Discovering the Deep South

We're heading out of the South today. I'm blogging from the car again, as we pass through the farm fields of Indiana, en route to Chicago. It is a route that, before the trip, we might have expected to represent a return to civilization, out of the redneck states of Mississippi and Tennessee back to the big smoke. Having been through the South now however, I am sad to be leaving. The redneck reputation is fairly deeply ingrained, perpetuated not least by the television shows that come out of the East and West coast cities, but a visit to the South does a lot to dispel those notions.

It took me two days to recover from the night out on Bourbon St - a recovery made harder by the unrelenting heat and humidity, but we still managed to get a better look at New Orleans, or N'awlens, in the local drawl, and Nu Awlins to other Americans, in that time. We were based in a tiny, character filled hotel just outside the French Quarter. Character filled was the website description, which is obviously usually a red flag - unless you consider clogged drains and stained curtains character - but this time it was true. Beads and ornaments filled the rooms, there were small ponds with fish in them decorating the outdoor common area, as well as rusted farm equipment hanging from the walls, and just enough insects in the shared bathroom to make for a memorable stay. The other noteworthy aspect of our hotel was that it was one block back from Elysian FIelds. If you were in my 10th grade English class, and you have an exceptional memory, you might remember Elysian Fields as the street where A Street Car Named Desire was set. I kept an eye out for an appropriate place to fall to my knees and scream "Stella!", but, fortunately, there was no place that really stood out.

A few blocks from Elysian Fields lies Frenchman Street, which our hotel owner described as Bourbon Street for locals. This was much more what I had pictured of New Orleans - a series of small jazz clubs and cajun eateries. No plastic cocktails or t-shirt vendors, but still with plenty of life going on indoors as the bands started to get the crowd involved. We also did what, to judge by the line, every tourist in New Orleans must do, and had breakfast of beignets and cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde. A beignet is essentially a donut, but by giving it a french name, changing the shape, and covering it in icing sugar, you create an essential cultural experience, instead of junk food. They were good though, definitely worth the 20 minute wait and reduction in the capacity of my arteries.

The two things that the world has heard so much about when it comes to New Orleans - Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill - were conspicuous more by their absence than any evidence. I had heard and read that the city is still devastated by the hurricane, but there was no carnage to be seen. This is partly because the old city was built before people had the technology, or the desire, to build levies and construct a city below sea level. As a result the French Quarter and surrounds were not flooded during the hurricane. But even driving around other parts of the city we didn't see any evidence of the storm. Maybe we didn't look in the right places, or maybe the recovery has finally gotten into action. As for the oil spill, because you can't actually see the coast or the swamp lands from the city, we didn't see the oil. And as far as claims, never ceasing in the media here, that the gulf seafood industry is going to be destroyed, there was again very little to support that. There is still shrimp and crab on every menu, and at cheap prices. Whether that seafood is coming from somewhere else now, I couldn't say, but the restaurants seem unaffected.

Jazz and deep fried food apart, the other noticeable thing about N'awlens is that the local people all say hello to you as you pass on the street. I have to confess to being a bit too cynical for this at first. Several times when we passed conspicuously poor people, of which there are plenty in New Orleans, who stopped to ask how we were going I just assumed they were about to ask us for some money - but they never did. It seems that in New Orleans, and this turned out to be the case throughout the south, it is perfectly normal to greet every person you meet on the street with a lazy 'how y'all doin' today?'. And you are expected to answer and ask back, not merely nod and smile. It takes some getting used to, but it quickly makes you feel genuinely welcome in the city.

From New Orleans we turned north, and headed into Mississippi, first stop Vicksburg. Vicksburg was the site of one of the key battles of the civil war, as its location on a hill above the Mississippi made it the crucial point for controlling the river, which was the main highway for the Southern states. Today the entire battlefield has been turned into a memorial, with a seemingly endless array of plaques for every unit that fought, and, as an added bonus, a couple of people dressed up to reenact firing a civil war rifle for the tourists. We may know the civil war as the war America fought to end slavery, but in Mississippi it is seen slightly differently, as the war in which the South fought for independence, which was crushed by the tyrannical Yankee north. Hence Vicksburg is known as the city where the dream ended, and the memorial focuses on the bravery of those who endured to siege, with barely a mention of slavery.

The interesting thing about that point of view is that, while it's considered politically incorrect in the North, it's probably closer to what happened than the slavery narrative. I picked up a few books on the civil war, and was intrigued to find out that when it started Lincoln had no intention of abolishing slavery in the South. The Emancipation Proclamation, by which Lincoln declared the slaves free, did not come until well into the war, and was intended mainly to give the war weary north a new cause and a morale boost, and to convince Britain and France, where slavery was deeply unpopular, to stay out of the war. Still, the South was completely dependent on slave labour, so it's hard to see them as freedom fighters.

From Vicksburg it was on to Clarksdale, a small town that lays claim to being the home of the blues. Amongst other things, Clarksdale provided us with a chance to see how far we would actually follow our GPS navigator, regardless of the absurdity of its directions. I am mildly embarrassed to admit that I did turn off the road into a field, where there was clearly neither a hotel nor a road, because that is what the GPS told me to do. Technology, a wonderful thing.

When we eventually found our intended hotel, we almost turned around. A corrugated iron shack, a few rusted, abandoned cotton pickers and a heap of scrap metal were all that greeted us at what was supposed to be the Shack Up Inn. If ever we were going to be greeted by an angry farmer pointing a shotgun at us (perhaps with his flirtatious daughter in the background), this was going to be the place. Cautiously, we opened the rusted door, only to stumble into a large, welcoming bar, with a live music stage and a few neon beer signs. They pointed us to the next door lobby, and it became clear that the ominous looking abandoned farm machinery was all part of the decoration for what was actually a very nice little B&B (Bed and Beer - the world's oldest one, they claim). Clarksdale's surprises didn't end there. It may be a small cotton farming town in the deep south, but its a long way from what those factors might cause you to expect. Instead of the local BBQ joint we ate escargot in an oak paneled dining room owned by Morgan Freeman, then caught some live music in a modern art gallery next door.

From Clarksdale we left Mississippi and entered Tennessee, starting with Memphis. Although its a comparatively large city, Memphis maintains the same Southern friendliness as the small towns in Mississippi. It also shares the heat, and the unbelievable humidity. Good for growing cotton, it's not that pleasant for walking around. First stop in Memphis was Graceland, home of Elvis. Apart from touring his mansion, which, while clearly a product of the seventies, is not as huge or tasteless as you might expect, we saw his car collection, complete with the tractor used to do the gardening on the 13 acre property, and his custom made private jets.

Elvis may be worth a visit, but Memphis' most impressive venue by far is the National Civil Rights Museum, in the converted motel where Martin Luther King was shot in 1968. The civil rights story is so difficult to reconcile with the universal friendliness of people, black and white, that seems to mark the region today. Back in the 1960s it seems people were less welcoming, to judge by the footage of violent riots that rocked the region when schools and buses were desegregated. It is hard to describe it in a blog, but if you are ever in Memphis, make sure you visit the museum. It really is a moving experience.

Memphis has its own version of Bourbon Street - Beale Street. Though it houses fewer t-shirt dealers and no strip clubs, it is still a raucous strip of road dedicated to live music and on-street drinking, and full of places claiming to be the home of BBQ and or rock and roll. By this point it was dawning on me that our trip around the South had become overwhelmingly focused on music. At each city we visited the first order of business was to find the best live music joints and compare to the last town. It turns out that the defining feature of the entire region is its dedication to live music, which can be seen in absolutely every bar and restaurant.

Memphis, as the stomping ground of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, claims the title of birthplace of rock and roll. If you take the self proclaimed titles of all the places we visited, you have the world capital of live music (Austin), the home of Jazz (New Orleans), the birthplace of the Blues (Clarksdale) and Rock n Roll (Memphis), and the capital of Country (Nashville). From that list it becomes fairly clear that a huge proportion of the music played around the world today has it origins in about a 40 year period, from 1920-1960, in this one region of the USA.

Last stop in the South was Nashville, where we only stayed one night, but that was enough to explore Nashville's entertainment district and compare to Memphis and New Orleans. More extraordinary music, but the BBQ did not match the quality of Memphis. Apart from bars, Nashville's main business seems to be cowboy boots. I briefly wished I lived somewhere that would actually allow me to wear cowboy boots, but I resisted the temptation to purchase a pair.

Nashville was meant to be our last stop in the South, but maybe that famed southern hospitality was not done yet. So friendly was the South that it found a way to stop us leaving, though arguably the means was not that friendly. As we headed up Interstate 65 from Nashville towards Cincinnati, our car, once known as Yes Man, shook a little, then emitted a little smoke, and then stopped entirely, smoke billowing out from under the bonnet. Kate did well to guide the dead car from the highway to an exit and a safe shoulder, but that was as far as the newly named 'No Man' was going. Luckily we had a AAA membership, and we had stopped outside a hotel that let us use their phone. In Australia, I would expect the car to be at the garage for at least a couple of days, and, given it was a Saturday, we thought our trip was hitting a major snag. In Goodletsville, Tennessee however, the mechanics are apparently a bit more efficient - though no cheaper. Three hours, nine hundred dollars,a new fan and new radiator later, we were back on the road.

We've arrived in Chicago now (it took me more than a state of driving to write this!) which looks like a very nice city. We are in part three of the journey now - the big cities of the the North East, with Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York and Boston still to come. It's always nice to hear something from back home too, so if anyone has any news at all, I'd be happy to hear it. I have a terrible habit of failing to reply to email, but I promise I will reply to anything you send me from now on!