Perhaps ambition gets the best, as it’s tough doing anything but working (and playing) from the road. Most memorable is the South, and starting in Pine Bluff, AR, we’re loaded with American worry even with the beautiful leer of the Ozarks in the rear view mirror, as the highway of abandoned homes leads us to New Orleans, the winner of our ‘Best of Trip’ culinary award, and home of the 9th Ward. The damage, in this year, is startling, especially given the pace of a highrise’s rise in New York (better still: Sacramento):
Then again, there’s a strangeness is taking the Post-Katrina Audio Tour, even though proceeds go to a good place and folks get to see what still needs doing in the wonderful city (I’d love you in a flash, N.O., but the crime rate fights me off and away, nevermind those rumors of Central Park after dark).
Further on, our trip to Lafayette features a crowd around a corpse on the highway median, though we don’t realize what we see until we come across a bleach white cross in the same spot two days after the first encounter.
That thought alone keeps me awake through Alabama and into Chattanooga, where we eat a regrettably delicious breakfast at the Yellow Deli. The cuisine is amazing, no doubt, but YD’s handout is overly suspicious, and we find ourselves lurching over our first encounter with the Twelve Tribes. Or the Twelve Tribes. Order your spin based on your preference, of course, but I won’t be heading back anytime soon.
Still further, blurred (and then cramped) stops in MA, NH, NC, TN, TN, TN, NM, and AZ before heading back home, were the summer will end with bike rides, dog walks, and knee surgery.
