts departments at Walmart or a Hobby Lobby store. The cake is best served chilled a day after preparation.

We took the Natchez Trace to Port Gibson, stopping to see historic Mount Locust, a traveler's inn on the Trace circa 1780. It was also a plantation. The house is two rooms separated by a breezeway and has a loft upstairs. Most of the time there are tour guides on hand since this is also a state park.

We drove with the top down since the weather was now a balmy 78 degrees, listening to New Orleans piano players Tom McDermott & Philip Melancon. Tom's March 2008 cd, Creole Nocturne with coronet player Connie Jones features ragtime. Philip was playing Nat King Cole.The others did not share my enthusiasm for these selections.

The river at Vicksburg flooded the town a fortnight ago, adversely affecting the surrounding farming community. We saw fields of heretofore healthy crops, produce already dying, field still flooded, sun burning the roots. It was very sad to see a pasture where 3 horses huddled in knee deeep water, captive behind barbed wire. You could tell their feet were sore, standing on 3 legs, holding one foot out of the water for some relief. A farm implement store posted a hand lettered notice warning 'customers' not to make repairs on the premises or to even think of asking the management to install parts not purchased here. The air was redolent with cottonwood tree pollen.

Our friend Nada Constant pointed out a calendar on Harrah's casino web site that indicated dates where rooms were at discount when she learned we were planning a vacation. We found a fine room with two queen beds for only $35. Normally it was $250.00 according to the sign posted on the back of the door. Harrah's has several properties in Robinsonville near the other Tunica casinos.

Harrah's Grand is two hotels, the Terrace & the Verandah. The casino is in a separte building from the hotels. Before checking into our hotel we dropped by the Hollywood casino to admire movie memorabelia in the lobby such as the Batmobile & a model of the Titanic.

Supper was delightful in the newly opened Paula Dean buffet. It had big dining rooms plus several dining porches & a verandah to accomodate smokers. Even though we were inside the casino it felt like a gracious home, as if we were all outside the building. Food was fantastic. There were even barbequed oysters on the half shell. The cook went out of her way to make Robert a banana split. Creamed corn was folded into the baked cheese grtits, a delicious innovation. The creme brule was a disappointment however, resembling a pudding with carmelized topping and not the traditional coooked egg custard.

May 2008 Memphis

2008-10-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

Chapter Two

Graceland

May 16,2008

I made an effort to provide ambient mood music but neither Robert or mama were enthusiastic about cds 2 through 5 of a collecor set of Elvis master tapes from the 1960's. Ten years ago during the week it opened I noticed Heartbreak Hotel while passing through Memphis to see Graceland. Today was a disappointment. Nothing matched my description on the way there. Parking used to be free but now a guard at the gate charges admission. When it was new the lobby was an expanse of leopard print carpet with burgundy runners. It is now a third of that size. The gift shop no longer carries materials referencing the Pink Ranch, a hideaway 5 miles from town, first anniverary gift from Elvis to Priscilla where they went to get away from it all. Neither does it stock items from the Nixon White House that Elvis liked such as bath salts & closet sachets. The hotel still has a guitar shaped swimming pool, futuristic 60's furniture with lava lamps on the end tables, console televisions playing Elvis movies & fried peanut butter banana sandwiches in the restaurant.

Souvenir of the day was worn by a short haired tourist sporting tattoos on his right arm: fake black hairy sideburns attached to movie star sunglasses. I walked across the street to photograph things fans had written/ drawn on the brick wall surrounding the perimeter of Graceland.

Last time there was this poem: "Your hair was dyed black, your shoes were blue suede. I liked to pertinear died when you went away."

"Elvis, your music wasn't that good but your house is nice"

Robert maintains that Elvis & Graceland will be popular about 10 more years until all the people who were alive when he was a star are dead, that afterwards the public will lose interest. I don't know about that. I think his music is timeless, especially the gospel songs.

I thought the front room & dining room were pretty. I liked the shirred fabric coverd walls by the pool table. I was surprised to see how many outbuildings were on the property. Some had basements underneath containing a museum of trophies & costumes. There was a scale model of Elvis's Tupelo, Mississippi birthplace.

Elvis & Priscilla's wedding clothes were on display as well as their clothes for the night Elvis was presented 1967 Memphis Jaycee Young Man of the Year. I didn't realize Priscilla was so petite.

It was interesting to see all Elvis' costumes, his many awards, not just one award but a dozen of each kind. RCA even gave him a console television in recognition of his contribution to their bottom line.

When Elvis had a platinum record that was due to cassette plus recored sales the tape plus the record was on display on the trophy.

The country music entertainer award was a small gold cowboy boot on a plaque; the national asssociation of record manufacturers was a 3D musical note.

Robert checked Hotels.com on the internet using his cell phone, noticing a deal for Marriott. He sneaked away, called them on his own and got a good rate for that night. Hotels.com got their revenge later when we used them to book a room at the Millenium hotel in St. Louis. The service charged his credit card right away but when he checked with the Millennium 4 hours later as we got closer to St. Louis the place still hadn't received our reservation. Upon arrival we learned his name and address had been misspelled in spite of spelling out each letter when he secured the booking, i.e. 'R' as in rat, 'O' as in other, 'B' as in bat & so on for his entire name/ address. As a result he couldn't use internet hookup in our room nor a printer in the hotel business center due to the misspelled name which was totally the error of Hotels.com. We needed to use the printer when getting tickets for the arch & had to have the printout when we showed up the next morning to get times assigned for our selections. Expedia.com arranged for the payment. This indicates it is all the same company, probably an afffiliate of Travelocity as well.

After Graceland we headed toward the river because of a promo on the local morning news about a world championship barbeque cook off.

Championship Barbeque

We parked as close as we could to the festival site in a temporary lot manned by a Dixie Parking attendant charging vehicles $20. We got there before 2 pm with 15 minutes to spare or we would be also had to pay an $8 per person gate fee.

The cook off was for serious competitors. There were 258 booths with corporate sponsors arranged in a figure 8 on 33 acres along the river bank. Booths were landscaped with gardens, resembling hospitality suites. They were equipped with premium liquor wet bars, dining tables & fine linens, but there was no admission without an invitation from either the teams or the sponsors.

We talked to one group of competitors who were coworkers at a Birmingham, Alabama steel mill. They created a barbeque pit out of an air compressor cylinder, had several big trophies from previous wins to attest to the success of their innovations.

A barn-sized People's Choice tent in the middle of it all charged $4 a plate for random competitor samples. Diners got to vote on favorites. We opted instead to sample barbeque from McCormick's booth, "Bring It Tong". We later purchased a Corky's pulled pork sandwich ,roasted ears of corn & lemonade. Other vendors were Cowboy's and Leo's Fried Chicken.

We heard a talk in the College of Pig Knowledge tent by two barbeque judges about what to look for in good barbeque & about tricks some competitors pull to try to win a cook off. Entrants are whole pig, shoulder or ribs. There is a side category for baked beans, for exotics such as javelina or emu. Barbeque sauces were vinegar, wet or dry rub. Judging is two-fold; on-site live & 'blind box'. Blind box is worth half the score, including meat plus sauce. Criteria are appearence, tenderness & flavor. Whole pigs are cooked 18 hours whereas ribs were started at 5 am today, judging day. On-site judging is on neatness and appearence of the booth plus taste of the food.

Memphis is honoring the country of Turkey this month. There were Turkish themes in booth decorating. Belly dancers lounged about the midway. Top 3 teams in each of the 3 categories win $3,000 each; grand champion takes home $22,000. 4th place winners are guaranteed a spot on next year's roster along with the other 9 from today.

Top competitors included It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere, Curly Tail Smokers, Sweet Swine O'Mind, Barnyard Roasters, Whirling Pigishes, Killer Hogs, Red Hot Smokers, Notorious P.I.G., Pork Fiction, Pork Illustrated, the Good the Bad & the Piggly, Spider Pig, VooDoo Barbeque.

There were bags of corporate sponsor giveaways; toothpaste, dental floss, Tums, Greased Lightning cleaner, can wraps, sipper cups.

Careers.com had a t shirt for anyone who would agree to make a short video complaining about a bad boss or worse job. Our favorite was the Sensodyne toothpaste tent with a massage chair for 5 minutes while a dental technician discussed tooth care trends.

Winners were announced from the sound stage where there were concerts in the evening.

Peabody Hotel and Beale Street

We left in time to see the ducks swim in the fountain of the Peabody Hotel at 5 pm. They also do this daily at 11 am. Mama & I watched it from the 2nd floor balcony with a good view. We counted a crowd of 450 people waiting to see the show. The hotel rolls out a red carpet for the ducks to march to the fountain in the center of the lobby. At least a dozen ducks live up on the hotel roof in a room-sized cage with a wading pool in the back of a blonde brick mini penthouse.

The fountain is huge, ornately carved with requisite animal figures. After half an hour the duck wrangler, a bald employee wearing a black suit with grey vest looking not unlike Uncle Ben on a box of rice, waves a black cane topped by an elegant told duck head handle over the fountain. This is the signal for the ducks to hop out, proceed to the elevator &d return to their quarters upstairs. On this day two lucky cousins around 10 years of age assisted him. They boys received a certificate to mark the occaision before reminding the ducks it was time to go.

The Peabody is elegant, built in 1937. Mama & I tagged along with a tour group being shown the premises. We saw what is referred to as the 'junior' ballroom. It had a massive chandelier & was 5,000 square feet. The other ballroom was 16,000 square feet.

Robert took us up on the roof to see the duck pen. The roof is open 24 hours. It had cocktail tables, floor length linen table cloths set up with candles & flowers. There was an elegant supper club behind a blue curtain between the elevator & the roof. There was a droppped circular dance floor, a raised dais for the band. It was being prepared for a wedding reception later that evening. What a great place to see the sun set slowly in the west!

From the Peabody we walked down Beale Street. Beale Street is bounded on one end by a blues museum that has a Gibson guitar exhibit. It ends with a song; a park with apitheater for al fresco concerts. It is a mix of bars, restaurants, music clubs plus Schwab's Dry Goods.

Schwab's sells general merchandise from the 1960's to some indeterinate time in a past decade. There was no way you could walk by an not go in. Prices on merchandise in alluring bay windows did not seem to have been changed since the goods were received. The displays brought to mind things we used to have but lost or some gadget we sure could find a use for. We're from New Orleans. After Katrina we had a significant emotional need to replace lost things over & above the desires of an average person strolling past the store front. Glory hallelujah, it had an upstairs too! The only thing stopping me was that it closed at 5 pm. I made a vow to return.

We were able to purchase souvenirs from Memphis Music next door. It was open late to accommodate crowds in town for the barbeque party. The store was blessed with a friendly, polite man in white 3 piece suit singing from his heart, perhaps something he himself composed, helping people find selections in the impressive music department. I couldn't decide if he was an inebriated passerby, wandering in with the crowd or if he was an employee. Memphis Music is the grandfather of all good record stores; an old fashioned purveyor of music memorabelia, music themed clothing, home furnishings, art, expensive harmonicas, accessories such as blown glass guitar slides, recordings by all the greats of the Memphis sound in gospel & blues.

The interesting part of Beale Street is 5 blocks long. W C Handy lived here once. In every block at intervals of 3 per block the sidewalk had brass musical notes with blues musicians' names such as Bobby Blue Bland. There were bands playing on every street corner. The lead singers all wore a fedora. Bars and restaurants set up temporary ramshackle booths on the sidewalk leaning against their door jamb constrtucted from two pieces of lumber with a flimsy roof, selling 'Big Assed Beers', 32 oz Coors Light. It was hard to determine which was leaning more, the walls of these stands or customers who had purchased beers there.

A gabby, diminutive singer in a hat and 3 piece suit, hollering into a microphone plugged into a building stood in the middle of the street. He wasn't talking because he couldn't hit the high notes; he clued the listener on all side issues, haranging passersby for change. It was a verbal receipt. He told you all the things he needed the money for & what he would spend it on when his guitar case got full of tips. The name of the group written on the drum kit was Big Jerry. Big Jerry was very fat and was murdering a depressed wooden cafe chair playing electric guitar next to the drummer. Never did catch the lead singer's name.

Situated between two buildings across from Big Jerry inside the entrance to that park at the end of the street was a four and a half piece combo, the Juke Joint Boys performing on a small stage. An appreciative crowd draped themselves on park benches or against the marble courtyard fountain, some couples dancing to the music, some women dancing in tandem like Dianah Ross and the Supremes, only with laryngitis.

The lead singer told us he was from South Side Chicago. He sounded like Lou Rawls. The 'half in 4 1/2 piece combo refers to a sidekick wearing a 3 piece suit & hat circulating with 5 gallon tip buckets, hawking cds.

After we left the park you could still hear them at the end of the block. Mama said the farther away we got the better they sounded. We left before dark. Although the mood was festive increased police presence & growing crowds plus hangers on watching the crowds made us wary.

We had barbeque for supper at Logan's. Robert & I had been to another Logan's before when we stayed at a different Marriott in Louisiana.

May 17,2008

Lunch was at Lambert's in Sikeston, a country restaurant specializing in southern cooking where the waiters throw rolls at customers. Those hot yeast rolls might be the best thing on the menu. One of the young men throwing rolls said they recruit the local high school baseball stars for this position, that you have the arm or you don't.

Periodically during the meal waiters come along with big bowls of food such as macaroni & tomatoes or fried okra. For atmosphere a woman played the piano from memory in player piano style. It would be easy to imagine her day job was church organist at the largest sanctuary in town. The other locations of the business are in Foley and Branson but it all started here.

I would say the food is not that great but there is alot of it. This business was probably the model for the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain. Lambert's opened in 1947.

They are able to accommodate a huge crowd of diners even if they show up as a group or just a crowd of them individually but nearly simultaneously.

Greyhound bus of seniors on a day trip to the outlet mall, no problem. Mormon family reunion arriving in separate cars, no worries. Herd of bikers, Rolling Thunder revue, come on in all of y'all.

May 2008 St. Louis

2008-10-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3
St. Louis
May 17,2008

It was 4 hours to St. Louis from Memphis. We visited the Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Brewery before checking into our hotel in hopes of being able to make the last factory tour but got there too late, so browsed the gift shop instead.

During Prohibition Budweiser marketed grape syrup for soft drinks.

There is a plethora of memorabelia and educational displays; Budweiser created 6 packs of water for hurricane releif effort.

I purchased a mixed 6 pack of several beers I hadn't seen before. Wild Blue is purple and has 8% alcohol, twice what regular beer has. Michelob Ultra is flavored with raspberries/pomegranate. Shock Top has spices.

En route to our hotel we passed through a neighborhood, Soulard, established when the French settled St. Louis. There is a farmer's market in a building plus open air stalls outside. We were there too late in the afternon to do any shopping there.

The Millenium is a tall round building with premium rooms affording a marvelous view in each one. There is a curved lobby attaching it to a second short fat building where the regular hotel rooms are. Our room was $50 cheaper booking it through Hotels.com.

We were not impressed with reservation service but adored this hotel. Another option to book a room would have been with stlouis.com but I am unsure if it too is not part of the Travelocity/Expedia/Hotels.com consortium. Our room had a beautiful view of the arch.

There were weddings galore this weekend. There was a reception in our lobby upon arrival, another in red and black posing for pictures in front of the arch, a 3rd in pinks on the steps of the old court house across from the arch, a 4th in lavenders being photgraphed on the lawn near the fountain in front of Union Station. The lobby of the Hyatt Regency was being decorated for a wedding reception with orange color scheme when we arrived. After this reception there was also a prom for 9 pm so we never did get a proper look at what now remains of the original train station.

Union Station

The Hyatt Regency at Union Station is a mile from the arch straight up Market Street. Part of the old train station is now the lobby of that Hyatt. On the other side of the lobby is a Victorian shopping mall with glass ceilings. The place where the train tracks converged is now a lake with paddle boats and a wharf with several restaurants serving meals on the deck.

The second floor of the shopping mall has a train museum. There is a movie about Union Station. It was built in 1894 and was at one time the busiest train station in American. The last train pulled out of there in 1971. The facility fell into disrepair but was salvaged in

1978. It is said the only thing original from the train station is the stained glass transom over the front door of 3 women, symbolizing St. Louis, Chicago and New York City.

Robert was interested in one of the enterprises set up in the shopping mal. There were 4 trampolines with harnesses and a set of scales so that people between 20 & 200 pounds could jump safely. When a person is jumping too hard the employee managing the attraction pulls on some ropes attached to the body harness of the jumper which makes him rise up so he can't jump fully on the trampoline and bounce too high, lose control or otherwise hurt himself. One little 4 year old girl we watched was an expert doing triple twirls and reverse rolls.

These gates were used for scrap metal during WWII

Harvey Wilson founded a chain of restaurants in the train stations.

Harvey waitresses were between 18 & 30. They were required to pledge to remain single for a year. 2,400 of them married ranchers and settled the West. Judy Garland starred in Harvey Girl.

As the sun set slowly in the west we ate supper at Houlihan's on the wharf across from Landry's Seafood. There is a stop on the monrail line which runs all the way to the airport. The terminal is just past the end of the lake. I had grilled tuna salad for supper. It was delicious.

this bachelorette's wedding is next Saturday

May 18,2008 The Arch

Robert arose before daylight to capture the sunrise. After a breakfast buffet in the hotel we stood in line at the arch ticket office for times to see our selections. In order to keep the croweds under control ticket sales concludes at 3:30 pm for the next day. After that tickets must be purchased on the internet. Even if you have a ticket it is necessary to show up at the front gatge when it opens in the morning for first come, first served. After September 11,2001 barrels with chains between them surround the perimeter of the park.

The park is a 10 acre woods. A Greek Orthodox Church bounds the park and that is all there is besides the arch, very beautiful. I was surprised when I went inside to look at this church that it has no stained glass windows. The President of Ralston Purina Company in St. Louis wants to put a separate museum in the park although there already is a great museum on the first floor of the arch.

Other attractions that we signed up for were a documentary movie about the making of the arch which was first designed in the 1930's by the same architect who designed the Regan airport in Washington, Dc. The arch was finnished in 1965. There was also a new movie about the Lewis & Clark expedition made by George Lucas studios. It took all day because the times were an hour and a half apart for each event.

Mama wrote a whole page on the suggestion form about how the gift shop in the arch did not have any books of the actual Lewis & Clark diaries from the 1803-1806 expedition nora children's book about the big black dog that went on the expedition, a dog named Simon who was trained by Clark when he got bored with how long it was taking to build the boats for the trip. Later on he was glad to have the dog along because Simon caught squirrels for the others to eat.

The arch is 603 feet tall with an observation deck at the very top which you get to by riding a cable car. The units are egg shaped and hold 5 passengers each. The cars hook to a fame which carries 8 cars to the top at one time. It is a tight fit to accommodate all 40 in that little room at the same time. It is supposed to be a 4 minute turn with 12 minutes to get up and down the arch. If so it was 3 more minutes than I was comfortable looking out that little window, very aware that there was nothing between the floor of that room and the ground over 600 feet below. I think it was the highest up I have ever been aside from an airplane. There was a new batch of tourists that came up and the attendant asked us all to get on one side of the arch to let them in. The arch swayed and shook.

The museum on the first floor of the arch has pages from the original Lewis & Clark diary on display. Christmas Day 1805 dinner was spoiled elk and pounded spoiled fish. They were glad to have that. The museum is circular, organized in decades going from the otuside to the interior like an onion. There were action figures with disney studios technology about a medal maker and an Indian Scout for the army. There were murals of Indian chiefs wearing medals. I learned that medals were given to seal a treaty with the government with a bust of the chief dignitary of the other nation on the medal. One Indian chief had 3 medals. He must have been lied to more than average. There was a buffalo on display, an Indian mustang, a stage coach and a covered wagon. We thought it was very well done and helped pass the time between scheduled events. There was an additional bronze diorama of the Lewis & Clark expedition party - Lewis, Clark, Scajaweja, her son tied to her back, her bushand and Simon the dog in the lobby of the Drury Suite hotel also across from the arch. There seeems to be a wealth of historical building preservaton here. For example the old courthouse across from the arch is where the Dred Scott case was argued ( he was a slave form Kansas who sued to get his freedom and won).

On the right the view was of the St. Louis Cardinals stadium. There was a ball game in progress. We also saw the old courthouse, Greek Orthodox church, Market Street down to Union Station, The Tums headquarters and other office buildings.

On the left view was of the Mississippi river, riverboat casinos and farmland in Illinois.

At noon we departed for Branson, glad to have the Garmin gps unit to guide us. Between the arch and our hotel is a major interstate exchange. We wanted to get on I-44 since it is the same route as old Route 66. Aong the way there are signs where one can exit to ride along the original Route 66 but we didn't want to get too far off the track.

May 2008 Branson, Missouri

2008-10-13T14:45:00.000-07:00

Settle Inn, Fasten Your Seat Belts
May 18,2008

We ate in Springfield at a fast food place called Steak & Shake that is a Midwestern legend; mama ate there in high school. They had a double sided nmilk shake. It is mixed in two cups and poured into serving vessel simultaneously.

In search of a bargain hotel we picked up a cheap travel book at a truck stop. A place in Branson with two ads and 2 different rates in this book called out to us. Would it be the allure of Angel Inn and pillow top beds with one heated indoor pool or the Settlin Inn Conference center with themed rooms and 2 indoor heated pools?

They were both on Garden View Drive so we decided to pick one when we got there. We passed up Angel Inn and drove to the end of the street. Settle Inn was wondrous, 3 multistory buildings with stone gates, knights in armor guarding teh entrance. They all had turrets and a few balconies. We got a room with 2 beds for $4 althought the regular rate was $68. Themed rooms are $20 extra.

There were family suites also. Rooms with balconies had whirlpool Jacuzis. 37 of the 300 rooms had 'themes and were decorated with murals on the wall, with coordinated furniture. Settle Inn is part of a chain which has hotels in boring places you wouldn't want to visit and seldom do, such as South Dakota. Themes came in groups so decor with exception of murals was identical in similar suites. For example the 19th hole and major league rooms were alike; as were Jewel of the Nile, Jungle Rooom, and Outback; Arabian Nights, Taj Mahal and Caesar's Palace; Camelot, Medieval Times, Royal Chamber, Sherwood Forest; Pirates of the Carribean, Captain's Quarters; Miss Kitty, OK Corral and Native American; Cabinet and Oval Office. There was also french Quarter and Gone with the Wind. The paintings on the wall of people were not as good as the landscape murals. Other than that they got an A+ for imaginative interior decoration. The buidings on this property were Excalibur, Guinevere and Lancelot. Our room was furnished tastefully with heavy furniture, more pieces than were necessary. It was very romantic. The television in our room was small in a much larger cabinet whose door would not stay closed but the remote control worked. Our building had a big heated swimming pool at the end of the hall with a large Jacuzzi hot tub. We really enjoyed that.

Settle Inn, Thousand Hills, 3050 Green Mountain Drive, Branson , Missouri 65616

417-335-4700

May 19,2008

Sentimental Journey

We got an early start, enjoying a good breakfast in the big conference center. We purchased tickets from the depot for a 90 minute tround trip 40 mile scenic excursion in a refurbished train. It had two glass ceilinged sky cars, several ounge cars, play area in an alcove by the galley, a couple of Pullman cars with a quadraphonic sound system playing music from the 1930's and 1940's. There is an afternoon run plus a special occaision dinner service.

The couple sitting across from us in the sky car was a semi-retired oil field executive in his early 60's from Oklahoma and his much younger wife. She says now that he is retired he only has one phone going all the time, talking to his work crews, that last year it was two phones going constantly. He talked to employees on a job experiencing difficulty with equipment while we were chatting with them. She said their last vacation a year ago was to the Arctic Circle for two weeks during the fortnight of summer while the weather is balmy. Their Eskimo guide was uncomfortable with the 'heat' and periodically wandered off to sit in an icy creek to cool off.

After the train ride we browsed downtown shops such as Dick's 5 & Dime. The owner of a shoe store stitched my purse for $2 where the velcro had come undone.

Lunch was a pork tenderloin sandwich and raspberry iced tea at Farmhouse restaurant on Main Street. Robert brought us to McFarlain's for dessert to show us the two round tables at either corner of the room. When guests are seated at these particular tables the table slowly rises during the meal so after an hour it is at chin level. No one was seated at the tables until we were leaving but while we were there having strawberry rhubarb pie a trio of musicians from the dance hall next door storlled by for a couple of songs to let folks know they would be performing in 30 minutes over there.

McFarlain's is in a shopping mall. We browsed a shop selling quilts at steep discount on the way out. A display of 20 antique tractors from the turn of the century to 1950 was in the parking lot.

We drove Hwy 44 to Hope, Arkansas, left it for a short cut to Bossier City. It was a good thing we were traveling in the daylight. 3 miles north of Damascus, Arkansas we passed the place where a tornado touched down last week. On our right a feed mill was a mass of twisted metal. There was seeveral fires from buring trash, smoke to the sky. Across the road from the mill a town was in splinters, destroyed possessions too big to burn piled by the side of the road.

The reason I mention my preference for traveling in daylight at the first of this story was ilustrated by the scene a mile from here. That tornado had touched down again and part of the raod on the side of teh mountain had fallen away. All that marked the bad patch was two orange traffic cones to warn motorists. We would not have had time to take evasive measures if we had come upon this after dark.

We had supper in Bossier City. The waiter at the I-Hop kept dropping trays and mixing up orders. The manager kept reasigning him to progressively less and less challenging tasks as he goofed each thing up until he was washing dishes.

After dropping mama off around midnight we got home around 5:30 am. Before I could relax enough to go to sleep I wanted to unpack the bags and wash a batch of laundry. Later that morning we dropped Robert's car off for oil change, picked up Jake from the kennel, brought the cats for annual vaccinations. Tasmin had to be left there overnight to have her teeth cleaned.

Gas was $3.58, as much as $3.90 on our trip. In the future we may call these prices 'the good old days'

It seems like the best photo opportunities present themselves when we are out of batteries. Our camera won't function without batteries so for others with similar equipment I recommend carrying a spare disposable camera and a second rechargeable battery plus portable battery charger, one that plugs into the vehicle cigarete lighter. In conclusion I am reminded of an old joke, how to tell if one has a car made after 1990; it has 3 cigarette lighters and no ashtray.

Captain Samuel Haley Jr's Lucky Day

2008-07-13T05:56:00.001-07:00

My mother atttended a reunion of the Haley family, her father's people, in New Hampshire in July 1993. It was held at a cousin's bed & breakfast. My motto is "My presence is a present" so when I learned they were charging admission I didn't go. She brought back a bottle of Shoals Pale Ale, a gift from a cousin who works on the floor of the New York Stock exchange. The picture of the cabin on the label is the home of Captain Samuel Haley. It is the oldest house in both the states of Maine and New Hamshire today. Captain Haley's older brother Thomas was my 6 generations removed grandfather.

I can remember visiting my grandfather's grandpa on several occaisions when I was a toddler and trying to engage him in conversation as I clutched at his knee trying to keep my balance as I was just learning to walk. He wasn't hard of hearing; it was a matter of I hadn't learned to talk yet. He had grey hair, a long grey beard which had red hair in it, bright blue eyey. I was only two years old when he died in October 1954. His funeral was at home.

I got under foot so was put in a bedroom upstairs for a nap in the same room as my sister who was 5 months old. She didn't want to take a nap either and I can recall her standing in the crib screaming with rage. A couple of my boy cousins ages 5 & 7 were also in this room behaving badly, playing catch with containers of dusting poweder and pouring the contents of bottles of cheap cologne out of the window.

Their mother came up several times to chastise them for all the noise. Those boys had the nerve to tell their mom that my baby sister, an infant, had been jumping up and down on grandma's bed, had written on the wallpaper with lipstick and it was she who had spilled 'Evening in Paris' out of the window and poured 'Cashmere Bouquet' dusting powder all over the top of the vanity table. Their mom wasn't buying it and took them off to some more secure environment. I don't think they ever did take a nap although I did eventually fall asleep after making sure the wild boys weren't going to bean us with cosmetics baseballs. One of these boys is now the stock broker. His brother is a musician in a California rock band.

I was surprised to come across mention of Captain Samuel Haley in Anita Shreve's 1997 book The Weight of Water. What she said was that acording to the January 18,1813 Boston Gazette on the night of January 14 a Spanish ship, the Conception, weighing up to 400 tons and laden with salt shipwrecked on Smuttynose Island in the Isles of Shoals and the 14 man crew froze to death in a blizzard trying to crawl the 40 feet to Captain Haley's cabin. Only 1 made it as far as the stone wall. Because there was no light house on the island Captain Haley and his son Samuel Jr. always kept a lit candle in the window of the cabin nightly. Captain Haley Jr. found one of the sailors the next day. 6 more were discovered by January 17, 5 more on January 21 and the last washed up on Hog's Island on January 27th.

Captain Haley settled on Smuttynose Island a few years before the American Revolution. He built the cabin which is now a museum. He and his son Captain Samuel Haley Jr. planted a cherry orchard, built a wind powered grist mill, a bake house, a salt works, blacksmith and cooper shops, a rope walk and a break water between Smuttynose and Malaga Islands.

It took a long time to finnish the break water. While Captain Haley Jr. was building it he turned over a flat rock and found 4 silver bars. It was a fortune in those times. With the proceeds from the silver he finnished the breakwater and built a pier around Smuttynose. The breakwater was destroyed by fire in February 1978.

Captain Haley Jr. said the silver bars were from the ship wreck but in all probability they were part of Blackbeard the pirate's treasure trove. Blackbeard's real name was Edward Teach. He honeymooned on Smuttynose Island in 1720 with his 15th and last wife Esmeralda and it is rumored he buried his treasure there.

Other things that happened on the Isles of Shoals: in 1724 Betty Moody hid herself and her 3 children from Indians in a cavern. The youngest was an infant. She accidentally smothered the baby while trying to keep it quiet enough to avoid detection from Indains who were hunting them.

Boston painter William Morris Hunt drowned while staying at the Appledore Hotel in September 1879, an apparent suicide.

On the night of March 5,1873 two Norwegian women, Anethe and Karen Christensen were murdered and a thrid woman who survied, Mara Christensen, their sister/sister-in-law blamed it on an ininerant worker named Louis Wagner. The case eventually went to court in Maine. Poet Celia Thaxter wrote a story about it in 1875, A Memorable Murder.

It was interesting watching the film Weight of Water to see what a cabin on Smutty Nose Island looked like. Life must have been bleak. There were no trees.

Further research on the area tells me that the Isles of Shoals is a group of 9 small islands located 10 miles southeast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire in the Gulf of Maine near the Atlantic Ocean. The total area is only 3 1/2 miles north to south and 1 1/2 miles east to west. White and Seavey Islands are connected at low tide so it essentially 8 islands.

The largest island was christened Hog Island because it looked like a fat pig wallowing in the sea. It is now called Appledore although it has also been known as Farm Island. It is 95 acres, 1 mile from east to west, 5/8 a mile from north to south. Appledore is the operating station of Shoals Marine Laboratory, a joint effort of Cornell University and University of New Hamshire.

The next largest is Star Island, 46 acres. Star is the only island in the group served by a commercial boat from the main land. It has a religious conference center affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Asociation and the United Church of Christ. During the summers the island hosts week long conferences which are held at the Oceanic Hotel and Gosport House, the 150 year old chapel and several buildings dating back to the original village.

Smuttynose is the next largest after Star. It got its name from seaweed clumped on a rock extending into the ocean. Smuttyose Island is 2800 feet east tp west. 1000 feet north to south, 27.1 acres of rocks. It is 30 feet above sea level. Captain Samuel Haley and his son were the first to settle it so for a time it was known as Haley's Isle.

Of the other islands White Island has 1 of the 2 light houses on the coast of New Hampshire. Londoners Island is now called Lunging Island and was the site of an early trading post for codfish. Duck Island is 1.5 miles to the north and was used by the US Navy for a bombing range but is now a wildlife sanctuary and is home to a seal colony.

Breakwaters connect Smuttynose, Malaga, Cedar and Star Islands.

Those islands were used for seasonal fishing camps by Native Americans and were an important fishing area for the British and French colonies. They were first setttled by Europeans in the 1600's. The Isles of Shoals were named by Captain John Smith but he never landed there. The first recorded landfall of an Englishman was Christopher Levett in 1623 along with 300 fishermen in 6 ships, reporting the place was largely abandoned.

In 1635 the islands were formerly divided between the Masachusetts Bay Colony provinces of New Hampshire and Maine. 5 of the islands in the group - Duck, Hog, Malaga, Smuttynose and Cedar went to Maine. The other 4 - Star, Londoners, White & Seavey went to New Hampshire. When the ordinance was enacted all the residents of Star moved to Smuttynose because it was still legal to drink in Maine. The province of Maine under Massachusetts Bay Colony rule incorporated Gosport on Hog Island. Massachusetts increased taxes and recent availabilty of housing on Star Island in New Hampshire caused another mass migration in 1715, establishing the township of Gosport on Star Island.

Gosport prospered until 1778 when the islanders had to evacuate to Rye, New Hampshire due to hostilities in the Revolutionary War. The Isles were sparesely populated after that until mid-19th centruery when Thomas Laighton and Levi Thaxter opened a hotel on Appledore Island. Laighton's daughter Celia married Thaxter when she was 16 and she became the most popular American female poet of her time. She hosted an arts community and was visited by Nathaniel Hawthorne and impressionist painter Childe Hassam. The Apppledore hotel was lost in a fire in 1914.

The popularity of the Appledore Hotel led to establishment of the Mid Ocean Hotel on Smuttynose and the Oceanic on Star Island which is still in use today.

What we know about Captain Samuel Haley is that his father was Thomas Haley, a joyner by trade, born in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1692. He died at an advanced age, 103, some say 107.

Thomas had 2 sons, Thomas and Samuel Haley. Captain Samuel Haley, a mariner by trade was born in March 1727 in Exeter, New Hampshire and died on Smuttynose in 1811 aged 84.

Captain Samuel Haley had a son, Captain Samuel Haley Jr., also a mariner. He was born April 4,1760 and died October 15,1839, aged 79.

Thomas Haley, Captain Samuel's brother was 5 years older than he. Thomas was born December 17,1722 in Exeter, New Hampshire and died November 12, 1815 in Epping, New Hampshire.

Thomas had a son, Samuel Haley, born June 10, 1759 in Epping, New Hampshire and died there December 6,1834.

Samuel Haley had a son, Gordon Haley, born March 5,1781 in Epping, New Hampshire and died there December 6,1834.

Gordon Haley had a son named Deacon Thomas Haley, who was a farmer. Deacon Thomas was born September 20,1801 in Deerfield, New Hampshire and died January 26,1889 in East Andover, New Hampshire.

Deacon Thomas had a son, Thomas Jefferson Haley, also a farmer. He was born July 7,1836 in East Andover, New Hampshire and died October 4,1918 in Buda, Illinois.

Thomas Jefferson Haley had a son, Scott Fred Haley, also a farmer. He was born December 11,1877 in Buda, Illinois and died there October 16,1954.

Scott Fred is the one whom I remember. His son died at an early age and his grandson, my grandfather Hubert Gaskill Haley passed away when he was 42 years old in 1950 before I was born.

Smuttynose Brewing Company is a microbrewery operation in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and was started by a group of young men who were college friends in the late 1970's.

Information on the Isles of Shoals came from these books and periodicals:

Ten Miles Out: A Guide Book to the Isles of Shoals by the Isles of Shoals Unitarian Association, 1972

Isles of Shoals in Lore and Legend, 1976 and Moonlight Murder on Smuttynose, 1958 by Lyman Rutledge

Isles of Shoals: A Visual History by John Bardwell, 1989

Death of William Morris Hunt, New York Times, September 9,1879

The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve, 1997

Wikipedia, July 11,2008