If I feel tomorrow like I feel today, I'm gonna pack my trunk and make my getaway.

Ok, so before everyone goes "Did you see ... in St Louis?", we were only here one day and used it as a stopover chill day. Having said that, it was boiling and knackering. 

We are right by the huge city park

with the zoo, which you walk through for free, to cut across the 1371 acres. 

So we did this, stopping for a corn dog. A strange beast, an anaemic sausage wrapped in sweet bready batter. Looks as offensive as it tastes!

First and last we think. 

We headed to The Loop to see the Chuck Berry statue, 

the walk of fame

and Vintage Vinyl record store to feed Den's habit. 

Lou tried Fro-Yo with a trillion toppings to feed hers. 

Plus we went to the home of the 5 necked guitar

and crossed here

We finished the day with a picnic in the park and had a floppy evening cooling off from the mid 80s and 80% humidity. Though our hosts, being from a tropical region of China, don't have the air con on. They apologised and a little trickle of breeze has been provided now. 

Off to Iowa tomorrow. No songs spring to mind for the blog title, but we will keep at it. Just checked weather in Duluth: Snowing tonight :(

Awesome: Free zoo. Free cake from our  hosts who do daily baking. Green tea and cranberry today. 

Banjo: Den asked for a coffee and through the power of accents, received this "abomination" of iced-coffee

Diner: Apparently it's National Hamburger Month, like America needs an excuse to eat more food covered in cheese and bacon! Lou is craving fresh veg and no carbs. And before you say salad, they manage to include cheese and bacon in that too. The corn dog has not improved things. 

Co-pilot: Walked everywhere today. Next test is 9am tomorrow. 

Mozzies: Who you gonna call?

Meet me in St Louis

Den says Louis, Lou says "Lewis" 

We both say that was a bit of a scary drive, with Lou navigating 10miles of mega storm at the edges of a tornado front, on a motorway, surrounded by trucks. There were points when the rain, wind and spray was so bad that you were pretty much driving blind. You couldn't stop, cos visibility was so bad. 

Needless to say, 2 large tequilas have been consumed this evening. 

So, the day started with a final morning coffee in the rocking-chair on the porch, with a slightly misty-eyed departure from the South. 

We drove 400 miles mostly on H61, but it occasionally disappears into the interstate, obeying the motorway signs to "Buckle up y'all, it's the law".

We drove parts of Mississippi-Tennessee-Arkansas-Missouri today

Passed towns that humoured Den 

Booed the Monsanto factory (though we're sure DEET is a bi-product of the industry) and stopped at a gas station to use rest room

but apparently you can keep your full bladder too, as the public were barred from using it. Way to call out the bad payers too:

We reached St Louis in time for tea. There aren't many pics, as the journey included a lot of uber concentration due to weather, confusing H61 vanishings and 7 lane motorways. 

The air bnb place is great, staying with 2 PhD students in the trendy middle-class area by the massive park. Day off from driving tomorrow, so doing some Chuck Berry appreciation before 2 more days and 700miles of driving to Duluth, Minnesota. 

One thing we've noticed on our travels, are the large amount of random cemetaries with 10-20 graves and no obvious boundaries. We're thinking they are family plots, as often near a few houses in isolated areas. 

The spotting of wildlife continues, mostly as road kill, including our first deer, that Den lovingly described as "The only deer we see and it had no arse". Correct in description, but hardly an Attenborough moment. We also entertained ourselves with guessing the identity of a mammal as possumbly a possum. 

What? It was a long drive!! 

Being Sunday, the radio was full of excellent gospel music and we particularly enjoyed the suggestion to "Get this praise party started". And according to the roadside signs, "Jesus is a gift, self-assembley required".

H61 is also marked as the Great River Road and when at a more relaxing part of the journey, the road was parallel with the train tracks and the Mississipi. You don't see much of the river, due to the levees, but further north we run alongside or up on the bluffs. The landscape has changed from flat plains and corn and cotton, to undulating wheat fields. 

Today we agreed that we are at saturation point with everything we see and do and may need to hide in a dark non-stimulating room for a week. Don't ask us how it is, we can only say awesome!

Awesome: Getting here. Laundry drying on back seat. 

Banjo: Bonkers weather. 

Diner: Buffalo wings, pizza

Co-pilot: Although the scale goes to 10, Lou goes to 11 for her storm battling. Den goes to 10 for seven lane navigation and suffering Lou's "mind that car" interference. 

Mozzies: Apparently they cross borders.

I'm going where the southern cross the yellow dog

Storms on the corrugated roofs overnight left a grey morning, but soon the heavy air returned.

Today we drove around the delta visiting crucial blues spots. The corn is coming through and the crop sprayers are out. 

We saw the site of the Emmett Till tragedy:

Then the official grave of three possible sites where Robert Johnson is buried 

Plus Tallahatchie Bridge - we were hoping to throw 'something' off it, but (despite the appearance) it was a bit too busy. We think this is the new one and the old one can only be reached through an overgrown track that satnav couldn't find :(

 

Per usual, everywhere we go is covered in campaign placards for various local positions. Den described it as the ultimate expression of American democracy or "you vote for every fucker".

Then we headed to where the southern cross the yellow dog:

which Lou demonstrates below:

We wandered around Moorhead, a once thriving town, that is now half boarded up. Then the guy in the thrift shop came out to say he had seen us visiting and had called his brother to let us into the visitors centre. Turns out his brother is the mayor and he drove into town to show us the museum he had developed. His family were sharecroppers until the 60's and he told us all sorts of fascinating history and facts and showed us great photos and historic items. He was a great guy and we had such a brilliant time chatting with him. Official photos followed:

We then found this crawfish trailer

got a bag of spicy boiled goodness with andouille, corn and potatoes for £3!!

Den sharing the clawtastic beasties. For some reason he looks stoned?!!

We dodged a freaky rainstorm that you could actually see moving across the streets. Then drove through the Sunflower state and dropped by Indianola to see the BB King musuem black ribbons

Finally if was over to Dockery Farms, where Charlie Patton learnt to play the blues:

Short vid:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153376851439708&id=565704707&ref=bookmark

And a quick stop here:

Tonight we caught a rock n roll band at the shacks. 

We head further north tomorrow and have folded away the Southern road map :(

Awesome: We finally understand the 4-way stop signs. 

Banjo: Locals suck out the brains of the crawfish. Mayor Holland and us don't. 

Diner: Pulled pork, burger, root beer, pecan ale. 

Co-pilot: Successful navigation of key delta areas. 8-8.

Mozzies: They are partying in the stormy evenings and Lou is their piñata.

I went down to the crossroads

Late one again....

Yesterday we went here:

and saw a tonne of fab stuff including Muddy Waters' salvaged house, the 'Muddywood' guitar ZZ Top had made from a plank from the house

Items from the joint where it's claimed Robert Johnson was poisoned and loads more memorabilia.

Then we headed to Ground Zero -Morgan  Freeman's place - and signed the bar, as is tradition.

Then we wandered around Clarksdsle in the sweltering heat, feeling the vibe which   is a mix of cool and delapatated. Really friendly people - per usual - but the place clearly depends on blues tourism. There are about 7 blues markers:

We chatted to a guy about having seen T-Model Ford on the Thekla in Bristol a couple of years back, just before he died. The guy said he went to his funeral, which was a great reflection of T-Model's drinking and womanising life. He was married 6 times and had 26 kids, but tonnes more rocked up that day! He was godless, so three preachers attended to try and guide him into heaven, at the same time as a bottle of bourbon was being added to his casket!

And then we went to the formal, but one of 5 possible crossroads. We attempted to sell our souls, but given the spot is in the middle of a now very busy junction, we felt we may lose them altogether. 

On returning to the Shack Up, the sky darkened, the dust clouds kicked up from the delta soil and the thunder rumbled around us. We stood on the balcony until the rain came in, but not before our neighbours give us champange, so we could toast their birthday and raise a glass to BB King on the day he died. A windswept Mr Wise:

In the evening we visited the hotel where numerous stars stopped and prior to that had been a hospital where Bessie Smith died, having been refused medical attention at the white hospital following a car crash. The room she was in:

Then it was off to Red's juke joint (that's a BBQ trailer outside), where you get just beer or coke served from a big cool box. The bartender couldn't understand Lou's accent at all and an American had to order for her. Cool points at zero :(

We had gone to see Christone 'kingfish' Ingram, who Lou came across a few months back. How lucky were we that he was in his hometown this weekend?!! He is 16, has been playing since he was tiny, though only gigging formally for 2 years. 

Check him out online. Playing with his teeth:

Red's was packed (takes 50) with locals and tourists and was an awesome delapidated shack in which to witness great playing. Kingfish has just been invited to play with the BB King band. Lucky bugger!

And so ended another day of blues, heat, deltatastic fabness. Amen. 

I did not know that: W C Handy first heard the blues from a black guy playing a guitar using a knife as a slide, on a railway station platform, singing "I'm going where the southern cross the dog".

Banjo: A lack of weirdness today, or are we just becoming more weird ourselves?

Diner: Hot tamales, ribs, mac n cheese.

Co-pilot: Den drove straight at a post and Lou kept giving wrong turnings. These things are unrelated. 4-4. 

Mozzies: I call that one bitey. 

Thunder rolling over Clarksdale, everything electric blue

RIP BB King - but more on that in today's post, as this is from yesterday. 

We left the luxurious Shoals accomodation to head back onto the Natchez Trace down to Clarksdale, Mississippi, having spent the previous night shamefully watching some of the Law & Order Binge-a-thon. 

First we stopped off at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio to soak up the vibe. 

Orange sofa and chair are the original ones, as seen here:

Here (Mick Taylor)

Keith

Lou

Dylan recorded some of Slow Train Coming and Saved here, as well as at Fame. Below is pic of the basement where the post recording parties took place. Legendary building. 

We crossed the Wilson dam,

 

counted dead armadillos :(

saw Alvin from The Straight Story chugging along the side of the road,

saw a sign for Vulcan quarry - could this be the ISIS evil equivalent as per earlier post?

We ate our cookie from French Camp, which had been made as part of 'activities undergirded with a biblical world view'. Undergirded?!! Anyway, tasted like a regular cookie, we'll let you know how our undergirding fares. 

Our route included 103 miles on the - stand to attention - Military Order of the Purple Heart Highway. 

And as soon as we arrived at The Shack Up Inn, Lou got her groove on (she's not ripping into a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, but playing You Got to Move, ironically at a painfully slow pace).

So this is where we are staying for next 3 nights:

Bar

Stage

Instruments you can borrow 

We then headed to Po Monkeys juke joint. We drove. And we drove. And we drove. Until we hit a dirt track. And drove some more. Until this place appeared in the middle of a cotton field. 

Inside is like a grotto of lights and foil decorations, which bounced off the excited shiny faces of the white middle-aged tourists, trying to act like they did this kinda thing all the time, as the place filled up with partying locals. Thursday night is clearly the new Friday night down south. Though Po Monkeys only opens once a week. 

Lou drank 3 cans of coke, got her buzz on, danced, got hit on with the subtle whisper in her ear of "I see you" (a tad stalky), and thoroughly enjoyed the DJ's fairground style banter. Den found the music a tad pornographic, until he considered that the Blues that would have been played in earlier days was just as potty-mouthed. 

The journey back was challenging, as the windscreen developed a dead bug veneer. Yup, back in the sultry Mississippi. 

We got back to what we expected to be a rocking late night, to find the jug band had failed to arrive and everyone was tucked up in bed. Except the toads. And mozzies obviously. A great day/night. 11 days left. Bloody knackered!

Awesome: EVERYTHING!

Banjo: Undergirded baked goods. 

Diner: duck gumbo and blackened catfish tacos. 

Co-pilot: A certain friction in the air at times, but Lou bumping the SUV through the cottonfield may have got her up to a 6. 

Mozzies: We're paying the price for Highway 61 Revisited.