thu 4.3.2003 (tunica -> new orleans)

Posted in deep south roadtrip on April 15th, 2003 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: fear of the deep south, garden district, louisiana, mississippi, new orleans, roadtrip

We left the casino early in the morning and began the long haul through the state of Mississippi. Not wanting to miss out, I had chosen the Great River Route along Highway 61. If we were visiting the Deep South, we were really going to experience it. And how often do you get back to Mississippi? Hopefully never.

We were visiting the sites listed in Road Trip USA, our travel bible. We were in Delta Blues country, but didn’t see much evidence of musical history, apart from the crossroads where Robert Johnson is supposed to have sold his soul to the devil. In Leland, the birthplace of Jim Henson, we found a Muppets museum.

In Onward, Mississippi, the book led us to a country store on the side of the road, which bills itself as the place where the teddy bear was born. We decided to stop in and take the obligatory photo. It ended up being a good introduction to rednecks and their deep, burning hostility towards northerners. I stepped into the store, watched the two hicks at the front table turn slowly to glare at Jay, and I thought, this is the part where they say, “Y’all ain’t from around here, is you?” as the first few notes of Dueling Banjos play in the background.

We got out of there quick.

That was just a precursor to Vicksburg, however. This pretty much sums up the town:

Vicksburg is home to one beautiful, surreal attraction, however. It’s called Margaret’s Grocery. The South is full of shrines and personal tributes to Jesus, but this one beats them all.

The book told me that the grocery was run by an old preacher and his wife, and that the preacher was known to come barreling out of the store to testify to unsuspecting passers-by just like us. Jay and Heather were unaware of this, so I was hoping that he would make a showing especially for them. I was meandering slowly around the yard, photographing everything and gaping in amazement, while Heather stood nearby, asking repeatedly if we had had our tetanus shots. I was gawking at a display featuring charts about Jesus’ life with hand-scribbled notes and broken mirrors, when I heard yelling. I thought, “Awesome, it’s the preacher.” And I was so wrong. Here’s a photo I took of the crazy hick as the car went peeling away down a rural highway:

There’s not much else to be said about Mississippi except that maybe they need to move past the whole ‘War of Northern Aggression’ thing, and they’ll all be a lot happier. I know that we were happier to leave the state that afternoon, although backwater Louisiana wasn’t much better. The drive through the bayou used to be one of the most beautiful in the country, and now it’s known as the chemical corridor. It’s great. We suffered through traffic in Baton Rouge, and were relieved to finally reach our hotel in New Orleans.

Well, maybe I was a little nervous about the hotel. During my last extended phone conversation with the proprietor, he had virtually assured me that I would be killed by rednecks in Mississippi. He went into graphic detail, something about being tied to a tree, raped, etc. I laughed, and he yelled, “Why are you laughing? That’s what those people do!” So, needless to say, I was feeling a little weird about running into this guy at the hotel. Luckily, he was occupied when we arrived.

Jay and I took a walk around the Garden District that night. It was beautiful. We discovered that we were around the corner from an old cemetery and the Real World House, and right on the trolley line on St. Charles Avenue. Perfect.

fri 4.4.2003 (new orleans)

Posted in deep south roadtrip on April 15th, 2003 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: alabama, beach, louisiana, new orleans, ocean, roadtrip

Friday morning, I got up and decided to walk down to Rite-Aid to buy a hairdrier, since the Castle Inn was unequipped. It was the perfect day outside, if a little too humid for someone coming from a state where it was still technically winter. I walked down St. Charles Avenue, smiling at the goofy tourists on the passing streetcars and gawking at the mansions built by people who thought slavery was a really good idea. On the way back, I bought fresh strawberries from an old Cajun man selling produce out of the back of his pickup truck. It was another perfect moment.

I took Heather over to see the Real World house. It’s kind of trashed. I’m not sure what happened there, but it must’ve been a good party. It’s undergoing renovations at the moment. The second picture is taken from the window at our hotel, the one where you see the creepy lit-up suit of armor at night.

While we were walking around, Heather pointed out that the trees along St. Charles are draped not only with spanish moss, but with Mardi Gras beads. Tons of them, hanging everywhere, and on the walkways, ground into the dirt. Also, on the big suit of armor in the doorway of our hotel.

There’s a lot to be said about our hotel, by the way. First of all, it’s supposed to be haunted. The night we arrived, they told us that some people had recently brought a Ouija board, and determined that one of the ghosts (there are five) is a kid named Emily. The ghosts mostly hang out in the Bordello Room, which was next door to our room on the third floor. We stayed in the Voodoo Room, at the end of a long, blood-red hallway with lighting that never worked. The room was all gothed out in a really tacky way. It was awesome.

We went around the corner to explore the cemetery. The above-ground tombs are pretty incredible. I later discovered that this cemetery was one of the most historic in New Orleans. It was kind of surreal seeing the Goodyear Blimp hovering overhead for the NCAA tournament, though.

We ate monstrous burritos for lunch, got back in the car, and headed to Alabama. Why? Ask Jay. Anyway, the Gulf Coast was way nicer than expected. We were dreading spending more time in Mississippi, but it actually had more to offer than casinos and rednecks: it had beaches.

I wanted to lay around longer, but my Minnesotan was showing, and I was turning pink. We drove through more tacky casino country, watched for alligators in the swamps, and bought boiled peanuts from an old woman on the side of the road. Mobile was, you know, a small city in Alabama, and that’s about it. We turned around and headed back to New Orleans.

sat 4.5.2003 (new orleans)

Posted in deep south roadtrip on April 15th, 2003 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: french quarter, louisiana, new orleans, roadtrip

I got up even earlier than usual on Saturday, got dressed, and wandered downstairs with the intention of going around the corner to hang out at the coffee shop until Heather and Jay were ready to go. However, it was raining, and after a long chat with one of the owners about her profound lack of interest in the resident spirits, I decided to lurk around the Castle Inn and have breakfast. I started poking around the buffet, which consisted of mostly prepackaged food in a less-than-appetizing presentation: sliced cinnamon and raisin bread next to an old toaster, crusty glazed donuts, packets of grits and cold cereal, pop-tarts removed from their wrappers and arranged on a plate, anemic-looking fruit. I was about to fill my coffee mug (which I had already designated as my ‘usual’ after two days: it’s the orange one with the pumpkin face on it, in case you’re ever visiting), when the man I had been trying to avoid came barrelling out of the kitchen to admonish me. Breakfast didn’t start until 8am.

Chastized by a crazy man, I went out to the sunporch and read a book that was titled something like “Ghost-hunting for Dummies”. Then I paged through a book about psychic phenomena that was published in the 50s, and found it highly informative in a this-is-a-giant-load-of-crap sort of way. I went into the office and checked my email, verifying that my company was indeed still in business even though I was out of town. Once it was safely past 8am, I went back for my coffee, and sat down on a couch in the main room, clutching my pumpkin mug and a brown banana.

I was paging through a fascinating book about the history of the Garden District when a guy walked in, got coffee, and took a seat across the room, facing me. He sat there silently for ten or fifteen minutes, during which time I was convinced he was fixing me with his serial-killer gaze, so I was afraid to look up. I clung to the pumpkin for support. Finally, he asked me how late I had been ‘down there’ the night before. I told him we didn’t go near Bourbon Street, on account of the NCAA tournament and the hoardes of reckless fratboys. He described their night, spent pushing through drunk guys on the street, and their return to the hotel at around 3am. He said he was an amateur ghost-hunter, so he had taken out his digital camera and started snapping pictures randomly, hoping to catch some haunting activity. And he had.

Ron went upstairs for his camera, and sat and showed me all his photos. They were interesting, definitely. A lot of it could have been explained away as tricks of light and the flash, but some of it was pretty intriguing. He pointed out outlines of ghosts, even the little girl known as Emily. He was convinced. I was skeptical. I gave him my email address, hoping he’d send the photos.

After half an hour or so, I gracefully extricated myself and went upstairs. Heather and I decided to take the streetcar into the French Quarter (or the ‘Freedom Quarter’, for you dumbass patriots). Jay would drive over and meet us for tofu rancheros at the awesome vegetarian place we had discovered. It was in the mid-80s that morning, but the humidity made it stifling. Heather and I walked from one side of the French Quarter to the other, stopping in the tacky souvenir shops to pick up voodoo dolls and the like. We were a little early for brunch, so we stopped for coffee at a cafe on Decatur (not Cafe Du Monde, which was overrun with hung-over fratboys), and sat there listening to the jazz band and people-watching.

We had brunch, then headed back to the other side of the French Quarter to the Aquarium. I saw what I had come to see: jellyfish. I even witnessed jellyfish sex, even though Heather swore that they didn’t reproduce that way. But I know what I saw: dirty, raunchy jellyfish lovin’. It was hot.

We left the aquarium and once again headed back across the French Quarter. It’s only something like 13 blocks wide, but it seemed like a lot, having walked it a couple times already in the drenching humidity. We stopped at the French Market to buy fresh fruit for the trip back the next day, then walked back to the car. A huge storm was rolling in from the Gulf, and it started to pour a few minutes after we reached the car. At that point, I announced that I was officially tired. It had been a long trip.

We went back to the hotel and rested while it stormed. Later, we drove up to the fair suburb of Metairie, to the International Market, and dinner at an indian restaurant. The Taj Mahal was no less than the happiest restaurant on earth, and it was the perfect way to spend some of our last few hours in the south.

sun 4.6.2003 (new orleans -> minneapolis)

Posted in deep south roadtrip on April 15th, 2003 by jenni | No Comments »
Tags: louisiana, new orleans, roadtrip, wisconsin

The 1,200-mile, twenty-hour drive back to Minneapolis is all kind of a blur. From the interstate, the country looks pretty much the same no matter where you are. At one point or another, we spent time in Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The main differences between each region are in the number of signs informing you about God’s thoughts on abortion, and the names of the crappy roadside restaurants. In the south, it’s Shoney’s; in the north, Country Kitchen.

We had a stockpile of greasy Indian snack food, some huge mutant apples from the French Market, and we stopped regularly at truck stops to pee and buy beverages. I offered Jay a dollar to eat a packet of dill pickle Twang I bought from a gas station in Mississippi. He did. I didn’t pay up. Sucker.

Heather ended up as the driving hero, taking the last shift shortly before midnight in Madison, Wisconsin. One of us was supposed to stay awake to make sure the driver didn’t doze off, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open for more than five minutes at a time. I think Jay was passed out most of the time in the back. But Heather came through and got us home safe. We stumbled into the house after 3am and headed straight to bed. It took me forever to get to sleep. All I could feel was the road.