Cross America with the Blues

My son and I are about to embark on quite an adventure. With the help of this forum we have begun plotting our itinerary to travel from NYcity to San Francisco/ our 'theme' is American Music- a 3 week adventure that will take us to Washington DC (wanna know the blues? what better place to start! :) ever hear Leadbelly's Bourgeois Blues? "It's a bourgeois town!" is Washington DC

2 days in DC-visiting the Smithsonian and the Spy Museum and visiting our House of Congress telling em what we feel- we head down the Blue Ridge Parkway through Virginia and North Carolina. We take 3 days camping out if the weather goes our way.

From here we head to Nashville Tenn for a couple of days of music and hanging out

We'll then shoot over to Memphis Tenn for the river and music for 2 days.

Memphis and onto the Mississippi Delta, The Land Where the Blues Began.
and into New Orleans. Here we will spend a day or three.

From New Orleans and the Louisianna Delta onto Austin Texas! where I know we'll hear some great music.

After Austin we'll be doing some hard travelin' for we'll need to make some time to head into the Canyonlands of southern Utah

after a couple of days hiking and exploring and camping in the red rocks we head toward the west coast post haste into the Nevada desert and onto Reno Nevada for cheap hotel digs at Circus Circus and then home to our home near SF Bay

most of our trip we'll be camping out. keeping our costs down with an occasional hotel or motel. We'll be making a video of our journey and our car is a Prius to keep the gas costs way down and sparing the air a bit with lower emissions. We know its not all fun and light, it'll be tough at times but what in life is worth it if you don't get the Blues once in a while.

Here's our 'rough outline' map. Still in planning stages. any comments, suggestions, words of warning, campsite suggestions, hotel motel suggestions much appreciated.

Welcome back to the RoadTrip America Forums!

On the way between Memphis and New Orleans, your map shows you using I-55. A route more in keeping with your theme would be US-61, the Blues Highway.

In the southwest, be on the lookout for venues with live Native American music.

Finally, I don't see where your map takes you to Las Vegas, but maybe your plans have changed since you last updated the map.

AZBuck

whoa what a great article and terrific tip. thanks so much. why didn't i think of that song by Bob Dylan-'Highway 61 revisited'.


"Now the roving gambler, he was very bored
Trying to create our next world war
He found a promoter who nearly fell on the floor
He said I've never engaged in this kind of thing before
But yes I think it can be very easily done
We'll just put some bleachers out in the sun
And head out on Highway 61"

great American song/ yeah we be taking that highway.

again, much appreciated, thanks for taking the time.

Instead of going way north back to interstate 80 from Utah, we'll just head up to Highway 50 and cross Nevada with it. I've heard it's much more scenic than interstate 80. I'm sure it's slower but who cares. Who needs Vegas, Dino and Frank and Sammy don't play there no more.

"Mona Lisa must've had the highway blues
you can tell by the way she smiles"

one other thing
my local library has lots of audiobook cd's i'm transferring to the ipod and listening to a iittle Dickens, Elmore Leonard and Philip K Dick and a David Mamet Play, anyone with some recommends?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-482603%29.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melvin Furd

I've heard it's much more scenic

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Here is one roadtripper's take on US-50.

Quote:

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Who needs Vegas?

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Well, if you enjoy this site.... RTA's corporate home is in Las Vegas. Here are some of things we enjoy about living and working here.

Mark

Whoops don't mean to put down someones town, least of all the hosts city! I beg your pardon. Thanks Mark for those articles, I am more inclined toward the quiet and solitude these days so the route 50 article is handy and who knows a little detour to Vegas is always a possibility. Would love to see Bette Midlers act!

What a great idea to make a trip based on Blues. Let us know how it went.

Thanks man. my son is one helluva piano player and he can play the blues like you wouldn't believe and he's only ten years old (11 in July) He sings the Dylan song Highway 61 amongst many other songs and he can sing. Frankly if he's game and I'm not going to push him, we're going to blow some minds, so we're going to go to the Land Where the Blues was Born....Recommended highly!-by Alan Lomax

Winner of a 1993 National Book Critics Circle award, a rollicking memoir of the legendary folklorist's journey into blues country

http://tinyurl.com/57okxg

Me, I'm a filmmaker so we're hoping to combine and make a little movie about our trip. I've got my trusted HV20 canon camera, and a tripod, a li'l red Prius, camping gear. and we're gone. Will keep this forum posted as we proceed. It has been an enormous help in plotting out this trip.

You and your son, who sounds very talented, should have a lot of great memories from this. I really look forward to your roadtrip reports. Happy travels!

We'll be posting a blog sort of sporadically from the road i'll be logging in here maybe with some reports and will link this forum to our blog in case anyone's interested. Last night I spoke with a pal who suggested when traveling up from Lousiana to Texas to check out Lafayette and try and hear some zydeco and tex mex music along the way, I am going to be on the lookout-the theme of our trip is American Roots Music not spend all your money at prepackaged and muccho expensive Disneyland..we'll see how this all goes, my son is a mature 10, i am pacing the trip (thanks to the info here about drive times) with only 300 mile-day-max rule so that he doesn't get bored and tired. He is so young and doesn't realize what 'once in a lifetime' means yet..

on another note
my wife was reading 'Real Simple' magazine today and saw this website on finding restaurants on the road. Probably been covered here but just in case it hasn't here's the linque

http://www.roadfood.com/

Might be fun to check out some of those places. Thanks!