Out the window, Vermont streamed away from us, the villages, verdant hills, vine covered factory shells gradually disappearing, to be replaced by the flatter and more peopled landscape of Massachusetts. It was not an improvement. In 1968 Simon and Garfunkel produced the song America. In part, the lyrics say Toss me a cigarette, I think…
Vermont is a land of abandoned and derelict mills, large, brick, mid-nineteenth century structures that were once the heart of the American Industrial revolution, a revolution fueled by the arrival of the railroad. We were awed by the size and number of these old factories and mills as we rode north. They dominated the otherwise…
We left Washington early on Sunday morning. It seems that I had scheduled all our departures for pre-dawn conditions. Washington was not like New Orleans, there was no cache in the early hours, it was just a city getting ready for another work day. We navigated the beautiful great hall of Union Station and found…
Agriculture, Education, Treasury, F.B.I., the great, gray, giant buildings began to meld together after a while as our bus wound its way through afternoon traffic, the driver seeming to obey unwritten rules allowing him to straddle lanes and park where ever he wanted. We goggled out the window like true rubes while a fellow traveler…
Washington D.C.is evocative. Since starting school, the images of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol Building have been part of our schooling, and culture. They are the icons of who we are and what we’ve accomplished as a people. To see them in person is akin to the Moslem visiting Mecca. One…
Our wake upcall was at 5:00. Our suitcase wheels rumbled quietly across the bricked courtyard, the fountains on the walls trickled silently as well in a morning so damp and warm that the air was a shroud of steam. A few steps through the brilliantly white and quite cool lobby and we were out the…
The Courtyard of the Two Sisters was three blocks from our hotel. Even at nine in the morning, the humidity sucked our energy away and our progress toward the Courtyard was halting. Our seating was in an enclosed courtyard where huge fans hung from the eves of the building, offering a small bit of relief…
Sunday morning was catch up time and we slept until 9:30, caught up on texts and Facebook when we woke, and finally climbed out to face the day. We found beignets and iced café au lait a block down Decatur at Café Beignet, which rivals Café Du Monde as the original beignet shop. For the…
Mississippi was a long slow afternoon of green and brown fields. It was Saturday afternoon and we saw few people out and about. The fields yielded to marsh with white egrets flying low from one hillock to another. Gradually the marsh gave way to swamp (more water, less land) and then ultimately melted into the…
We woke up in Memphis and my mind went to the old Chattanooga Choo Choo train song. We did indeed have breakfast in Tennessee, southern fried chicken on a biscuit, strawberries on the side and coffee (tea for Lydia of course). The night before we had waited for the rain for several hours in the…
barelyaboomer 