Category Archives: trails

Civil Rights, long stretches of beach and a whole lot of writing

Sometimes that “what should I write about?” falls right into your lap.

While travelling, we got a heads up through a work email that January 15 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) was to be the launch of the brand new United States Civil Rights Trail. Took us about five seconds to make a decision, tap the new coordinates into our GPS and follow the two-hour detour to Greensboro, North Carolina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Greensboro was home to the first student lunch counter sit-ins, an action that (according to MLK) gave the Civil Rights movement “a much needed shot in the arm.” That very first lunch counter sit in was held on February 1, 1960 by four young students from A&T University (Jesse Jackson’s alma mater). The stop on the new Civil Rights Trail is at the original F.W. Woolworth’s building, the site of the lunch counter sit-in. Now it is the home of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. The museum is a worthwhile stop on its own, but the highlight is definitely the completely restored lunch counter. It’s a sombre, but inspiring sight.

Craving some ocean waves, we drove southeast to our first week of camping at Huntington Beach State Park, about 20 miles south of Myrtle Beach. Great park (surprisingly, about 80% full), nice long stretch of beach, wonderful marshland boardwalks. We did detour into MB for an excellent lunch at Croissant’s Bistro & Bakery (shrimp and grits, chicken and waffles, with a shared slice of key lime pie).

It turned out to be almost a full week of catching up on writing assignments at the lovely Waccamaw Neck Public Library. Can’t end this update without a thank you to Luke from Georgetown Auto Glass whose mobile service came and quickly stopped two windshield chips. Thanks Luke!

Finding more blues outside the Mississippi Delta

If ever there was a pretty Southern town, it has to be Natchez, Mississippi. So, we parked ourselves there for three days, worked in the library, walked the streets and stopped in for coffee often at the excellent Steampunk Coffee Roasters. Next door is the historic blues club the historic blues club named Smoot’s Grocery. Smoot’s has received a top-to-bottom renovation and is a beautiful space for parties, get-togethers or live music. Well worth checking out if you find yourself in Natchez.


Our schedule included a “break week” when we were taking some down time on the Mississippi Gulf Cost, catching up on blues-related reading, working on the book structure and starting some chapter work. All accomplished while we stayed at Gulf Islands National Seashore near the pretty town of Ocean Springs. While there we crossed paths with a get together of about two-dozen Roadtreks and we were quickly welcomed into the fold. Thanks y’all! Looking forward to the next time.

Back to work and starting the drive northward. Our first stop was in historic Meridian (the home of The Father of Country Music, Jimmy Rogers) where we had a fascinating hour interviewing Hartley Peavey, the founder of Peavey Electronics. As a teenager he started building amps at his parents place and he is now head of a worldwide corporation producing quality musical sound systems and instruments.

On to the small town of West Point, considered the home of Howlin’ Wolf. There’s a blues marker, a small but very good museum and a very cool downtown mural.

Just a bit further into the northeast corner of Mississippi – we stopped at Tupelo. Tupelo is the hometown of Elvis Presley. He was born there and lived in East Tupelo with his parents until he was 13 years old and they moved to Memphis. They’ve done a beautiful job at the Elvis Birthplace Museum, the self-guided driving tour, at Johnnie’s Drive-In (where they have preserved an Elvis booth where he’d hang out with friends and order an RC cola and burger) and at the Tupelo Hardware, the spot his mother bought him his first guitar. Probably the best $7.75 she ever spent!

More blues than one can reasonably pack into a week!

 

Here’s one of the biggest things to know about the blues and the Mississippi Delta … in this part of the state, the blues are everywhere. Many people only associate Clarksdale with the blues but there are actually many other communities with at least as rich and deep a blues pedigree as the town where Highways 49 and 61 cross.

We camped overnight at The Blue Biscuit – an Indianola restaurant and blues bar right across the road from the B.B. King Museum. Thanks to Trish – the Blue Biscuit’s friendly and welcoming owner! Then, the next morning, we drove east to Greenwood, a town with a complicated blues and civil rights history. On the way we drove into the countryside near Blue Lake to look for the birthplace marker for B.B. King, stopped at Holly Ridge to pay our respects at the grave marker for Charley Patton and detoured slightly to find the marker in Moorhead for “Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog” (*look that one up for a real slice of blues authenticity!).

One of the highlights of our travels has been the half-day tour of Greenwood and the blues with the personable and very knowledgeable Sylvester Hoover who runs Delta Blues Legend Tours. Sylvester took us through Baptist Town, to all three claimed gravesites of Robert Johnson (including the one accepted as the actual site at Little Zion MB Church in the countryside) and Three Forks (the site where Robert Johnson was – supposedly – poisoned). We also crossed the Tallahatchie River, the site of the Bobbie Gentry song.

In a non-blues related side trip, Sylvester took us to Bryant’s Grocery in Money, MS, to the remains of the grocery store related to the Emmett Till  story – the event they say helped spark the entire civil rights movement. It was sobering.

Overnight we camped at the quirky, unique Tallahatchie Flats – old sharecropper shacks on the outside, renovated on the inside.

The next day we attended the Sunday morning service at Little Zion MB Church and soaked up the emotional and powerful music of the gospel church choir. We’d been invited by Sylvester and his lovely wife Mary, who is one of the choir directors.

After Greenwood, we spent several days hopping to more blues sites — Bentonia (home to the Blue Front Cafe), Jackson (where we went to Hal and Mal’s to hear King Edward – Craig subbed in on bass with the pre-show band), Hazlehurst (Robert Johnson’s birthplace and home to the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame), across the Mississippi River to Ferriday, LA and the Delta Music Museum.

We settled for several days in beautiful Natchez, MS – at the height of the cotton era, this small town was home to half the millionaires in America. We’ll write more about Natchez in the next post, as there is lots to talk about there. We made new friends, drank some of the best coffee ever (Steampunk Coffee Roasters), went to a community literary talk, dined by the Mississippi River and walked the streets of this lovely town. More on all that next time.

Been busy crisscrossing the Delta

We’ve been busy.

Digging deep into the noteworthy spots that tell the story of the Delta blues. We stood by the tracks in Tutwiler where W.C. Handy first heard the strains of that “new” strange form of music called the blues – the seminal event that took the blues from porch front and field songs to something that was written and marketed.
At the excellent Railroad Heritage Museum in the pretty town of Cleveland we learned how the railroad up and down the Mississippi spread the blues outward from the Delta.

At Dockery Farms we interviewed the director (a genuinely nice fellow), toured the property and really came to appreciate why this spot was where first generation bluesmen like Charley Patton birthed a new music form (the next day we took a bumpy dirt road to the rural cemetery at Holly Ridge where Patton is buried).
We toured the new Grammy Museum | Mississippi – the celebrity angle does not interest us much but there is a great display on the blues of the Delta and Mississippi musicians.

In Greenville, we walked the levee, spent time at the small, but fascinating, 1927 Flood Museum to bone up on what was one of the defining events that shaped America – the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. If you don’t know about it, read up – it’s an amazing, heartbreaking history and will be a big part of our book.
Finally, in Indianola it was B.B. King and all B.B. King – one of the best blues museums around, his gravesite onsite and a guided visit to Club Ebony, a local nightclub associated with B.B. that specialized in the blues of the Delta.

Clarksdale: At The Crossroads of the blues

Almost three days exploring Clarksdale, the Mississippi town that is home to the legendary Crossroads, the spot where Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul to the devil in return for mastering the guitar.

We’ve been in juke joints, standing in cotton fields, walked the streets of Clarksdale (a very historic town that has been hard hit by economic and social downturns) and eaten in local BBQ places. The local blues book store has invited us back to do a book signing in spring 2018!

We’ve spent time with a lot of very cool people – passionate and knowledgeable about Mississippi and the blues – listened to music and, of course, Craig got to take to the stage to play blues with Josh “Razorblade” Stewart (Living Blues magazine has profiled him). They call him “Razorblade” because he dresses sharp as a razor.

It’s been a whirlwind of interviews, juke joints, local museums and a slew of historic markers along the Mississippi Blues Trail.


Hopping states (in search of blues sites)

Today we woke up in Clarksdale – the town in the Delta most associated with the blues.

Yesterday we hopped across three states – from Memphis, Tennessee south into Mississippi with a stop at the excellent Gateway to the Blues Museum in Tunica (thanks Webster for giving us the tour!). More stops at blues markers along the way – including the Abbay & Leatherman Plantation where Robert Johnson spent his childhood and barbecue at the Hollywood Cafe, immortalized in Marc Cohn’s song Walking in Memphis.
Then across the bridge over the Mississippi River into Helena, Arkansas, a small town that has seen hard times but in the 1930s and 1040s was a hotbed of blues music and culture. Robert Johnson lived and played there, as did Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin’ Wolf. In Helena (home of The King Biscuit Blues Festival – considered one of the world’s best) we toured the Delta Cultural Center, from which KFFA 1360 broadcasts a noontime blues show (“the longest running blues show in the world” – since 1941). Then, back over the Mississippi River and the short drive to Clarksdale, MS.

 

Black Hills, Bison & Custer

We travelled further west along I-90 into the South Dakota Black Hills, an area best known for wildlife and Mt. Rushmore (did the obligatory stop; it’s striking, but it didn’t hold our attention for long). The Black Hills tend to get overshadowed by the “wow” factor of the dramatic Badlands but we found it just as beautiful and just as wild, in its own way.

We camped (at the lovely Stockdale South Campground) and explored the Black Hills’ Custer State Park, South Dakota’s first state park and a don’t-miss stop. If you go this way, head into the excellent Visitor Center for information and a breathtaking widescreen movie about the region (got lots of background that helped us map out the next few days). Kevin Costner narrates, which doesn’t hurt things either!
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Over the following days, we drove all the major scenic roads (which is, like, every single roadway): Iron Mountain Road with its pig-tail bridges (held up en route by a bison jam), Wildlife Loop Road, the drive to Wind Cave National Park and the nail-biting, hand-wringing, seat-clutching twists and turns of the narrow Needles Highway to the north. The latter involved three low and narrow tunnels cut into the rock that had us pulling out a tape measure first. Not kidding.

The Lakota called this land the “hills of black,” hence the name. There is a beautiful, pleasing roll to the land; the hills are covered with dark green ponderosa pine, the air is sweet with its fragrance and around every turn you’re likely to see deer, prairie dogs, elk, prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope, bison and maybe even . . . prairie dogs.

Custer State Park protects the American prairie bison. In the early 1800s, there were an estimated 30 to 60 million of the massive creatures. By the 1890s they’d been hunted down to near extinction – fewer than 1,000. Now, protected, there are 400 bison born at the park every year. The numbers are climbing and the main herd struts down the roadways like they own the place. Rigby was very interested.

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Further to the south, Wind Cave National Park is “one of the biggest pieces of Swiss cheese you’ll see.” The park protects the underground cave environment known as one of the few places in the world where there are large rock formations of boxwork. To the Lakota, Wind Cave is a sacred spot – the place marking the emergence of their people into the world above.

People kept telling us not to miss the Needles Highway. This would be immediately followed by clucking about how low and narrow the rock tunnels are. This was followed by the tape measure. In the end, we decided “nothing ventured, nothing gained” and it turned out that we made it through with no problems.

It is a spectacular drive. Twists and turns, lots of lookouts and drop-offs. Beautiful views of the Black Hills and towering granite spires that give the roadway its name. We stopped and did a hike along the Cathedral Spires Trail. Most of the way in the weather started to turn (that happens incredibly quickly here) and we cut it short and went back to the van. Getting caught in the mountains in fog and rain . . . not such a good thing.

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But those Black Hills – they are high on our list of places to visit again and again.

www.visittheusa.ca  

 

Jo talks travel on CBC’s Candy Palmater Show

P7190240Wow … that was fun!

This afternoon I got to sit in the studio and talk about my favourite Canadian destinations on The Candy Palmater Show on CBC Radio.

It was tough to whittle the list down (I could have gone on – and on – for an hour rather than the 12 minute time slot I had).

You can find the link here to the CBC spot and the audio: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/candy/the-candy-palmater-show-for-june-30-2016-1.3659588/workin-for-the-weekend-getaway-travel-writer-shares-her-favourite-canadian-destinations-1.3659697

Thanks CBC. And Happy Canada Day!

Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race

The hoopla is over for 2015. The final team has crossed the finish line. Tons of dog food were consumed and the calories torched (one estimate is that the average sled dog burns 6,000-12,000 calories per day). The tents that sheltered teams of handlers and support crews have been dismantled and packed away. The thought of camping in minus 30C weather is something not for the faint of heart.

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Being an observer at the 2015 Yukon Quest – the toughest sled dog race in the world – was an awe-inspiring event. The 1,600 km (1,000 mi) route connecting Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon to Fairbanks, Alaska, traces the historic wintertime land route followed more than a century ago by prospectors and mail carriers. The race was named the Yukon Quest, to commemorate the “highway of the north” – the Yukon River – the traditional route to the gold fields of the Klondike. Anyone looking for a 20-minute schooling in the fascinating history of the Klondike Gold Rush will find it in the mesmerizing National Film Board film, City of Gold, narrated by Dawson City native, the late Pierre Berton.

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The Yukon Quest sled dog race is one of those iconic celebrations of the north. Sled dogs provided a rock-steady, reliable form of transportation and this race celebrates that legacy. The people of the Yukon and Alaska know winter; but more importantly they know how to embrace winter. They bundle up with layers and get outside – dogsledding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling. Joining in is the only way to go.

I found myself in the Yukon in February. At first it seemed like an insane idea but in short time I was drawn into the Yukoners’ joyful embrace of the long, chilly season. And following the Yukon Quest was a large part of the fun. It’s a must-do for anyone who wants a true Canadian winter experience.

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Looking for a primer to the Yukon Quest race? Look no further:

  • The Yukon Quest has been run every February since 1984 and attracts teams from around the world.
  • The race takes about 9-12 days to complete, depending on weather, trail conditions and team speed.
  • Few sports call upon such a challenging requirement of endurance and isolation.
  • The mushers must successfully complete qualifying races within the previous 42 months to enter the Yukon Quest.
  • The race route runs between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, with the race direction alternating from one year to the next. In 2016, the race will begin in Fairbanks and end in Whitehorse.
  • The teams leave the starting chute at two-minute staggered starts. At the start line, those puppies are chomping at the bit to get running!
  • Dawson City, YK is the halfway point and teams must take a mandatory 24-hour break. The dogs eat and sleep. The mushers eat and sleep.
  • The teams begin with 14 dogs. If a dog is withdrawn from the team there are no substitutions allowed. It is rare for a full 14-dog team to complete the entire race.
  • The dogs are monitored at checkpoints by a team of veterinarians who come from around the world to be a part of the race.
  • Every musher I saw was first and foremost attentive to the safety and health of his/her team. The connection between musher and dogs is endearing.
  • There are many opportunities to watch the action: at the starting gates, along the route on frozen lakes, at checkpoints and in Dawson City at the mandatory layover.
  • Unplanned circumstances can play havoc with the race. In 2015 it was a slew of misadventures from jumble ice on the frozen river to a female dog going into heat during the course of the race. The mushers are experts at problem solving on the fly.
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There are also many outfitters who provide novice mushers (that would be visitors like you and me) with their own sled dog experience. I mushed with Sky High Wilderness Ranch and it was a great experience. A complete list can be found at Travel Yukon.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore: Where land and sea meet

It would have been a mistake to look at a map of the stretch of barrier islands to the south, turn around and head back north to the comforts of the Outer Banks’ “larger” communities, like Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and Manteo. As lovely as these villages are – and they are great places to visit – things got really interesting the further we drove south into the heart of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

First, a little geography: Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a long, pencil-thin stretch of barrier islands (Bodie, Hatteras, Ocracoke) with the dunes of the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the water of Pamlico Sound on the other. It’s largely land under the watch of the National Park Service, so gets a high level of environmental protection. There are several historic villages scattered along the way (not part of the NPS land) with large beachfront homes and all the amenities of a smaller town.

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We’ve already written about the shifting sand and the close watch residents keep through hurricane season (June – November) but the real highlight is what’s not along long stretches of this pristine coast. The NPS has preserved wetlands for migratory birds (hike along a boardwalk at Pea island National Wildlife Refuge), historic lighthouses and miles of remote sand beach.

In the water, dolphins played. On the shoreline, a few fishermen planted their long rods to cast from the surf and the occasional walker doffed footwear and strolled barefoot along the sand. No shops. No go-carts or mini-golf. Not even a single vending machine. In the NPS campgrounds? No electrical hook-ups and cold water showers. Ink-black skies at night. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but it sure is ours.

The Outer Banks are infamous as the Graveyard of the Atlantic – a testament to the dangerous shoals that claimed many a passing ship (the estimate is the waters off the banks holds more than 600 shipwrecks dating back centuries).

Craig took the ranger-guided hike up the black and white striped Bodie Island Light Station. The view from the top was great over the long dunes and the salt marshes that are a perfect stopover point for birds migrating north-south along the Atlantic Flyway. Bodie Island Lighthouse was built in 1871, is 214 steps and on a clear day you can see 30 km (18 mi) from the top. Its flash pattern is 2.5 on, 2.5 off, 2.5 on, 22.5 off (just in case you were wondering) and it still uses an original Fresnel lens. The grounds of the lighthouse are dog friendly (but not a climb to the top).

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A little further down the road we stopped at the candy-cane striped lighthouse that most people associate with the Outer Banks: Cape Hatteras Light Station. The National Historic Landmark is the continent’s tallest brick lighthouse (a climb up Hatteras is 248 steps, equivalent to a 12-storey building). The grounds of the lighthouse are dog friendly (but not a climb to the top).

The iconic lighthouse also made it to many a newspaper front page in 1999 when the National Park Service moved the entire brick structure 460 m (1,500 ft) back from an encroaching sea. The sands continue to shift but they say the move should keep the tall building safe for a good long time.

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In Hatteras Village we ate dinner overlooking a dock filled with fishing boats and had a seafood meal that set the bar high for the remainder of our trip. The chef at the Breakwater Restaurant buys local: shrimp, scallops, grouper, flounder, tuna and it shows in the taste on the plate. We ate our fill of steamed shrimp the size of a toddler’s fist that were flavour-packed, meaty and didn’t suffer a bit from being dipped in melted butter. On a quest to embrace grits, Jo ate a delicious main of Shrimp & Grits (and yes, it did the trick – now a convert) and Craig had spicy, blackened chunks of yellowfin tuna (the catch of the day) wrapped in soft wheat tortillas and served with sides of black beans, rice and a pineapple chutney. Dessert was one slice/two forks of Peanut Butter Pie – a rich and creamy PB centre topped with dark, chocolate ganache.

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Like we said, the bar is set high.