I am writing this in the backseat of a car. We have gone just over 3000 miles and are almost to the Black Warrior River in Alabama. This trip started Wednesday night about midnight right when my girlfriend got off of work; we piled into a Nissan Altima and set off. I drove from about 1am all the way until 11am the next morning (Thursday), we made it to Utah. We stopped in Salt Lake City for some food and to stretch before we set off again, I tried to sleep in the back of the car all day to prepare for the next set of night driving, but as everyone knows car sleep just isn’t the same as sleeping in a bed. I drove again from 3am till about 9am (Friday) and we stopped to eat breakfast on historic route 66 in New Mexico, then we made it all the way to Alexandria Louisiana where we slept at a hotel so we could be fresh for the next day long stop, and the reason we drove so far in the first place, New Orleans. It’s hard for me to write about the drive from Washington to new Orleans in much detail because it really did just go by in a flash, nonstop 40 some odd hours of car time and it is just mush memories in my brain, the truly memorable things were yet to come.

We got to New Orleans mid Saturday after a long and needed sleep. It was not my first time in that city, but it was just as incredible as the first time I drove in. We actually found really nice parking in the French Quarter despite being warned about trying to drive into the part of the city. First thing was first we had to go get some beignets, but then we were off to find some live music, and it was the easiest hunt of all time. We saw so much music on the street, but eventually made our way into a piano bar. Once we got through with the piano bar went to go find some dinner and then to go listen to some jazz. We made it to Fritz European Jazz Bar. It was such a great environment, a little bit removed from the craziness of Bourbon Street, we settled into this bar for the rest of the night. The name of the band was the Red Hot Brass Band and despite the name of the bar, there was nothing really European about the music, all the musicians were from the south, and they were playing classic New Orleans style jazz. Late that night we took off for a friend’s house where we spent the night before waking up the next day (Sunday) and driving to the Gulf Coast in Alabama.

The Gulf Coast is always shocking to me never have I ever experienced the tempter of the color of the water there, it is so opposite to the body’s of water we have in Washington. We spent alto of Sunday just being on the water. We floated around in a lazy river, took a boat ride to Gulf Coast National Seashore, and then another boat ride to a restaurant on the water where I had some fish that I have never heard of. It was very strange to see a menu that didn’t have halibut or cod or salmon on it. Later that night we went to a place called the Flora-Bama, a bar that is on the Florida/Alabama line. This place had to be the perfect place to do this field study. I had no idea the type of situation we would be walking into. I assumed this was a normal sized single story building, but I couldn’t be more wrong. The building was three stories high, and even had a section on the beach. There were three different musical acts happening that Sunday night, and I am told on other more popular nights there are even more bands playing in even more rooms. Not only were there a lot of bands playing that I had the opportunity to listen to, I felt like I also got a good tour of some southern music. The first and second bands we saw where fairly similar playing loud guitar-solo-filed classic and pop country songs. The third band however I was much more interested in, they were a group of four guys (3 on guitars, 1 on drums) playing acoustic versions of old classic southern music. It was here I heard the band play an incredibly powerful version “an American Trilogy,” a song that could almost be considered a southern folk song. This song is so steeped in southern history it made me homesick for the Pacific Northwest. This inspired me to try and write some sort of song about the place I am from, hopefully containing bits and pieces from classics from the area.

Now I am on the way to the Black Warrior River, where my girlfriend’s parents own a small cabin right on the shore. Hopefully this will be a place where I can relax and discover some more things about a place I know very little about. Next post I should be back in Washington.