The South Will Rise Again

Our uneventful drive through Alabama to Atlanta brought us to my old stomping grounds. But, a lot has changed since 1994! Besides the Olympics related buildings, whole neighborhoods have transformed from working class, industrial areas to high-end condos and shopping. So many more highrises have popped up that I don’t recognize the skyline. And, while the traffic has always been notoriously bad, it is even worse on the surface streets. But we came to Atlanta to visit friends and we had a great time.

We stayed with Judy, Dave, Maddy and Nestle (a walking, furry, chocolate bar) where feasting with good food and drink was the standard. Highlights: Turkish dinner of kofta and couscous by Mark, and mushroom omelets and a fried turkey with dirty rice by Dave, homemade tiramisu by Judy (I set the table). From this home base, we saw Kati and her furry Max (or snowball as Mark called him), and my nephew Patrick who is resembling his dad’s looks more and more – but not his actions, thank goodness! James was harassed appropriately via phone, but wisely stayed in Columbia that day.

Since we were in the heart of the south, Mark needed to learn something about Atlanta, confederacy, and the Civil War. After all, he’s now going to live in the South. So we marched to Grant Park to see the Cyclorama. This was a mandatory stop on a trip up the east coast when I was a child. We walked around the circular diorama back then, before it was restored. Now, you can see scenes from the Battle of Atlanta on July 1864 while sitting, as the seats turn to follow the story narration. The Civil War, with a total of around 3 million soldiers (both north and south) was our bloodiest war, but also the most personal. Soldiers who grew up as friends and even as family, fought one another. The death count was high with 2/3 of this number dying from disease and not battle wounds. The Battle of Atlanta proved to be a turning point in the war, shifting to the North’s advantage.

The Cyclorama painting – largest canvas painting in the world – was done 2 years after the Civil War ended. So the battle stories were still fresh. The painting traveled around for many years as was common for these paintings in the 1800’s. In the 1920’s, it came home to Atlanta to stay. Refurbished in the 1970’s, the painting and diorama are impressive in story and design. Mark found this all interesting and has a bit of understanding now. Civil Wars even happen outside of the Sunni/Shia Iraq situation. Next on his southern orientation is the southern accent!

The steam train ‘Texas’ is in the building also. This train is famous for the Great Chase in April 1862 when Union spies seized another train called the General. It was chased by the Texas – driving backwards – until the General was abandoned. The spies were hanged and the Texas is in Grant Park.

We checked out the Dekalb Farmers Market – my favorite food shopping location when I lived in Decatur. Mark was like a kid in a candy shop with foods from around the world. He was especially excited to see the assortment of breads and a whole section of nuts and dried fruits from Turkey. Needless to say, Turkish pistachios are coming back with us.

Decatur has also transformed into quite a destination town – with lots of upscale and funky shops, restaurants and bars. I knew this would happen one day when I purchased my house down the road from downtown. But it happened after I left!! I’m sure my presence influenced this change :’)

Contest Update: We are coming to the end of our trip. We’ve spent over $700 so far just on gas. Prices ranged, so far, from $2.729 to $3.099 per gallon. Send your mileage guesses. Our trip calculation will end in Lakeland, FL at the parental units’ house. Guesses can be submitted until October 15, 2007. If multi guesses, the latest guess is the one that counts.

Food and Drink: This is a hard one. The home cooking, wine and beer selections were outstanding. We also ate out several times at great spots. The restaurants were: the 5 Seasons Brewery – a brewery with excellent foods and beers. The 2 way duck and the venison were delicious: tender meats cooked medium rare and excellent sauces that highlighted the flavors without overpowering them. The Brick Store Pub in Decatur is a brewery with an assortment of beers requiring a catalogue to list them all. Whew! My Dogfish Head Punkin Ale and Mark’s local Sweetwater beer were both great. The Flying Biscuit in midtown had really good food and amazing biscuits and cheese grits. But after an hour between ordering and eating, I could have eaten the napkins and thought them delicious. So, we’ll have to discount that review a bit.

Ok Mother Nature – You Win

From Louisiana bayous to the Mississippi gulf coast was a sobering trip. First we passed through New Orleans (since we’ve been here multiple times, we’ll come back on a New Orleans destination visit) on I-10. Canal Street and the Dome looked great, as did our glimpse at the French Quarter. The east side of the city was different. We saw apartment complex after complex that was destroyed by flooding, sitting empty. I can’t imagine the volumes of displaced families just from apartments. Then we saw the neighborhoods of homes, looking like middle and upper middle class from the construction and size of homes, that were still largely destroyed. A beautiful brick home that had been reconstructed sat next to two with boarded windows and tarp covered roofs.

From Louisiana we took highway 90 along the coastline. We heard a lot about Katrina’s impact to New Orleans, but much less about the impact to the Mississippi coast line. This area was known for its stately antebellum mansions along the beachfront, and wide, white sandy beaches. What we saw made me think of an archeological dig, where a past civilization was being discovered, with little debris left to personalize the site.

Instead of old, stately mansions, we saw grand front steps leading to a foundation. We saw swimming pools and patios without a home around them. Some families put wooden signs on their property with their name and address. We saw people are living on their lots, in mobile homes or campers. But most of these lots are now for sale, with the debris removed and just the surviving grand oaks remaining. There are large parking lots for what were probably shopping centers. There are bones of gas stations and churches. (double click on the images to expand to full screen)

Amid this sanitized destruction, there is a lot of rebuilding. The casinos are repaired and running. Got that tax base up and running quickly! There are new condo complexes open for sale, and new homes being built atop 1 story stilts. A couple of mansions are being repaired, but almost all are gone. I’m guessing the single family homes will be replaced with multifamily condos and the look and feel of the area will change significantly. I hope not, but the reality of the cost of living in an area wiped out by Camille, then Katrina is likely to prevent single family homes from coming back along the beachfront.

We stayed at the Island View casino in Gulfport where Mark made his non tax-deductible contribution to the local economy. Our dinner was at Emerile’s new restaurant at the casino that specialized in seafood dishes with a nod to the local taste.

Food and Drink: Our dinner at Emerile’s restaurant, the Gulf Coast Fish House had a couple of standout dishes. Mark is picky about his cream-based fish chowder (usually called New England clam chowder). He tried Emerile’s seafood chowder and was really happy with it. Different chunks of seafood were cooked in a nicely seasoned cream base. No potatoes, and the light cream helped highlight the fish. Just the way he likes it.
My dinner was delish: Paw Paw Shrimp. (What's a 'paw paw'!!??) Shrimp was grilled, and drizzled with a sweetened, yet slightly spicy tomato sauce. This was atop cheese grits. But these were tasty cheese grits that even Mark – I hate grits – liked.

Humidity and Fried Foods – Welcome to the South

Texas BBQ and cow pastures turned to oil refineries and shipping as we passed through Houston. Then we got to bayous and sugarcane fields, Cajun crawdads and southern cracklin’ – yep, we are in Louisiana.

Our welcome was a blinding rainstorm that reminded us we aren’t in the west any longer. Instead of elk or cow crossing signs, we are seeing bear crossing signs (not really sure about that one). While oil is important to western states like Texas, we saw a growing volume of oil related businesses from Houston into Louisiana.

Our Louisiana adventure was going on a swamp tour with Ron Guidry and his Cajun Man Swamp Cruise. They need four customers to break even, and since Katrina, the tour is often cancelled. Our tour ended up with 12, a big group these days. So, Mr. Guidry took us to some spots he’s not visited in a while.

Bayous are the rivers that run through swampy land. Here in Houma, the oil companies have added canals to these in order to get their oil barges to the refineries that seem to pop up everywhere. The equipment we were seeing was mostly from the 1940’s, but much of it was still working. I was surprised to see so many pumps and pipelines amidst this seemingly pristine environment. Beautiful cypress with hanging Spanish moss, blue heron, egrets, alligators and even bald eagles came to greet us. Cajun Man (CM) called to one bald eagle who responded immediately by squawking at him and then swooping down for some chicken skin he threw. The eagles come in to the area for the winter and this one returned just this week. CM seems pleased to see her (he called her MommaBird). He’s also named and somewhat trained a couple of alligators to come to the boat and jump for chicken. They obliged and then eyed Mark’s teasing hand when he hung it off the side of the boat. At one point, CM stopped the tour to share some local music, which he played and sang with either accordion or guitar.

Cajun Man is quite a celebrity in that he’s been featured on TV, has toured outside the US to promote Louisiana, and is starring in a series of upcoming KIA commercials. He’s done the swamp tour for the past 20 years. Before that, he was in law enforcement, with other careers in between. When I asked him which is his favorite, he said he’s the happiest now. So look for him!

There’s water, bridges, boats and seafood everywhere. Many of the wooden houses have metal roofs and big porches. While waiting for our swamp tour, we sat on a porch with big swings where I decided the best porch swings hang from very tall ceilings so the rocking is long and slow. Mark can’t understand the Cajun accents and keeps asking me what they are saying. I don’t always know.

Food and Drink: Big Al’s in Houma, LA is the place to go. Not a fancy place – Big Al appears to be an alligator – we found the menu requires digging in and working for your meal. We ordered gumbo, shrimp and corn soup, and sweet potato fries to start. Then dug into 6 crabs. Mark wasn’t happen with the amount of work required to get the small amount of crab (he’s used to the larger Dungeness crabs in San Francisco). But I enjoyed it. The soups were really authentic with great flavors you get only from homemade versions. And, how can you mess up a boiled crab – they were messy, but good.

From BBQ to Danish Dinners in Austin

You know you are in Texas when half the radio stations are playing religious rock music and there are trucks driving down the highway boasting ‘Jingle Jugs – the Trophy Rack You’ve Always Wanted’.

We visited our friend Elva and Blake and the contingent of Groves including: Nolan, Valerie, Christine and Bryan, and their furry friends Shiner and Dixie (as in beer). BBQ has always been a thing with Blake and Mark, so much investigation intoBBQ was required while we were in Austin. We managed to include BBQ brisket, chicken, ribs in our breakfast, lunch and dinner this weekend.

It is still really warm in Austin, so we decided to cool down at the river. This river goes through Austin, so we actually went into the city to reach it. We parked at an office park, then hiked the trailhead down to the water. It was cool and clear, complete with little waterfalls and rocks to climb. A real Texas waterhole! We didn’t have long to play though. With four kids, you can imagine the schedules of soccer and baseball games, along with scouts (girl and boy), birthday parties, etc. So, we got to participate in all of these. Mark’s favorite was soccer. He had fun kicking the ball around with the kids.

Another highlight was watching the bats come out at sunset from under an overpass bridge. It seems Austin has a huge urban bat population, in the millions. We brought our blankets and beer to watch them emerge from the overpass on their evening excursions for insects. The bats fly en masse, looking like smoke pouring out of various spots of the bridge. Though it was getting dark, we could see endless clouds of these small creatures (Mark calls them ‘night birds’), all flying together for their evening hunt. They return at dawn to hang upside down until the next evening. This happens in the summer and early fall – then they fly to Mexico for the winter (I think they have a beach place down in Cabo). Very cool to see!

Austin is a hub of high tech, so it isn’t surprising that we know other folks in this area. We caught up with our friend Michael at his new home, and were joined by another former colleague who I haven’t seen in about 10 years, Lief and his family. Michael’s parents were visiting from Denmark, so his mom made us all a delicious Danish meal of potatoes, peas and a type of hamburger with grilled onions and gravy. All of these Danes love Austin which I find curious. Maybe Austin will start to take on a Danish flavor!

Food and Drink: Rudy’s BBQ is famous, rightly so. But I have to admit, the creamed corn made an impact on me. Think about the last time you ate creamed corn. Maybe it was when you were 10, when cream did not carry any negative images. Rudy’s creamed corn is just as delicious, maybe even better, than then. Their creamed corn has slightly crunchy corn kernels with just enough cream sauce to keep them moist. Delicious and, since I was now 10 again, emotionally soothing!

Mark Messes with Texas

Yippee yiyaa! We got to Texas. Good friends, cowboys (‘koboys’ as Mark says in Turkish), and BBQ are on our agenda. To orient us to the lower gas prices, we passed LOTS of pumping oil wells and refineries aglow with blue burning gas burnoffs. First to Ft. Worth area to see Karen and her Mark, with Danielle and furry kids: Rainbow and Mokey (small panther). Despite Mark’s past dog relationships on this trip, he and the cats quickly bonded.

Karen and her Mark introduced us to a hugemongous high-end grocery store called Central Market. It was like a Whole Foods on steroids. Just the potato area had probably 14 different types of potatoes. The assortment of organic fruits and vegetables (many from California!), meats, fish, breads was amazing. But add to that the isles of different coffees, teas, and spices and you can understand why we had a difficult time leaving that nirvana. We barely made it out alive!

Ft.Worth did not disappoint. What a fun town! First on the agenda was the Stockyards. This is where,between 1866 and 1890 more than 4 million head of cattle were trailed through. The railroad was added in 1876 and runs through the stockyards to be the main transport of these critters. Today, herds are bought and sold virtually using video of the herds to generate interest. So, no more smelly herds hanging around the stockyards.

While the city has turned the cattle pens to souvenir shops and restaurants, there is still a distinct odor of previous inhabitants. And, this is helped by the daily cattle drives through the stockyard streets, complete with longhorn cattle and cowboys (girls) on horseback herding them down the streets. Meantime, there is livestock: cattle and horses, regularly sharing the street with cars. Cars leave carbon dioxide, cows and horses leave…fertilizer. So you have to watch where you step (one of the Marks can tell you that story). Only in Texas!!

In the evening, we get into downtown that is quite a lively area with live music and outdoor eating. Lots of folks on the street enjoying the warm weather and festive street scene. Ft. Worth has done a great job of bringing life into the city by converting old buildings to condos, free parking at night, open seating areas for entertainment, and beautifully restored buildings. Throckmorten was rocking!! But the best mojitoes were Karen's secret recipe Mixed by the Marks.


Food and Drink: Joe T. Garcia's Mexican Restaurant is an institution near the Stockyards in Ft. Worth. They serve only 2 dinner choices - fajitas (beef, chicken or combo), enchiladas (including tacos, beans, rice). The food is great, and the restaurant setting is beautiful with outdoor seating in gardens with pools and fountains. What a great way to relax, with tasty marguerittas, and enjoy Ft. Worth.

Going Batty in Carlsbad Caverns

Mark and I spent a large part of the day underground at Carlsbad Caverns; 830 feet underground to be precise - about 85 stories. Not for the weak of heart, or knees, the trail goes a mile down, down, down into the caves, to the edge of the Bat Cave, and the Iceberg Rock that is a single 200,000 TON boulder that fell from the cave ceiling thousands of years ago. We walked another couple miles around various cave rooms - seeing the Big Room that is 8.2 acres (largest cave in the world I understand), and the Kings Palace room that has incredible stalactites(from the top) and stalagmites (from the bottom), draperies that look like drapes but are actually stone in thin and wavey lengths, and many more types of formations.

How did this cave come to be? The cave is limestone formed from a prehistoric reef around 250 million years ago. The reef is actually the remains of sponges, algea and seashells. A few million years ago, the reef rose and water subsided with the changing earth surface. Sulfuric acid was created from the nearby oil and gas fields (seen today with oil drills and gas trapping machinery) and rainwater. The acid disolved the limestone and created large chambers that we now see as the caves. The rock formations in these caves started 500,000 years ago as water seeped from the earth's surface, evolving into calcite drops. This calcite-filled water drips from the ceiling to create the variety of formations and ponds that we saw.

We didnt get to see the 8 million or so bats. Since bats dont like people, and vice versa, the trails dont go into the bat caves. But each evening during the summer, all of these bats fly out of the cave to feed on insects...all 8 million of them!!

Food and Drink: We went to Lucy's AGAIN. Mark had to have another Lucy dinner and this time was wise enough to save half of it for lunch tommorrow. He had something with 'Loco' in the name. It included brisket, cheese, chili rellano and chicken enchiladas, and sides of guacamole, rice and beans. Whew! I had the Adam Fajita Burrito with spiced white chicken meat, white cheese, avocado and green sauce. And yes, I also saved half for lunch. We'll be munching our way into Texas tomorrow.

Aliens Everywhere

The temperature started at 48 degrees this morning in Mesa Verde and ended up, at 8pm, at 96 degrees in Carlsbad, NM. What a change! We drove diagonally across New Mexico - no shortcuts for us! And the drive was not as dull as one might think.

The landscape ranged from some mesas in the northern part of the state, to multicolored rocky ridges, to just plain flat as far as you could see. It was in one of those flat areas outside of Roswell that we passed a Budget Rental truck on the side of the road. Behind the truck were a couple of lawn chairs set up, with a few bottles of water. One guy, with tshirt and baggy shorts, was relaxing in a chair while his buddy was taking photos from a tripod...photos of the dull, flat landscape. This was about 60 miles from any town, and nearly 100 miles from where the first atomic bomb was exploded. Go figure.

Other observations: We passed more deserted towns with buildings that didnt seem that old. Maybe I'm dating myself!
Mark found a roadside vendor who specialized in chilis. He was in chili heaven and we now have a hanging chili 'thing' in our back seat.

When we got to Roswell, I told Mark I needed to find aliens. Mark was wondering why I was looking for Hispanic or Turkish people, but was too bored (watching all that flat, dull landscape for 500 miles) to say much. When I yelled 'pull over', he started wondering. I grabbed the camera and started taking photos of...green creatures. This he found more interesting than taking photos of Turks, so he helped in the search. He identified green alien footprints, and even found the streetlights were alien faces! I'm sharing only a few of the findings in this blog. Hey, maybe the Budget Rental truck guys were watching for aliens!!

Food and Drink: Lucy's in Carlsbad is the BOMB! With a day of chilis, aliens and hot weather, authentic Mexican food was the obvious choice for dinner. We passed a couple leaving the restaurant as we were entering. Mark asked, what's good. The man with a large girth said, 'The Camaron Diablo' was the dinner to get.
The restaurant has 2 sides- family side that looks like any Mexican restaurant you've been to, and the 'entertainment' side (as we were told) which has a big screen TV at one end and small screen TVs at each booth - all playing a country music channel. We ventured in.
Mark, who had not eaten all day, ordered the Camaron Diablo with gusto. A large plate arrived covered with food that included perfectly grilled shrimp (not overcooked as is often the case) placed over grilled peppers and onions, all covered with light cheese and chili seasoning, accompanied by thick refried beans and tomato-based rice. Mark ate every bit of it, including a full basket of chips. My common combo was also flavorful, but I kept my eye on Mark's dinner until it was completely gone. We waddled out of the restaurant, ready to recommend the Camaron Diable to the next hungry customers. Mark vows to return tomorrow night.

House and Garden Look Out!

Today we scampered around Mesa Verde and the most popular of the dwellings in and around the cliffs of the mesas. The inhabitants lived in this area from 550AD to 1300AD, the last 100 years in the cliffs (prior to that they were in houses above ground). They lived atop the mesas originally, then, when water became scarce, they moved to the cliff overhangs along the sides of the mesas. Mesa Verde has over 4000 known archeological sites.

We toured Cliff Palace – the largest cliff dwelling here with over 150 rooms with 100-120 people living here. This tour included steep climbs over stone steps and tall ladders, and skinny paths between large rocks. The Ancestral Puebloans were small people, much smaller than us!!!

On to Balcony House – famous for its 3 story ladder that you climb to get into the cliff house, and the 12 foot, 18" wide tunnel you have to crawl through to get out. Of course, it was raining at the time!

All of the sites included Kivas which are underground ceremonial rooms where the men would meet (think ‘mancave’), or where the families would stay when it was cold.

How they got into their homes, I have no idea! Sometimes you could see footholds carved into the rock to the surface, but most of the time there was nothing.

These people left when the 23 year drought reduced their ability to support themselves, having used up the trees, eaten all available meet, and seeing no reprieve. They went south to join the Pueblo Indians. The sites were discovered in 1883 by a prospector. Many excavations took place in the early 1900’s, but there are still archeologists on site working.

Our day included sun, torrential rains and hail – apparently the norm for September. But we weathered it fine and took to the bar at the end of the day. Since we are staying on site, it’s an easy walk to our room where we’ll listen for the elk bugling again tonight.

Food and Drink: I have to say, our picnic lunch was best. Sandwiches with avocado, tomato, grilled peppers, and horseradish flavored cheese – yum!

Hot Air Balloons to Hot Roasted Chilis

Yesterday was a long, but incredibly scenic trip from Ft. Collins to Mesa Verde National Park (near the 4 corners of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah). We crossed the entire state!

Our trip started by seeing 3 colorful hot air balloons near Longmont, with the rockies behind them. A great sendoff! We drove through Denver to go west on I-70, passing the ski resorts of Copper Mountain and Vail. BUT, a tractor trailer flipped over on the freeway, so we had to detour to smaller roads. Lots of mountain landscapes with the aspens in their golden fall colors. And still lots of ski slopes.

We passed through Montrose, CO and ended up stopping at a tiny farmers market that had a lot of people standing around. We wanted to see what was going on, and found out that they were having their large chili peppers roasted in a special pepper-roasting machine owned (invented?) by a Hispanic guy in town. They were getting 5 and 10 lbs of peppers roasted at a time! Seems they freeze these and use them through the winter and spring until the new crop is ready. We bought tomatoes….from California no less!

Then, over to Hwy 550, the ‘million dollar highway’ through the San Juan Mountains. Methinks it has something to do with the abandoned silver and gold mines along the road. The 6 mile stretch from Ouray south that follows Otto Mears’ original toll road (who the heck is Otto?) is considered one of the most beautiful highways in the US. I’ve never been on a road that had triple hairpin turns, but now I have. Some of the mountains were actually red topped, with gold and purple colored rock down the sides. A keen eye could see the remnants of the gold and silver mines still standing along the mountainsides. We even saw some of the miners’ housing, barely standing. But sometimes, we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains, nor the bottom of the valleys from the road.

This took us to Durango which was especially interesting, excepting the Chinese restaurant that had run out of vegetables, where we had dinner. This town is really interesting with interesting restaurants (excepting Chinese) and pubs, shops - all in the original 1800 era Victorian buildings. We had to stop at the French bakery for dessert before heading out. We passed the Durango and Silverton narrow gauge railroad without stopping. It has coal-fired stream locomotives that run through the San Juan mountains, running continuously since 1881. This is a sure thing for ‘next time’ we are here! (a 9 hr train trip)

On to Mesa Verde where we are staying at a lodge in the national park. Mike in Ft. Collins taught us about elk bugling. This time of year, the elk are gathering their cows (females) for the winter. One guy, many gals. When male elks compete for the harem, they ‘bugle’ at one another to warn the other to leave. We saw lots of elk in Ft. Collins, but the only bugling was Mike and Mark acting like elks. Here at Mesa Verde, we are really removed from civilization. And what are we hearing this evening? Elk bugling!! (its really like a whistle that starts low and goes high. Then we sometimes hear other noises following. Who knows what that is!). So, Mark is taking bugling notes – who knows why.

Food and Drink: L’opera pastry from Jean-Pierre Bakery & Café in Durango. This pastry is a layered chocolate cake with mocha between layers, chocolate Grenache on top. We had this with a glass of port overlooking the Mesa Verde views this evening.

We had a long haul on Thursday from Jackson WY to Ft. Collins, CO. Off to a later than anticipated start (due to the great sleep in the log cabin), we headed out on 86 east through Dubois, WY. We’ve hit very active road construction along the whole trip thus far as the states are scurrying to beat the fall snow. Did you know that the flaggers are all women? Who knew this was a career option! We’ve often sat in the car for 30 minutes watching the activity until we are escorted through a precarious roadway that is often just dirt. The upside is that we are in beautiful country, and we have plenty of food and chocolate in the car.

Out of the Teton park area, the mountains changed to treeless mountains striped with reds, golds and even purples. We drove through cowboy towns and past many, many ranches. It was interesting to also drive through a small town and store groupings that are now abandoned. It makes one wonder what happened, and realize that someone’s dream died with the town…which is now for sale.

We passed miles and miles of endless pastureland with a small house off in the distance. How do these people live so removed from everything? No running out to the store for ice cream here.

We arrived in Ft. Collins to visit Mike and Midge and the ‘girls’ George and Gracy for the weekend. Greeted with BBQ ribs, we were quite happy to get out of the car and visit. Mike, who takes folks on hikes during the week, took us on a 3 ½ mile walk around a lake at the Indian Peaks wilderness area near Estes Park, CO. A beautiful location at over 10k feet, it made us huff and puff to do the climbs. But those little Yorkshire terriers didn’t slow down at all!!

Off to the Budweiser brewery to see the Clydesdales. This is a BIG horse. Then of course we had to try the assortment of beers just as a quality control process.

Food and Drink: Beer!! Of course. Beach Bum beer was fun, but so was the Pumpkin Spice beer (seasonal). Both from Budweiser.