new dog old trick

Where to eat and sleep in Ireland - Cromleach Lodge

I just spent a week in Ireland with my two brothers on our sorta, kinda, almost annual sight-seeing, drinking, eating, catching up, hanging out fest.  We hit the UK so that we could visit with youngest brother David's clan (wife Sally, daughter Jennifer, and new-born son William James Jonathon) and then we jumped to Ireland.

One of the places in Ireland where we spent an evening was Cromleach Lodge.  My wife and I spent one great evening here in 2001.  My wife still claims that the dinner we had that evening was the best she has ever had and I would agree that it was one of the five best that I have ever had.  Plus the lodge was a very comfortable place to spend some time.  We were sad that our trip had only allowed one day at Cromleach and have always looked forward to our next visit. 

Terminal E - Houston Intercontinental

Well, I just went on a rant about how nasty travelling is these days (see immediately below). But I did have one pleasant surprise on my recent trip between Orange County and Austin and that was changing planes in the new Terminal E at Houston's Bush Intercontinental (IAH). I have historically tried to avoid a plane change at IAH because terminals C and D are low on my list of favorite terminals (although they have been upgraded somewhat in recent years). But the new Terminal E goes right to the top of my list of nicest airport terminals in the U.S. Clean (well, it is brand new), spacious, very open and light, lots of amenities - and the amenities are not necessarily the same old chains that you see anywhere and everywhere that make most airport terminals so disconnected from their local community. I noticed at least two restaurants with pure Houston roots - Clyde's BBQ (that would be local basketball hero Clyde Drexler) and PappaDeux's. I didn't get a chance to check the availability of wifi connectivity so not sure how Terminal E works as a stopover for the email/web junkie.

Rethinking Travel: Professional and Otherwise

I'm sitting in my office trying to catch up on the backlog of weblog reading that accumulated while I was travelling for the past 10 days while at the same time I'm nursing a nasty cold caught while travelling and come across this:

ProfessorBainbridge.com: Rethinking Travel: Professional and Otherwise

I couldn't agree with him more...although maybe we are both just cranky from our respective colds. As he says:

The costs are escalating, however. Security hassles. Long lines. Delays. Cancelled flights. Grungy airplanes. Lousy food. Surly service. Disrupted sleep patterns. Lately, moreover, I seem to come down with a cold - or something worse - after roughly every other flight.

I enjoyed my trip to Chicago, but on balance it just isn’t worth it anymore. Next year I’m cutting way down on the amount of travel I’m doing. In fact, if I can’t get there by car, I’m probably not going.

Turns out that I had two separate trips during my 10 day absence. For the first trip I did decide to drive the 360 some miles from my house in Newport Beach to Phoenix. Even with the high cost of gasoline, esp. in California, it was a pretty easy decision. On the one hand, screwing around with airport security, hassles at two airports, the likelihood of some issue with the rental car, being forced to fly America West, etc. On the other hand, jumping into my Porsche with as much crap as I felt like carrying just in case I needed it, a high-speed drive mostly across the desert and its interesting vistas, total control over the music track to the trip, having my car available to drive around Phoenix instead of some rentacrud, no airports, no crowds, etc.

My second trip - Newport Beach to Austin. You can't get there from here, of course. There are no direct flights from Orange County airport to Austin, so it's connecting flight time. It's outrageous extortion in terms of pricing by American, so I end up on Continental. Full flights or almost so on all four legs. It really is a much bigger hassle than it used to be. And I did catch a cold. Did I catch it on a plane? Who knows, but I do seem to come down with something after flying a lot more frequently than I used to. I wonder why?

I've pretty much decided that anything up to 350 or 400 miles will be a driving trip from now on if schedules can be bent to permit. That gets me over to Phoenix or Las Vegas and up to San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Jose.

Road trip report - Stax Museum of American Soul Music

After several days in New Orleans my travels took me to Memphis. I spent a couple of days there visiting my brother-in-law and waiting for my wife to arrive and join up with the road trip. While there I took the opportunity to visit the (relatively) new Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

The Stax Museum is located on the site of the original Stax recording studio. It's in the middle of a residential neighborhood on the south side of Memphis. I really enjoyed the museum and found that I spent quite a bit more time there than I had anticipated. I highly recommend it for anyone visiting Memphis and anyone interested in the history of American popular music in the second half of the 20th century.

The museum tour opens with a 20 minute or so film (this seems to be a real trend - I've noticed a lot of newer museums sending people through an opening film that sets the stage for the tour of the museum - the National D-Day Museum is set up exactly the same way) which was informative and enjoyable. Of course it would be hard to not be enjoyable with all that great music to use as a starting point. Then the museum tour starts with an exploration of the roots of the great R&B/soul music recorded at Stax by talking about the Mississippi delta region that fed Memphis with the gospel and blues traditions. It then moved into the early days of the Stax record company, and then continued to jointly explore the evolution of Stax records as a business and of the artists and music recorded at Stax.

The music from Stax/Volt was always my favorite American music of that period in the mid to late 60s and into the early 70s - led by Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and Booker T. The Stax/Volt artists - along with James Brown - were to me the epitome of soul music and of great American R&B. I mean, I always enjoyed some of the Motown acts (how could you not love the Temptations), and Atlantic had their own stable of great artists - Aretha, Aretha, Aretha - but the Stax/Volt sound just seemed so much more elemental and driving to me. Of course, what the hell did I know - a white kid from Ohio and Indiana. But I loved that music.

What I didn't know was so much of the story behind it. While it was obvious even back in the day that one difference with Stax was the multi-racial element - you couldn't miss Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn backing up Otis or Sam & Dave - I didn't realize that the entire Stax company story was as integrated as it was. Of course, that eventually ended after the assassination of Dr. King in Memphis, but in the early days the sounds flowing out of Stax were the product of an integrated team of folks on both the artistic and the business side. I'm not sure what, if anything, that had to do with the differences in the Stax sound, but retrospectively it's an element of the Stax story that I find interesting.

If you love music and enjoy music museums like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland or the Music Experience in Seattle, I think you'll find a trip to Soulsville, U.S.A. to be worth your while.

Road trip report - National D-Day Museum in New Orleans

One of the new attractions in New Orleans is the National D-Day Museum. My brothers and I designated one rainy day as museum day and, since our recently deceased father had been in the army during WWII and had campaigned through France into Germany, we decided to visit the D-Day museum.

The museum is well done with good interpretive features. It covers not only the best known D-Day - the landing in Normandy on 6 June 1944 - but also all of the other D-Days, particularly the multitude of amphibious assaults in the Pacific campaign. We ended up spending much more time at the museum than we had expected - once you start you get sucked in reading and trying to absorb all of the information displayed.

One thing I would warn you about - this place is very sobering. If you're in New Orleans for a wild and fun trip this place will slow you down for a while. We forget just how bloody WWII was. Yeah, I know, we've all seen the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan - but this is the real thing. I've read a lot of WWII history about both the European and Pacific campaigns but I was particularly shaken by the reminder about the number of bloody (on both sides) operations in the Pacific. I guess most people, even the younger folks who don't get any history to speak of in high school any more, may know about a few of the big battles like Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa - but how many know about bloodbaths like Tarawa or Peleliu. We should never forget the sacrifices made to secure the freedom that Americans, most Europeans, and most Asians know today.

As we walked back to our hotel from the museum my brothers and I got to talking about how little we actually knew about our father's service during the war. I have a vague recollection of him telling me that he had served with a field hospital and had landed either on D-Day or on D+1 and had been busy from the beginning fixing up smashed up paratroopers. But I had never been able to engage him in any detailed discussion. In talking, it turned out that neither of my brothers had ever been successful in drawing out any details either. We all knew where he had trained in the states (Camp Atterbury in Indiana) and where he had been stationed in England (outside Chester) but once you get to D-Day up to the end of the war it's a blank. That's unusual because my father had not exactly been the reticent type.

Road trip report - New Orleans restaurants

On my December-long road trip I spent seven nights in New Orleans. That provided the opportunity for much feasting in one of the three or four best restaurant towns in the country. Here are some notes on some of the restaurants I grazed my way through including Commander's Palace, Uglesich's, K-Pauls, Mothers, and Mulate's...

Memphis in the meantime baby

I'm in Memphis for a couple of days. Got in yesterday afternoon. I'm staying at the Hampton Inn Peabody Place - great location half a block off Beale Street. Facility is new, clean, and seemingly well run. I've done the Peabody Hotel and with its famous ducks before but didn't value the experience as much as the Peabody Hotel folks did and see the Hampton Inn as the place to stay when visiting downtown Memphis.

Had dinner with my brother-in-law Pat last night. Pat owns an event production company here in town. Had the John Hiatt dinner ("...at least we can get a decent meal down at The Rendezvous"). Of course, had to have the dry-rubbed pork ribs. What else would one eat at The Rendezvous?

Tonight my wife flies in to Memphis and tomorrow it's on to Kentucky for Christmas week.

On the road again...

This is my last evening in New Orleans. Tomorrow I drive to Vicksburg, MS and then on to Memphis where I spend a couple of days. Time to leave the cajun food zone and head back into the land of BBQ. Also time to head north into the land of colder weather. Not sure what my connectivity options will be like the next few days so posting may be limited to non-existent.

...and the road goes on forever

Still road tripping. I'm in New Orleans where I've been for the last few days. The French Quarter is just as dirty, tacky, and interesting as I remember. It has been fifteen years or so since I've been here so there have been quite a few changes but I am surprised at how many places I remember from several trips during the 80s are still here.

One thing that hasn't changed is the quality of the food in New Orleans. Incredible restaurants at all price levels. Two I've eaten at this trip that are off the charts are Commander's Palace and K-Paul's.

I'll post a short restaurant summary in a day or so.

I've got another couple of days here and then on to Vicksburg and then Memphis and then Paducah. At least I'll finally get off I-10.

Road trip update

Made the drive from Austin to New Orleans today. Not too bad a drive except for trying to get through the middle of Houston at 9 a.m. on I-10. Ugly.

I've been listening to my iPod playing through the car stereo on the trip. It has been a great companion on the road. And with over 3500 songs on my iPod, I'm not hearing the same few songs over and over like I would if I was scanning the radio dial and I'm not lugging around dozens of CDs. Even using a cassette adapter the sound quality has been very acceptable.

Yesterday continued my tour of the Que-zone (see earlier post here). Ate dinner at Stubb's BBQ in Austin. Tried the brisket and the turkey. Brisket was good - not as good as the shoulder at Kreuz Market, but still good. The turkey was nice. Moist with a good flavor. And the collard greens were very tasty.

Today I temporarily departed the Que-zone on arrival in New Orleans. However, given the range of great food in New Orleans, a temporary hiatus from BBQ is survivable. Had a light dinner (by New Orleans standards) of crab & andouille gumbo with a side of creole creamed spinach.

I'll be in New Orleans for six days, then back on the road. After doing about 2000 miles since Saturday, I don't mind not getting back in the car for a few days.