Miss in Miami
I had recovered from my extended visit to California and Oregon, and those leftover segments from my Amtrak USA Rail Pass that would soon expire were virtually burning a hole in my pocket. Wandering around the Amtrak site, I saw a suggestion that the train from Washington to Miami offered attractive scenic views of the route. I scheduled a quickie train trip that would only allow an overnight stay in Miami, and I added a nighttime tour of the city and dinner in the area at a restaurant that offered regional cuisine.
Unfortunately, the trip went badly from beginning to end. In addition to the horrible Amtrak customer service during the trip, they had engine trouble that resulted in our delayed arrival to Miami. We arrived too late for me to get a taxi to the tour starting point. Instead, I used DoorDash to have dinner delivered from a local restaurant. I had planned to go back inside the Miami Amtrak station and wait the 15 hours until my return train was scheduled to depart. What I didn’t know was that the station closed for the night shortly after the train I’d come in on arrived each evening–my fault for not checking this in advance. So, I got to spend the night sitting outside the station, hoping that I would be safe and that I wouldn’t need to go to the restroom (fortunately, on that front, I had gone to the restroom in the station just before exiting the building). BTW, please don’t let my family know about this, okay? Thankfully, it was a warm, rain-free night, and I had food and drink available. I had another service-quality-challenged trip back on a route that was no more rich in scenic beauty coming back than it was going down.
If you travel frequently enough, especially doing so impulsively, misses will happen. Moving on….
Music and More in Memphis
A few months ago, I had gotten the pleasant surprise of a pretty big royalty check for my second book, Recorded Solo Concert Spirituals, 1916-2022. I decided to submit a proposal for a paper presentation at the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) annual conference in Memphis, Tennessee, and use some of the royalties to fund the trip if my proposal was accepted. ARSC accepted the presentation, which would discuss composers of concert spirituals born in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
My original plan was also to visit several sites inside Memphis and across Tennessee. However, I changed my plans immediately after the state’s legislature voted to implement processes to negatively impact the already limited voting power of African Americans within the state. I also did everything I could to minimize the amount of money I spent in the state in protest of their actions. From purchasing gas and food to selecting a hotel outside the state, I spent money at locations operated by African Americans whenever I hadn’t already committed expenses for the conference. It didn’t hurt that the hotel and the gas in West Memphis, Arkansas, were considerably cheaper than they were in Memphis.
The conference was, as usual, very interesting, and folks were very complimentary of my presentation (when the link to the video presentation is available, I’ll add it to this post). I spent all that Friday, including the collectors’ gathering that ran until 11 p.m., at the hosting hotel. On Saturday, my only conference-related activities were to visit the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum in proximity to the famous Beale Street and ARSC’s award dinner that evening.
The exhibit at Rock ‘n’ Soul covered a lot of popular music history, from Blues to Country music in the area. They looked at the impact of African American and White musicians on the development of this music. I particularly appreciated the individual audio guidance that allowed visitors to tour the displays at their own pace. There were also lots of interactive options, such as various jukeboxes with listings of songs from the era that a visitor could opt to play through their earphones and even a recording studio setup where I got a couple of pictures standing by a mike as if singing.
I took lots of pictures along the way. Some are below, with the rest available at https://singin1.click/piwigo/index.php?/category/20:
National Civil Rights Museum
Since I had visited the National Civil Rights Museum in 2006 during the Music Library Association’s annual conference, I hadn’t originally planned to visit there this trip.
However, I heard an announcement that the museum was holding its grand opening of a new section called “The Legacy.” I added an extra day to my visit, checking out on Sunday morning, gassed up SB while I was still in Arkansas, and drove to the museum. It was fairly early when I arrived, but the parking lot was already half full. Shortly after I arrived, an African American motorcycle gang pulled in and gathered to get pictures in front of the museum. One gentleman was kind to take pictures of me standing in front of the Lorraine Hotel’s Room 306, the infamous hotel room where Civil Rights leader the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was staying the day he was assassinated in 1968.
I could see the new facilities across the street, but I wanted to “review” the old displays first. What I didn’t remember was just how extensive those displays were. So much history contained in that space! One thing I was pleasantly surprised about was the racial diversity of the attendees. That day, there seemed to be as many White visitors as there were people of color.
I don’t think I can do the power and scope of the exhibition justice with words. Fortunately, I took a lot of pictures and have posted them at https://singin1.click/piwigo/index.php?/category/21. I selected a few of those pictures to display below:
When I left the museum, I sat outside in the sweltering Sunday heat trying to generate enough energy to walk across the street and enter the new “The Legacy” portion of the museum. It didn’t take me long to acknowledge that I simply didn’t have enough energy to make the effort. Instead, I slowly made my way back to SB, started her and saw that her temperature gauge reported the current temps of 100 degrees. I have to admit that’s warm, even for me. I noticed that the parking lot was now filled to capacity with a car waiting to take my handicap parking space when I vacated it.
Two Parks-Fall Creek Falls State and New River Gorge National Parks
As I drove east on I-40 with the plan to visit New River Gorge National Park instead of various locations in Chattanooga and/or Nashville that would have caused me to spend money in Tennessee that I didn’t want to spend as part of my personal protest, I realized that I was going to come close enough to Fall Creek Falls State Park in Spencer to be worth diverting there. With a 256-foot drop, Fall Creek Falls is one of the highest in the contiguous United States.
I reached the site of the falls around 10 a.m. on Monday. The park itself was beautiful and quiet. Thankfully, it was not at all crowded at that time of day, and the walking distance from the parking lot was within my comfort zone. From the falls overlook, I could see the waterfall descend to a plant-festooned gorge. There was an option to walk a 1/2-mile path to get a closer look at the bottom. Any thoughts I might have had to avail myself (honestly, I had no thoughts on this front) were allayed by the description of this as a “rewarding but strenuous” hike.
The waterfall was clearly not at full strength since the Winter runoff that would have provided those waters had already ended. Still, it was worthwhile to see, and I didn’t lose all that much time–and didn’t spend any money–to make the stop.
I’m posting a single picture here, and the rest are available at https://singin1.click/piwigo/index.php?/category/22.
My drive into West Virginia delivered me to the Grandview area of the New River Gorge National Park that Monday evening. I had previously visited this park in November, 2024. I had tried then to see as much as I could, but I hadn’t prepared properly to know routes and locations. This time, I traveled with my audio scenic app, Shaka Guide, and more print information about the park than I’d had before.
Since I’d visited Grandview before, I decided to make my way to a campground and hope I could settle for the night. I got to the park’s Outpost campground, but it took a long time for me to relax and get some sleep. I woke up around 4:30 a.m. and saw that the clouds that had covered the skies before I had gone to sleep were now clear. I grabbed my camera. The ground lights were fortunately limited, so I actually got a few decent pictures of the night sky.
The next morning, I drove to the Canyon Rim Visitor Center, which took me over the New River Gorge Bridge. I did my usual memorabilia purchase and talked with the rangers about scenic driving in the park. The first area took me to Fayette Station Road, which offered views beneath the bridge. Eventually, I reached Thurmont Depot, a small town that had flourished and then failed based on the success of coal in the area. While now little more than a tourist site, there is still an active Amtrak station there. The road back ran beside Dunloup Creek, a beautiful little stream that I had to photograph and create a short video, which is below:
Towards the end of the day, I returned to Grandview. Info about its visitor center indicates that it’s only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, so the facility wasn’t available to access. I walked down to the overview and could immediately see the difference between the late fall foliage that covered the area on my first visit and the verdant foliage of this visit. I took a few pictures, which are below or accessible at https://singin1.click/piwigo/index.php?/category/23, followed by a panoramic shot I took:
When I was done, I wasn’t ready to settle for the night, so I started my drive home. As it worked out, I needed only one rest break to complete the drive.
As always, I thank the Lord for granting me the stamina to make the trip, the damn good reflexes to steer the Silver Bullet (SB) as she needed to be guided, and the ability to enjoy His handiwork as it whizzes by my windshield.
While the distance between my home base and Memphis is within what I would drive rather than fly, I didn’t really contemplate the distance in relation to the recent trip to California and Oregon. Then, adding that throw-away trip to Miami?!? My eldest sister is threatening to tie a cowbell to me to keep track of my comings and goings.
The map below indicates 1,919 miles, but between the fairly short trips between Memphis and West Memphis, driving around Memphis just to see what there was to see, and the extended driving necessary to cover the expanse of New River Gorge NP, I’m sure I passed over 2,000 miles for this trip.
The map I mentioned is below:
