You can't see them very well but that is a couple of Sphinxes either side of the doorway. There are a dozen slits along the right hand side of the building and that's it for windows. And you can see the scale from that car in the foreground. The front doors must be 20 ft if they're an inch.
And its Hallo to the finest hairdo in the USA at a service station just outside Montgomery. Aleetia was her name:
Ain't that some shit.
While I was at the Nature Reserve yesterday, the one with the beware Aligators sign, I followed the trail, which was quite short, out onto a wooden decking pier at its end. Some 100 metres or so out into the sea. There the Pelicans flew overhead and I hoped to capture one on camera but became involved in a conversation with a bicyclist, probably in his late 60's, who was admiring the view. By the time that conversation was over so were the Pelicans, for the time being. It was one of his favourite spots and he was curious how I had found it. Chance I said, plays a part in our lives, and we talked about where I had been, where he wanted to go, and so on. He dreamed of a motorcycle tour of Europe. He had visited that place where the first ironclad ship was built, in the north east of England. We agreed on Hartlepool. I think I'm right there. Tyneside and Wearside meant nothing to him.
He told me another tale about the Natchez Trace Trail. Tennessee was rich in resources both manufactured and natural. One of the important natural resources was its trees. People from Tennessee would build great wooden raft-like boats, fill them with goods to trade and sail them down the Mississippi to Natchez which was an important port; although its the best part of 100 miles inland from New Orleans where the Mississippi (god I love all those consonants) meets the Gulf of Mexico. Goods would be sold en route and at Natchez. But then the boat would be dismantled and the timber sold, as its like could not be found thereabouts. The intrepid sailor / traders would then return to Tennessee loaded with money; and no doubt hope to build another next year. And their route was the Natchez Trace Trail.
Well of course it did not take long for the bad guys to cotton on to this and the trail became a hot bed of thieves and robbers. So a private protection industry grew up in Natchez to escort these traders back home up the trail.
Walking the streets of a modern American city isn't quite so risky, but it does bring you face to face with the poor, the unemployed and the homeless. I have tried to adopt a strict rule of; happy to chat with you and sympathise but NO. No money.
Nobody really walks anywhere except the poor, especially in big cities. And I have arrived in a big one: Atlanta, Georgia. So inevitably when I got lost on my way back from a really rather tasty German Biergarten meal, and was struggling with the map under a streetlight, a homeless man was very keen to help me out. He escorted me a quarter of a mile to the right place and then the pitch: he needed a bus fare to look for work in the morning. $2.50. Now this is about £1.50; he wasn't asking a lot. I pulled out my wallet but had only two $20's. A bit too generous I thought. So he happily tagged along with me to reception where I changed one, and I handed him $3. Thank you Mr Peter, thank you. The receptionist remarked that even working people were poor these days. I could only agree.
Not sure I think much of this place but I believe Martin Luther King Jr came from hereabouts; certainly there's a 'National Historic Site' not too far away. So maybe's a visit before leaving. This hotel/motel is at the expensive end of what I have been paying and there's NO FRIDGE. Its the first one with neither fridge nor microwave. It costs the thick end of $100. Compare that to the budget motel for the last two nights in Mobile @ $45 with fridge and microwave. OK there was no breakfast there, but hold on, there's no breakfast here either.
And to think we gave Jimmy Carter the freedom of Newcastle.
I've still got a silver visiting card case with the City's arms embossed on it and a few cards saying 'Cllr Peter Thomson: Lord Mayor'. I should have brought it and gatecrashed the Town Hall.
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