Sunset

Cross Country Trip Day 21

Atlanta, Georgia to Miami Beach, Florida

Our great adventure concluded three weeks and 3,931 miles after we started, as the steady drumbeat of work called us back to Miami Beach.   What I learned from this trip was that before we settle down and find the ranch of our dreams, we will take six months to explore more of America in an RV (camper, for you non-Americans).

And now, it's time to say good-bye temporarily, till our next great adventure, when I may resume this blog.  Thank you, dear reader, for sticking around.   Au revoir. . . until next time!

Sunset over Georgia fields

    

Diets and Houses

Cross Country Trip, Days 19 and 20

Atlanta, Georgia

On our way to Atlanta on Day 19 of our trip, we stopped at a little town near Augusta called Martinez to stock up on groceries at EarthFare (which you may remember from this post).  Atlanta has three Whole Foods but none of them carry Rudi's organic spelt English muffins, and this, my dear friends, has become a necessity for me.  (Who among you ever imagined you would get to know my breakfast habits on this trip?  Who among you cares?) How odd that a natural foods market was in the middle of this tiny town, and how fortunate that they had what we wanted.

This would be the biggest city we would visit on our trip, and we could tell from the volume of cars on the road as we approached Atlanta.  The metropolitan area is home to almost 5.5 million people (9th largest in the US) and it boasts a $270 billion (billion with a b) economy (6th in the country, 15th among world cities).

Atlanta is a treasure of a city, cosmopolitan and yet manageable, hip with traditional values, and so au courant that the menu at the Urban Pl8 restaurant offers paleo options in addition to vegan and gluten-free.  What is paleo, you might ask?  I did the asking for you.  It means a diet without grains and consists of foods that our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate during the Stone Age.  Higher in protein and fiber, minimal carbs and high-glycemic foods.  Frankly, the diet seems to be skewed towards intake of greater animal fat, and directly contradicts the results of the China Study, which advocates a more plant-based diet.  (Who among you would have thought that a journal of a cross-country road trip would lead you to dietary and food analysis?  Who among you cares?)

We toured some of the residential streets with grand homes, exemplars of Southern grace and elegance.  There's a lot of neoclassical architecture with Doric columns, entry stairs and porticos  and windows with muntins (rather than the single panes of glass typical of modern architecture), like this:

The one below was my favorite.  I could totally see it in L.A. on about 20 acres of land with stables, an art studio, organic vegetable garden and a long driveway with an entry gate that reads B-B Stables.

The beauty of this particular neighborhood is that it's practically forested and yet steps away from the hustle of the City.  

 
We stopped in for a Sunday morning dose of spirituality at the local chapter of Centers for Spiritual Living, held at the spectacularly renovated Academy of Medicine, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and features the chandelier used in Gone with the Wind.

If you're a fan of neoclassical architecture and would like to see more detailed photos of the lovely interior, click here. 

Lunch was at J. Thomas, a quirky and vegan-friendly place with an ambitious and creative menu that delivers on taste. 

  

After lunch, we ambushed a Ford Thunderbird in the parking lot.

Atlanta has a vibrant film industry and is often called the Hollywood of the South.  We hit up a place called Eclecticia (or something like that) which rents and sells film props and other tchotchkes.  Nothing worth dropping any coin on but Marina made a couple of new friends. 

  

South Carolina Sky

Cross Country Trip, Days 16-18

Florence, South Carolina

The first time I felt like I was in the South proper was when we hit South Carolina's back-country roads, lined with old wooden houses and people rocking on their porches watching the cars go by.  Everything looked different. The topography was flatter, the clouds seemed low enough to touch, the blue of the sky much brighter.    

I can't say I loved South Carolina.  Finding decent vegan food was challenging in Florence, a small but spread out town of 30,000.   The only reason we stopped here was to see family.  Two of my twenty-two (yes, 22) first cousins live here and between the two of them they have 8 beautiful intelligent children whom I can never get enough of.  (Family is probably the only reason to visit South Carolina.  The state is still flying the Confederate flag (the flag of the Southern states which attempted to break away from the USA) atop its capitol building.  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People continues to boycott the state for this.)

There wasn't much to do in Florence -- the cemetery takes top honors on TripAdvisor as the number one attraction, and the raceway is second, neither of which we visited.  There's a War Between the States Museum, which is only open Wednesdays and Saturdays, so we had to miss it.  I don't think we missed much because it's mostly a display of Civil War weaponry.  The website promises that employees will help you find your Confederate ancestor, and I'm pretty sure I don't have any since we didn't arrive in America until 1981.   I did find their voicemail kind of cute, and you might too.



While exploring the downtown area, which is undergoing a revival (for the last 10 years or so, apparently), we stumbled upon a well-dressed gentleman who cleans windows.  Unfortunately, he didn't speak much English so I couldn't find out his story but he's been a fixture of Florence for at least as long as the City has been trying to revive the mostly deserted downtown.  He might have been the inspiration for the mural outside the coffee shop whose windows he was cleaning.  Whatever his story, he's one cool cat.

The New South

Cross-Country Trip, Day 15

Lake James, North Carolina to Florence, South Carolina
(with stops in Hickory and Winston-Salem)

If you find yourself in North Carolina and in need of a snazzy European haircut, go and see Ronnie Major at Le Grande Salon in Hickory, NC.

I would never have thought that, from this small town of 40,000 people nestled in the Carolinas, Marina could emerge with the most stylish haircut she's had in years.  That's due to Ronnie's skill and talent as a hair designer but it also made me question my pre-conceived notions about this whole region.  

Like a lot of Americans, I thought of the South as a conservative, backward place without much respect for people of color, gays, atheists or progressive thought of any kind.  Highway 10, which runs along the southern part of America, is the shortest route to Miami, but it would have taken us close to the heart of the Deep South -- southern Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida panhandle.   The Ku Klux Klan flourished in these places and vigilante mob lynchings of black men was a way of life.   Remnants of that thinking still color these towns and their people, and the Confederate flag, representing the union of Southern states who sought to break away from the USA, is still flown from the dome of the capitol building in South Carolina.   

The South's claimed  "constitutional right" to treat people as property (and preserve their economic base of cotton) was the reason for the long and bloody American Civil War, which lasted four years and took 600,000 American lives. The real issue was states' rights, i.e., the right of the federal government to create laws that trump any individual state's laws.  This fundamental philosophical debate continues today and it's this battle over who has the right to legislate over cultural matters that creates the notion of two Americas, in my opinion.   Every time the federal government seeks to legislate on cultural matters such as gun control, abortion and gay marriage, a handful of die-hard backward Congressmen (and women), usually from the South, cry foul and claim for their individual states the right to pass laws on those issues. 

But as I learned today, there's an Old South and a New South.  Whatever that term may have meant in the past, today the New South stands for a more modern economy and way of thinking.  Health food stores and vegetarian menu options are part of the New South.  So are European haircuts and gay pride parades (Hickory's 4th annual is coming up this year).   The university towns are full of bookstores and cafes and wine bars and (somewhat) progressive thinking.   All this is what we've encountered on our trip along Interstate 40, a belt of highway running (approximately) through the lower third of the country.  

I've been pleasantly surprised at the non-hostility of gas station cashiers and hotels and the helpfulness of staff at restaurants and shops.  I chalked it up to being in big cities, but Fort Smith is a small town and virtually everyone we met (hotel staff, shopkeepers, museum volunteers, meter maid, restaurant staff) were all very helpful and friendly.   This must be the New South.  

And a good example of it is the historic arts district in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where we made an impromptu stop for lunch yesterday with friends we just found out/remembered were living there.  We ate at a restaurant called Sweet Potatoes (well shut my mouth!!) owned by two black lesbians.  How's that for the New South!  And yes, the parenthetical and exclamation marks are all part of the name --see the sign below. 

And that was our last stop on I-40.  Florence, South Carolina is only a 3-hour drive from Winston-Salem, and the most direct route takes you on the 38, a real back-country road through what is most certainly the old South.  We lost cell phone service and I felt the same anxiety going through Texas.  Will we get stopped because we have a rainbow sticker on the truck and California license plates?   Will the police or the locals drag us out of the car and beat us up because they don't like Marina's British accent?    We stopped at a gas station, and I walked into the shop with trepidation to see if they had SmartWater (even though the stupid water costs less).   Then I saw the man behind the counter and instantly relaxed.  Of course!  He's Indian (dot, not a feather).  My peeps!  They own the gas stations and the hotels and where there's an Indian hotelier, there's sure to be an Indian restaurateur (the hotelier's brother-in-law or second cousin once removed), so even in the South, I know I can always fill up with gas and food and find a bed for the night.  Ha!  Take that, Klansmen! You may make people run but we make the economy run.   Indians are the new black.  Wait, that didn't come out right.  What I meant to say was Indians are the New South.  

On our way to Florence, we passed through Bennettsville, a tired town that looked inhabited only by cars.  The downtown is full of lovely but empty brick buildings.  Land is probably dirt cheap.  For a brief second, I thought about buying up some of the buildings and neighboring land, creating a development for progressive people from the north who want a better quality of life, opening up art galleries and restaurants downtown, et voila!, creating a little Santa Fe or Asheville. But by the time we got to the on-ramp for the freeway, that dream had collapsed in a shudder of construction nightmares, zoning codes, neighbor disputes, nasty battles with governmental authorities, and a general sense of weariness.  It's good to have ideas, and some ideas are best left unexecuted.   But in case anyone reading this blog has a bunch of money and about 5 to 10 years lying around, there's an opportunity for you to shape and mold your own little town in Bennettsville, South Carolina.  

Lake James, North Carolina

Cross-Country Trip, Day 14

Lake James, North Carolina

We spent the day at Burt's amazing waterfront house on Lake James, a body of water 15 miles long.  Here's the view from our guest room.  That's Burt's private dock in the foreground, and his boat peeking out from under it.

He took us out on his little speedboat for a spin and a swim, and then we lazed on the dock with a picnic of all our goodies from Earth Fare.   The water was clear, cold and invigorating!  I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Is there anything better after a day of cold swimming than a hot steam and shower, followed by a delicious dinner and wine with friends?  Marina made red chard and mushroom miso soup, spinach and kale salad with golden beets, and tempeh in tomato sauce, and then we ended this lush day with chocolate walnut brownie ice cream made from coconut milk.  They say there's a big difference between pleasure and joy but today those two blended beautifully.  I was reminded once again that one of the greatest blessings in life is happy time spent with good friends (and great food and wine helps too!).  I met Burt when he and I were lawyers at the same firm.  He's the smartest guy I know, and an amazing friend.  He introduced me to a way of thinking that changed my life forever and I will always be grateful.  Thank you, Burt, for a wonderful time in Asheville and for all you've taught me.             

Santa Fe of the East

Cross-Country Trip, Day 13

Asheville, North Carolina

Asheville is known as the Oasis of the South or the Santa Fe of the East.  Downtown is a collection of restaurants that hold their own against L.A.'s best, live music venues, and shops owned and loved by locals.

Photograph by Lindsey O'Hare

Photograph by Jason Frank Rothenberg

The town is a haven for New-Agers, who believe that the magnetic ley lines of the Earth intersect here (or something like that) and/or that the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountain ranges in which Asheville is cradled provide a very nurturing energy and/or that the town is sitting on trillions of tons of quartz.  Personally, I think they all come here for the curried almond pate at Earth Fare.  I mean, that's the kind of thing that would draw me to a place.

Asheville is also home to a thriving and entrepreneurial gay community, which owns a lot of local businesses.  One of the country's largest remaining independent bookshops (and one of my favorite hang-outs when I used to frequent Asheville), Malaprop's, is located here.  Founded by two women, this is an important place, not just in Asheville, but as a beacon for independent retailing, and the founder's story of why she started the store and how they've managed to stick around for 30 years is short, inspiring and worth reading.

We spent the morning puttering around the shops on Lexington Avenue and Battery Park Lane (there's a Broadway street and a Flatiron building too -- Asheville seems to have a bit of a New York complex) and each one was . . . adorable.  There's no other word for it.  Every store seems to be incredibly well curated no matter whether it's selling rare jazz and funk CDs and records, artisan-created jewelry, vintage dresses and beaded skullcaps from the 1920s, hand-made leather-bound Italian writing journals, or every variety of incense and crystal known to mankind.  Then there are the street vendors making and selling jewelry, bottle openers out of used horseshoes, string instruments that look like ukuleles and miniature guitars, hand puppets from recycled fabric, the list goes on and on and on.  Just as everyone in LA is a screen-writer (or an actor), everyone in Asheville is an artist.   If you like beautiful things, you'll find it easy to shop here.

Click the picture and read the poem

  

Dinner was at Rezaz, another long-standing and outstanding local restaurant, this one serving a fusion of Mediterranean and European food.  The chef accommodated our vegan requirements graciously and deliciously, and we chatted with old friends who had all gravitated to Asheville from elsewhere as Burt continued his mission of convincing us to move here.   My only regret as we downed a few bottles of Rioja was that we wouldn't be in town longer to enjoy more of their company and Asheville's amazing food.  

Water, Water Everywhere

Cross-Country Trip, Day 12

Nashville, TN to Asheville, North Carolina

We had miserable weather on our way out of Nashville, and Marina's driving was heroic.

When we finally got away from the rain, the Blue Ridge Mountains rose like temptresses, drawing us closer to one of our favorite places in the world, Asheville, North Carolina.

About 10 years ago, we shopped real estate in Asheville in a serious way.  We were all set to move here and set up ranch with horses, goats, chickens and ducks, but as often happens, life took a different turn and set us down in Los Angeles instead.

Our first stop this time was for groceries at Earth Fare and I felt like we were back in LA again, with all the beautiful organic fruits and vegetables from California, except that I had sticker shock when we were rung up at the cash register.  Not counting the wine and beer, we spent close to $100 for a couple bags of produce and packaged goods.  It turned out to be worth every penny because we thoroughly enjoyed our picnic of curried almond pate, untuna vegan salad, marcona almonds, olives and black sesame seed brown rice crackers.  But I'm scooping myself.  That picnic came two days later, at the Lake.

After days of wandering through Texas and Arkansas and Oklahoma, it was good to be wandering the food aisles of a decent supermarket with my people again -- people who enjoyed eating healthy food and didn't mind paying an arm and a leg for it.   Now that's California!  But wait . . . we weren't in California, we were in Asheville.

We stayed with one of my dearest friends, Burt, whom I've known for almost 25 years.    Here's the view from his pied-a-terre in Asheville.

After a bit of catching up with Burt and meeting his new beau, Ronnie (the epitome of a Southern gentleman!), we went to dinner at Mela, an Indian restaurant that does a terrific job combining traditional dishes with Western elements, such as tandoori shrimp on a Caesar salad.   Of course we stuck to the tried and true veg thali, which was pretty good.

Southern Girls

Cross-Country Trip, Day 11 

Nashville, Tennessee

Southern girls are wild.  Strip-tease, strapless, down-on-your-knees, dirty dancing wild.   There's a certain kind of Southern girl -- long blonde hair, pretty, feminine, demure and polite with elders.  Then they go drinking.  They toss back beers and cocktails, toss their heads, and wrap their arms around young good-looking jocks.  They get up on stage and dance, they dance seductively with boys, and with other girls.  They display their sexuality.

A bachelorette party was under way at the Big Bang Dueling Pianos when we went in.  Southern girls with pretty blonde tresses in short dresses.  The one in white raised her arms, stood up to dance, bloomed in the attention of the others.  You could tell she was itching to get up on the stage with the young men playing the two baby grand pianos.   She sidled up to the security guard on one side of the stage, then the other.  Her arm wrapped around his shoulder, her hand on his pecs, as she whispered to him.  A white woman seducing a black man in the South.  It was an odd sight.  Americans are fed a kind of mythology of the South, of the segregated (why not call it dis-integrated?) Jim Crow years, lynchings and injustice.  This woman and this man didn't make me nervous, not the way all that police presence in Memphis made me nervous, but I wondered whether there was some instinctive primeval twitch in the big burly white men in the room.  

The handsome buff piano player rebuffed her attentions, but eventually, she got her way.  A rap singer came on stage to sing Gold Digger by Kanye West and the blonde woman was revealed as the bachelorette, due to be married shortly.  She got up on stage and mouthed the lyrics to the song, dancing with abandon, sticking her butt out in the audience and gyrating, leaning against the piano, prancing across the stage.  It was the moment she had been waiting for all night, and she seized it.

The crowd was electrified.  The song itself was so unlike the pop and rock that came before (and after), and to have one of their own entertaining them brought them to their feet.  A young man flung dollar bills at the girl, who danced on, basking in the glow of our attention.

The song ended, she hugged the singer, the crowd burst into applause, and the evening continued, changed.

Parallel Lives

Cross-Country Trip, Day 10

Memphis, TN to Nashville, TN

Arkansas and Tennessee are both very wooded, with trees hemming the highway.  The green forests of the East probably support a lot more life, but it's the West that I prefer, with its wide open spaces and huge rock mountains.  We did see quite a few large birds as we drove through Tennessee.  A hawk (could have been a sparrow hawk) dove down right in front of our truck (as we were going 70 miles an hour) and spread its wings, as it nabbed its prey in the strip of median separating the highway lanes.  Every so often, lone hawks circled above, and we managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of a large one perched on a high branch of one of the pines lining the highway.   Even at 70 mph, it was easy to see its light tan chest and beautiful dark speckled wings.  

Marina and I played a little game to while away the drive.  It's called parallel lives.  What alternate career paths could we have taken?  I chose geologist, archaeologist, nuclear physicist, actor, comedian, entertainer . . . .  She chose airline pilot, engineer or detective.  It's like having the ingredients for a dish:  tomato, onion, cilantro, pepper, salt, and some random vegetables.  You could make so many different things from those basic ingredients -- depending on the spices you use, it could be Indian, Spanish, Russian, Italian.  That's how it is with people.  We have the same basic ingredients, but what makes us decide to pursue one path over another, to choose a respectable profession instead of the life of an artist, to become a plumber instead of a musician?  The desire to make a "good living."   For how long has "good living" meant money instead of soul satisfaction?  It's hard to choose the road less taken.  The encouragement and support of our families certainly helps.  But unless we have a burning desire to create, to live a life that's different from what's been chosen for us, it's much easier to go with the flow and do what the society we live in thinks is acceptable.  I guess these musing are remnants of the night before at Beale Street when I was inspired by the singer and the young dancer pursuing their passions.   But who can say what they are feeling?  Maybe the singer looks down on the crowd night after night, urging people to show love to the band by putting cash in the tip jar or buy their CDs, and maybe she thinks, "I'm so tired of this.  I wish I had gone into real estate instead."     

And now for something totally different.  Here's a little sound relief from all the writing.   (Thanks to my friend Parind for the tip on uploading audio.  He has a great website for all things travel:  Travel on the Dollar.)     

A Little History, A Little Protest and A Lot of Music

Cross-Country Trip, Day 9 (continued)

Memphis, Tennessee

The Lorraine Motel is a lovely example of mid-century modern architecture.   Its clean lines, angled edges, and distinctive 1950s font and color are perfectly preserved.  

Even the interior of the rooms are stuck in a time warp with period furnishings.  

  

 The reason, of course, is because this is the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968.  The picture above is of the actual motel room he stayed in during that fatal visit.  The white wreath on the balcony marks the spot that he fell.  

The Lorraine Motel is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum, and I was determined to stop in Memphis on our way to Nashville to see it.  Unfortunately, the museum has been closed for renovations this year, but we were still able to walk up the steps to the balcony and see the room from outside.   It was a powerful and moving moment, and I plan to come back when the museum has been re-opened with new exhibits.  

But only if I have the heart to get past the lone protester at the entrance to the museum.

She's been urging visitors to boycott the museum since ground was broken for the construction of the museum over 25 years ago.   

According to her website, Jacqueline Smith is a former employee of the Lorraine Motel and its last tenant.   According to the museum's website, she's never set foot inside the museum.  According to the New York Times, Smith barricaded herself in her room and had to be forcibly evicted when renovations began.  She was living at the Lorraine since 1973 as part of her job as hotel housekeeper. 

Ms. Smith's story is intriguing.  We asked her whether she thought her protest had had any effect, and she said "Oh yes.  The museum gets about 200,000 visitors annually.  The Memphis Zoo gets 2 million.  So that tells you that attendance is declining.  That's why they're doing the refurbishment.  They're desperate for visitors."  A bus pulled up and tourists filed out.  

Marina said, "This is a strange time to bring tourists here.  The museum is closed." 

Without looking, Ms. Smith identified the name of the bus.  "They're not going to the museum."

"So why are they coming then?"

Ms. Smith stared at Marina.  "Because that's where Dr. King died."

"I know that.  But why wouldn't they come when the museum is open."

"They don't want to see all that.  They don't need to.  They just want to see where Dr. King died, take their picture, and leave, that's all."

After we took pictures and paid our respects, we took our own leave of the Lorraine and Ms. Smith. The plan was to drive straight to Nashville, where we're staying with friends, but it was almost 6 and we would have ended up at their house at 10 o'clock at night.  Somewhat reluctantly, we decided to stay the night in Memphis.  We wandered the streets of downtown and stumbled quite by accident upon Beale Street, a sort of blues alley packed with clubs and restaurants playing all kinds of live music.  Memphis is known for its barbecue and it happened to be BBQ Fest when we arrived, but unfortunately, we found no tempeh, tofu or vegetables.  

As it happened, the night we arrived, Club 152, a very popular nightclub was raided for drugs and every single police car in the entire city seemed to be parked on and around Beale Street.   The closure of the club must have cost the owners thousands and it also really screwed up my night-time shot of Beale Street because of the dark spot on the left.

We wandered into the first place on the corner, B.B. King's club, and enjoyed a couple of beers each, sweet potato fries and celery.  They did have some black-eyed pea hummus, which wasn't very good, so we stuck to the fries.  Would have loved some vegan barbecue wings.  But the real story isn't the food, it's the music.  I found the band I want to hire if I ever have a big party in Tennessee or feel like splurging to fly them all somewhere and put them up.   The King Beez regaled us with covers of funk, pop and blues.  The lead female singer has a stupendous voice and a great stage presence.  Their recorded music is disappointing (of course I bought the CD!) compared to their live performance but I'll have the memory of that serendipitous and magical evening forever.

When we walked into the place, an older couple was dancing, and I knew right away that spending the night in Memphis had been a great decision, one of those gifts from the travel gods that happen when you're not looking.  I tried to embed the video in the blog but I'm having technical difficulties so until I figure it out, just click this link.

The crowd gave them an appreciative round of applause, and a good while later, another couple took the floor.  Unfortunately, by this time, my phone battery as well as the evening light was dying, and I couldn't get a decent video.  This couple was in their 20s, and the girl was good but the guy was unbelievable.  His body was an instrument, and he played it like a master.  His feet glided across the floor, and he moved with grace and confidence. He knew when to stand on his toes and pause at the beat, and when to let his torso move languidly like a snake rising from a charmer's basket.  Even the singer was astounded.

And we were lucky enough to have front row seats to this incredible spontaneous performance.  It was as though the travel gods had opened up the heavens and showered us with blessings.

I wept with joy when the song finished and the audience erupted in applause.   With perfect timing, the singer said, "What do you do for a living?" and we all laughed because it was so obvious that he was a professional, that he practiced for hours and had gotten to know his body, what it could do for him and the effect it had on others.  I wept because he knew he was born to dance and he was doing what he was born to do, and the singer too, and how much joy and pleasure they brought to people simply by doing what they loved, by honoring the yearnings of their soul.  Yes, reading, writing and math are very important, but the arts are equally so, and all of us should be exposed to them early and often.  Anyone who says otherwise has a cold, dead heart.