This is another “blast from the past” post , remembering one of our trips to my favourite travel destination – the USA. At the end of a previous post I mentioned that our earlier travels in America had given birth to a Grand Bucket List Plan. That plan… to visit every one of the 50 states of the Union ( and as many of their National Parks as we could)!
Ocean Drive – Miami Beach
and in mid-September we took to the skies with Air New Zealand headed for Fort Lauderdale, Florida ( via Los Angeles) . On our first morning back in the USA Neil made a note of the car’s speedo reading and we finally hit the road – the first part of which included miles and miles of very plushy high rise buildings facing the ocean and backed by long lines of palm trees. It was Surfers Paradise on steroids! As we drew closer to Miami Beach the roads grew busier until we turned onto the main cruising drag – Ocean Drive. The traffic here was very slow as the tourists, including us, admired the long line of pretty, pastel Art Deco hotels that line the ocean front. As we drove we listened to the first of Neils’s driving-music playlist. It seemed very appropriate to be listening to the theme from “CSI -Miami” and “Miami Vice” , amongst others 🙂
Seven Mile bridge
We headed inland and joined up with the Florida Turnpike on its long route down through the state.
The section From Key Largo to Islamorada is one long, kitschy American shopping strip, with “shell factories ” and tiki bars and souvenir shops and multitudes of motels and shabby “resorts” lining the highway. In Australia we’d think it was horrible but as an example of American over-the-top tourism we loved it!
However as we entered the lower keys the land fell away and we finally saw more and more of the amazing views out to the gulf on one side of the road and the ocean on the other. We stopped just before the start of the colossal Seven Mile Bridge to take
The Pier House Resort – private beach
photos. Finally, we arrived in quaint Key West, Florida. Our hotel , Pier House Resort, has a marvellous location right on the gulf with its own private beach . We checked in and then went for a walk through the town and ate lunch.at a pleasant cafe housed in one of the many old clap board, Victorian homes that dominate the architecture here. My Lump Crab Cake sandwich was a delicious!
As the sun dropped lower we headed to Mallory Square, along with almost everyone else in Key West to enjoy the nightly sunset celebration. The weather was very kind to us and the clouds cleared so that we could enjoy a beautiful sunset. Afterwards the crowd enjoyed the many entertainers and market stalls that set up each night. We watched a very funny chap do juggling tricks with burning batons while “walking” on a tall ladder before he switched to a 10 foot tall unicycle !
Neil and Liam and stunning sunset.
From Key West we headed back north west to visit our first National Park of the trip – The Everglades. There we saw vultures, beautiful water birds, turtles , fish and cute green lizards. We even saw an alligator….except he was made of plastic and lived in a display at the visitor center! All the real ones were in hiding.
Beach Club Pool
From the Everglades we crossed the state to drive up the Gulf of Mexico coast before heading back inland to what was, for me, one of the highlights of the trip… a return visit to Walt Disney World!!! I just love the place and Neil was willing to indulge me ( and Liam ) in a couple of nights of rides, shows and lots of fun. We stayed at one of the amazing Disney owned resorts on this trip, The Beach Club and loved it’s amazing pool complex and it’s easy walk to two of the theme parks – EPCOT and Hollywood Studios. Our surprise upgrade to the Club Level was pretty wonderful too.
Once Neil had dragged me kicking and screaming from the arms of Mickey Mouse…we set our sights north for our first “new” state of the trip – Georgia. In Savannah, Georgia we had a horse and carriage ride through the streets of the Historic area. Savannah is such a beautiful city, with cool green squares overhung by massive magnolia trees draped in Spanish moss. During the civil war, when General Sherman marched his troops into Savannah he spared the city because it was so lovely, instead of burning it to the ground like Atlanta. The river front area has a beautifully restored cobblestone street and old brick dock buildings, now occupied with nice restaurants and shops. It reminded us of The Rocks area in Sydney and hosted some wonderful restaurants. We love the different foods of the South, that night we had Fried Green Tomatoes ( yummy!) and I had Georgia BBQ Shrimp and Grits. We had southern biscuits with wild honey butter for breakfast and the cracker shrimp Po’Boys for lunch were delicious too.
Stone Mountain
The next day we set out towards Atlanta,Georgia and arrived at Stone Mountain at around 1pm. Stone Mountain is a tourist mecca built around a massive grey granite monolith that rises like a grey Uluru out of the green forest. On the side there is an intricate carving of those Southern heroes, Jefferson Davis, Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It’s quite a sight and was carved by the same sculptor who created the famous faces of Mount Rushmore. Afterr checking into the hotel we walked across the road to the World of Coca Cola. Atlanta is the home of coke, it was invented by a pharmacist here in 1886.
60 flavours at the
World of Coca Cola
They have put together some pretty impressive displays and Disney-style entertainments and interactive activities. It’s a lot of fun but you really do just spend an hour or so living inside a Coke commercial! The part of the tour that Liam enjoyed the most was the tasting room where he could sample over 60 different soft drinks that the Coke company manufacture for countries worldwide. Across the road from our hotel we could also wander through the Centennial Olympic Park and see the Olympic rings fountain that commemorates the 1996 Olympics. I was blown away by the incredible lawn in the park, it looked like someone must mow it with manicure scissors.
Vulcan
We needed all the sugar from our Coke tour to give us energy for the next day’s drive, as we travelled through 4 states heading towards Tennessee. On the way we stopped in Birmingham, Alabama to see the huge statue that towers over the city at Vulcan Park. He’s the largest cast iron statue in the world and was built for the 1904 Worlds Fair. I couldn’t help noticing that he had a really nice butt!
There is probably no more visited attraction in Memphis, Tennessee than Graceland, the home of the King of rock and roll, Elvis Presley. We know this for a fact , simply because we queued for 25 minutes to buy tickets, then another 15 minutes in the shuttle bus queue and them we shuffled our way around the mansion in one long slow moving queue. The house is not particularly large but the interior decor is……well…..interesting! It’s the height of 1970s too-much-money and not-enough-taste design. The jungle room with its green carpet on the floor, walls and ceiling; and it’s heavily carved timber furniture with fur upholstery is particularly …errr….attractive (?)”
After the house we had lunch at one of the restaurants on the premises, then visited the Auto mobile museum and saw his many fancy cars including the famous pink Cadillac. Finally we toured his two private jets, where the interiors were designed according to his specifications. Lots of blue suede and gold plated seat belts!
The crowds were still streaming in as we left and drove down town to The National Civil Rights Museum. The first thing you see is the hotel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The exterior of the hotel has been kept exactly as it was, including the two cars parked in the car park below the balcony where he was standing when he was shot. The interior has been gutted and renovated and now houses an excellent museum about the struggle for civil rights in the south.
The lobby of The Peabody Hotel – with ducks!
After that it was time to head back to our hotel to see one of the most popular tourist attractions in Memphis. The March of the Peabody Ducks! ( I kid you not…) The Peabody Hotel is a grand old southern dame of a hotel with a fabulous lobby hung with chandeliers, furnished with plushy lounges and decorated with huge bowls of flowers. But the main centrepiece of the lobby is a huge travertine marble fountain….with ducks swimming in it!
The ducks are trained to march down a red carpet to and from the fountain twice a day, accompanied by music. When we went down at 4.30 to find a spot the lobby was packed with people!
For dinner we walked a short distance to Beale Street, the home of the Blues. As you walk the street you hear the music coming from all the clubs and pick the one with the best sound for dinner, in Beale Street it’s the music that matters, not the food! We chose B.B. Kings where the fried catfish was just fine and the music was amazing. Click on the video below to see what I mean… ( or on this link if the video doesn’t show in your email)
We did finally stop for lunch in the riverside town of Vicksburg. The sun was out as we drove into and through the huge Vicksburg National Military Memorial Park which is located on the site of one of the most crucial and bloody battlegrounds of the Civil War. It’s managed by the National Park service and is now a really lovely green park. You really can’t visit the deep South of the USA without paying some attention to the sites of the Civil War – it really did shape this part of the country.
Our stop for that night was in another town that showcases the wealth and beauty of the pre-civil war “Antebellum” era. Prior to the Civil War, Natchez, Mississippi had the most millionaires per capita of any city in the United States, making it arguably the wealthiest city in the nation at the time. Those wealthy landowners built beautiful plantation homes, many of which survive today as hotels and B & B’s.
We spent the night at Twin Oaks Plantation, owned by celebrity Southern chef Regina Charboneau. When we arrived I was tickled to discover an off the shoulder , southern belle dress hanging in the wardobe. It was even green and white, reminiscent of the dress that Scarlett Ohara wears in the opening scenes of Gone with the Wind. I had to try it on, of course! Luckily the pic doesn’t show the rear view, the dress was made for a skinnier southern belle than me- it didn’t do up at the back!
Regina has her own restaurant but as it was a Monday night it wasn’t open, so instead, we ate a wonderful dinner at the restaurant of the nearby Dunleith Plantation. The next morning Regina give us a tour of the ground floor rooms of the home and told us a little about the history of the house. She had owned a successful restaurant and nightclub in San Francisco in the past before returning to her hometown Natchez to restore Twin Oaks and run it as a B &B.
Be
fore leaving the town we drove the scenic tour past the many beautiful homes ,drove down to the great Mississippi river and visited the beautiful Melrose Plantation which is maintained by the National Parks.
Freeway above the swamps
It was a 3 hour drive down to New Orleans, Louisiana but the last 40 miles was particularly interesting when the interstate runs on a bridge 30 feet above the swamps for miles and miles and miles. We could see the swampy ground disappearing into the distance and also the homes and boats of the “swamp people” that live in the area.
First stop in New Orleans was the enormous Unites States National World War II Museum. Both Neil and Liam are fascinated by military history so this was a must visit for us. It was really interesting for us to get an American perspective on the places that we had visited in Normandy.We had a tasty lunch in the Stage Door Canteen and then watched their impressive 4D movie presentation about the American involvement in WWII . It’s produced and narrated by Tom Hanks and had some pretty cool Disney-like special effects.
It was a short drive into the heart of the French Quarter to our accommodation, the Place D’Armes Hotel . The hotel occupies the building that was the first school in Louisiana, our room was spacious with lovely high ceilings and had a large balcony facing out onto the street with a view down to Jackson Square and St Louis Cathedral. It was great to be in such a central location, the Cathedral bells made for an excellent alarm clock!
Next morning we walked down to have hickory smoked Cafe au lait and sugar dusted beignet at the Cafe du Monde. This is one of THE places in New Orleans that is on everyone’s must visit list, the cafe has been serving waterfront workers (and more recently, tourists) since 1850. The beignet were delicious! From here it was a short walk over to the river where there were a crowd of people lining up for the lunch time cruise on the Steamboat Natchez. On the roof there is an old time calliope and there was a woman playing old time melodies on it with a lot of enthusiasm!
We returned back into the French Quarter streets for a wander up the very beautiful Royal Street and the rather sleazy Bourbon Street. Royal street has the best of the pretty, wrought iron decorated buildings, most of which house interesting little shops and restaurants. Bourbon Street is wall to wall bars that were doing a pretty good trade already on a warm Thursday morning.
It was really warm and muggy all day so we were glad of a nice cool break when we visited the Louisiana State Museum which is inside the lovely old Presbytere building next to the Cathedral. They had two excellent exhibits inside, one about Hurricane Katrina and the other about the famous Mardi Gras.
Interesting choices for lunch!
Lunch time! So we wandered down to the French Market near the river. Lots of food stalls serving all sorts of interesting food including Alligator burgers, alligator pies and alligator sausage on a stick! Liam just HAD to have some alligator… I had a very tasty Cajun hot dog, yummy! For the record, Liam thought the gator was a bit tough but quite tasty 🙂
After lunch we did a little more souvenir shopping and walked several blocks up to the outskirts of the French Quarter to see Armstrong Park. It’s part of the New Orleans Jazz National Historic park and houses a theatre for the performing arts and the municipal auditorium. It’s named, of course, for a famous New Orleans native, Louis Armstrong. It’s an attractive park but we didn’t stop long as it was very hot and my feet were sore, time to head back to the hotel for a break in the lovely hotel courtyard by the pool.
Music and performance are a huge deal here. There are musicians and street performers on every corner. In the early evening I sat on our balcony listening to a Jazz band playing up in the square in front of the cathedral. Jackson square is surrounded by artists selling their works and by tarot card readers. Voo Doo is huge too, with many shops selling books about Voo Doo and even Voo Doo dolls and charms. For dinner that night, Chef Charboneau had recommended The Gumbo Shop which serves classic Cajun/Creole food so we were able to try some of the local specialities which we hadn’t had a chance to try yet. Liam had alligator again, followed by Shrimp Creole. We all LOVE the southern food! It’s was definitely one of the highlights of our trip..
On the Bayou Teche Scenic Byway
From New Orleans we needed to head west towards Houston, but we decided to take the scenic route, via the Bayou Teche Scenic Byway. This takes you the southern route from New Orleans via LaFayette through the Acadian region, which is where the Swamp People come from! We saw some more stunning plantation mansions along the way and even stopped to chat with the owner of this one who was out mowing his huge lawn!
The drive across south Houston isn’t very attractive, lots and lots of oil refineries! ( So Texas!) But the area near the NASA Space Centre Houston is quite nice, with lots of restaurants, shops and hotels. At the Space Center we took a short tram tour that first visits the Apollo Mission Control room, It was a thrill to see the room from which missions like Apollo 11 and Apollo 13 were controlled. From there we visited the Astronaut training facility and saw an amazing array of mock-ups, simulators and other equipment that the astronauts use to prepare for missions.
Liam tried out the flight simulator, he was strapped inside the module where he went through a video-game style mission to fly a plane and shoot down enemy aircraft. There was a camera inside the module so from the outside we could watch him operating the controls and we could also see the whole body of the simulator twist and turn and roll I’m response to his actions. He loved it especially when he made it do a full 360 degree roll! We enjoyed our day at Nasa Houston but to be honest, Neil and I both agreed that we think the one at Cape Canaveral is better.
For dinner that night we drove about 7 miles east to the Gulf coast to the Kemah Boardwalk and ate at Landry’s Seafood . The boardwalk is an entertainment and restaurant complex built out over the water at the inlet to Clear Lake. There’s lots of amusement rides, a hotel and several restaurants. As we walked along the boardwalk we’d noticed coin operated machines that dispensed fish food but we still got a shock when we saw the water in one area heaving and moving with thousands of catfish all fighting to get the scraps that were being thrown into the water. I’ve never seen ANYTHING quite so weird, take a look at the video below ( or click on this link if you’re reading the post via email)…
Next day was a fairly short drive to San Antonio, Texas. We had lunch and then wandered down to the San Antonio Riverwalk. It is a network of walkways along the banks of the San Antonio River, one story beneath the streets of the city.in the 1920s , after a bad flood on the river, the city decided to dam the river upstream of the city and direct the stream through sewers under the city. After protests by the local conservation societies, a local architect came up with the idea for the Riverwalk. It has been a huge success and it’s easy to see why. It is an absolutely lovely cool oasis by day and a magical fairy-lit entertaining and dining district by night
During the afternoon we visited The Alamo, which was originally a mission building and was also the site of a famous battle between 180 Texans and 4000 Mexicans during the Texan Revolution (which led ultimately to Texas becoming independent of Mexico and joining the USA) The Texans, led by Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and 2 others were slaughtered. In battles afterwards “Remember the Alamo” became a catchcry and it has been repeated in many movies and TV shows since! The gardens in the Alamo courtyards were another lovely cool spot to wander.
From San Antonio we headed south towards the Mexican border, taking the southern route across to Big Bend National Park which lies on the border of Mexico on the Rio Grande river. It wasn’t long before we had to stop at an Inspection centre run by the local Border Patrol who were monitoring the area for illegal Mexican immigrants. They asked to see our passports which they examined very closely. I made the mistake of starting to take a photo and was asked kindly but firmly “Not to take photos” as they have to protect their identity. They we very nice about it, luckily 🙂
We stopped on the road to visit the Judge Roy Bean Museum. Roy Bean was a disreputable character who ended up being appointed the law in these parts. He ran his courthouse out of his saloon and he had the reputation of being a hanging judge! Once a dead man was found in the town with a gun and $40 in his pocket. Judge Bean promptly fined the corpse $40 for carrying an unlicensed weapon and pocketed the fine 🙂 His interesting life inspired the movie “The Life and Times of Judge Roy bean” starring Paul Newman.
From there we had about a 2 hour drive to get to Big Bend National Park. The scenery as we drove up the steep and winding Chisos Basin Road to our lodge was spectacular! After dinner we waited on the terrace to watch the sunset. There is a notch in the mountains that is called the “window” and through it you can see the valley 5000 feet below. Seeing the sunset at the “window” is one of the premier attractions in the park and there were several people snapping away with their cameras.We walked one of the the trails and saw a sign at the beginning of the trail advising what to do if you saw a mountain lion ( make yourself look big by waving your arms, act agressive, fight back and DONT RUN ). There was another sign that strongly urged people not to take children on the trail, pretty scary stuff! After Big Bend we headed North again towards New Mexico so we could visit Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
At the Park Headquarters we took the elevator that drops down 750 feet to the heartof the hills into the “Lunch Room” .The lunch room is a little bizarre, a food counter and gift shop and restrooms all underground seem strange, it’s a hangover for the 1950s. When we started the tour I thought it would be interesting but ” hey, Ive seen limestone caves before so it won’t be very exciting” I was so wrong! Carlsbad Caverns are unlike like anything we’d ever seen. The Big Room is one vast space that spreads in a cross shape , over 8 acres in total area. It took us close to an hour to walk the entire path and the stalagmites, stalactites, draperies, straws and columns were fabulous. Another National Park that is so different from anything else we’ve seen before
From the park we drove north, back through that flat, featureless land for about an hour to Roswell, New Mexico. In 1947 “something” crash landed in Roswell that was initially branded by Air Force reports as a UFO, within a day the official reports changed their story but ever since the true believers have been convinced that a UFO did land that day and that the has been a massive government coverup about it ever since. Roswell has been UFO central ever since! The UFO Museum is a quirky collection of the weird and the bizarre – it was wonderful!
On the way to west again we climbed over lovely, fir clad mountains and back down into the desert where we stopped at White Sands National Monument, an incredible sight! Great wave-like bands of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert here and have created the largest gypsum dune field in the world. There are picnic spots equipped with spacey looking 1950’s style aluminium shelters, each with it’s own little BBQ. You can stop anywhere along the way and climb the dunes. We had an unexpected photographic opportunity when we stumbled on 3 brightly colored hot air balloons being prepared to take people on a flight.
We crossed the border into Arizona in the afternoon and headed straight for Tombstone, Arizona arguably the most famous town in the old West. The historic part of the town has been maintained so that most of the original buildings remain, along with the timber sidewalks. There are hitching posts, saloons, and black coated gunslingers strolling the streets! As we walked along past the saloons and stores you just couldn’t help slowing your pace to allay stride and imagining the sound of boots and spurs… So much fun!
We bought tickets to watch the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral ( which is enacted every afternoon at 2 and 4 pm! ) which was surprisingly good! And on leaving the town we dropped in to Boot Hill Graveyard to see where all the cowboys and villains ended up.
The Pima Air and Ace Museum is spread over many acres of the Arizona desert on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona. They have on site over 300 air and spacecraft, many of very historical or technical significance, for example they have the Air Force One jet used by both JFK and Lyndon Johnson. They had a couple of NASA jets including one of the original “Vomit Comets” which are the parabolic flyers used to create temporary zero-G conditions for astronaut training. We’d learned all about those when we were in Houston so it was cool to see one here.
We had paid extra to go on the bus tour to the nearby Air force base to see the aircraft Boneyard. This is a colossal area where they store over 4000 aircraft that are no longer in active service. The majority of them are kept intact and can be brought back into service when needed. The reminder are gradually cannibalised for parts as needed.
We were about to press the button!
Next stop was the Titan Missile Museum. This is the only one of the original 54 nuclear missile launch sites that has been kept in its original state, the rest were destroyed or decommissioned and sold. On the tour Liam and I were selected to sit in the chairs of the commander and vice commander of the team, we got to “turn the keys” that initialized the launch sequence. The lights on the console flashed and the alarms rang, and when it was finished we had “launched” a missile capable of wiping out a city the size of Phoenix ( which is a BIG city!).
As the sun was setting we drove up into the hills to see Saguaro National Park. The saguaro cactus are those classic ones you see in all the old Western movies. They are so much larger than I was expecting and they grew thickly all over the hillsides . They grow very slowly and can grow to heights of up to 50 feet!
On the way to Flagstaff, Arizona we visited Montezuma Castle National Monument, where you can see remains of a surprisingly large series of apartments that were occupied 800 years ago by the Sinagua people. The structure is 4 stories high and built into limestone cliffs high above a green river valley. It’s hard to imagine what possessed them to build in such an inaccessible place!
Sedona
Next stop was Sedona , a very popular vacation town set in absolutely stunning red rock scenery. Sedona has been taken over by the new-age crowd as there are supposed to be 4 vortices (whatever they are?!) nearby. the town is awash with Soul readers, zen therapists, crystal stores and every mystic business that you can think of! The are also several expensive hotels and lots and lots of chi chi boutiques, cafes and restaurants packed with visitors. Luckily you can find places around town where you can enjoy the stunning scenery without all the other stuff !
Route 66 at Seligman
Heading west from Flagstaff, Neil was keen to drive some of Route 66 so we left the interstate at Seligman, which is a tiny little town making the most of its Route 66 credentials. The main street is packed wall to wall with quirky gift shops and cafes and gas stations chock full of 50’s memorabilia and Route 66 souvenirs. There’s a pink Edsel car parked outside one of them with life size models of Elvis and a girl sitting on the back! Route 66 led us back down to Kingman where we stopped in at Mr Dz Route 66 Diner. Neil and I had wondered if Liam would recognise it as we had eaten there in 2008, and sure enough as we drove into the parking lot he perked up and said “haven’t we been here before?” We’ve discovered Liam has a great memory for food places! 🙂
Lunch at Mr Dz Route 66 Diner
The restaurant is a gorgeous recreation of a classic 50’s diner, with laminate tables and chrome chairs upholstered in mint and pink vinyl. The food is great and the boys had home made root beer. I was really tempted to have a malted milk shake to keep in the theme but my clothes had been getting tighter ever since Florida so I gave it a miss!
From Kingman it’s about an hour through increasingly arid desert to the Colorado river at Hoover Dam. Neil was really looking forward to driving across the new bridge that towers over the dam and it didn’t disappoint. Another spectacular engineering marvel. Twenty minutes later we pulled into the parking lot of the LasVegas Premium Outlets for a little shopping. (naturally!)
Heading off to see “Love”. It took us 20 minutes!
I had booked our final night of the trip at the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The room was just gorgeous but it took us a week to find it! I’d forgotten just how huge the Vegas casinos are and how hard it can be to find your way around. We negotiated the crowds inside and outside the hotel to go across the road to the Mirage casino, where we had booked tickets to see “The Beatles -Love by Cirque du Soleil” I’m so glad we went, the show was simply fantastic! If you enjoy Beatles music I’d heartily recommend it next time you’re in Vegas. It was a wonderful way to spend our last night .
On our last day we headed west of Vegas to drive through the beautiful Red Rock Scenic Canyon – with 100’s of other people who were also enjoying the Columbus Day Weekend! Finally we set off for Los Angeles, California but I’m pleased to say we did a little Outlet shopping in Barstow along the way.
Around 5pm we finally arrived at Santa Monica Pier and the Pacific Ocean – 5,369 Miles ( or 8,640 Km ) since we’d left the Pacific Ocean in Fort Lauderdale!!
Santa Monica Beach
This was just the first of our planned marathon road trips on the mainland of the USA. Stay tuned for our further expeditions in search of the 50 states….