I headed out of Little Rock early early early for two reasons: one, in case the underground Rennaisance Fest people tried to kidnap me again, and two, because I had a long sidetrip to make on the way to St. Louis, a sidetrip that was actually in the complete opposite direction of St. Louis. In the interests of keeping good karma for the rest of the trip, I'd decided it would be best to drive to Avalon, Mississippi and apologize to Mississippi John Hurt for mistaking him for the actor John Hurt earlier this week.

This wasn't the easiest side trip in the world to make. As the crow flies Little Rock isn't really that far away from Avalon, but there's no easy highway route to get from one to the other, due to a small natural barrier known as the Mississippi River. So I was going many hours out of my way. I felt a little weird buying six large coffees at the coffee place near my hotel, so I pretended I was getting them for the family. "Dad wanted hazelnut," I said, staring at a paper I pretended was a list but was actually a coupon for a free hour of laser tag in Spokane, "and Uncle Bob wanted no cream." I also took like ten extra straws, hoping that I could tie a bunch of straws together and drink out of all six coffees at once through an elaborate straw network, but the project was massive fail.

The drive itself went fine - got to Avalon at about 10 am (after only two wrong turns, no less!) and asked a local for directions to Mississippi John's gravesite. "I can tell you," she said, "but what do you want to go see John for anyway?"

"I have to apologize to him," I explained. "I thought he was an actor for a second."

"Apologize?" she stopped for a moment, (justifiably) bewildered. "You know he's dead, right? Where're you from?"

"California. Northern - near the redwoods."

"You drove from California to apologize to a dead man?"

"No, just from Little Rock. I'm on a road trip."

"You drove from Little Rock to apologize to a dead man?"

"I felt really bad about the actor thing."

I thought she was going to give me directions to drive into the river, but she sent me straight to John, where I said my piece. Nothing happened (which is fine - I don't need more ghosts) but I felt better.

Then it was time to head back north, for trip #3 through Memphis and then on to St. Louis. I stopped in Kentucky for lunch at a place called The Whistling Pig - I guess technically the pig on the front was fifeing or flute-ing, but close enough. Got into St. Louis in time for dinner but not much else - the hotel serves St. Louis-style pizza, which I'd never had before. It's a sweeter sauce with Provolone cheese on top instead of mozzarella. All seems well now that Mississippi John and I are square again, and my coffee buzz is almost halfway gone. With a little luck I'll fall asleep at about 5 am!

Now listening to: Wall of Voodoo, "Mexican Radio"

I fell asleep at like 3 am, but only with Nashville Public Radio, a TV and like seven lights on, and even then my dreams were a little spacey. No more ghost tours, period.

An easy drive to Memphis, where I spent most of the day (and Super Timing kicks in again - Morning Edition had a piece about an author who was on a trip from Memphis, though his worked out a little worse than mine). And most of the time I spent in Memphis was spent at Graceland, of course. It gets a bad rap for being gaudy and 70's-ish - one guy in line, who'd been there before, said Graceland "is what a house would look like if Homer Simpson decorated it" - but it mostly looks like a 70's house. My mom's parents stopped decorating their house in the 70's, too, and it looks kind of like Graceland, though without the three TV's or the Meditation Garden. The Jungle Room was pretty awesome and very 70's.

Then, Little Rock, which was... strange. The city was fine, but in walking near the Bill Clinton library I heard this unusual racket and decided to investigate. Suddenly I was pulled into a room with joyful yelling and a lot of lute music.

"Silence, good sir," says a voice. I was too stunned to say anything yet. "No harm, I say, no harm will come to thee in our care. We wish to welcome thee to our Renaissance festival. I am Leofrick the Joiner."

Ok, a Ren fest. I can deal. "Well, thank you, Leofrick, but why are you holding a Ren fest indoors and at night? And don't you normally charge people to get in, instead of kidnapping them off the street?"

Leofrick looked sad. "We are an underground Renaissance festival," he shrugged. "The knaves and defilers refuse to grant sanctuary to our merry band. We are cheery enough to celebrate in a chamber pot if it should be required, but would that we could speak openly in this joyless place."

This was quite an outfit: three jugglers, a guy roasting what looked like a wild boar, some Elizabethan ladies that Bill and Ted would've liked, a jester who backflipped over and over, an "entertainment" in which a woman and man insulted each other in allegedly hilarious ways - they all seemed to involve the word "ointment," from what I could tell.

"Lo," called Leofrick. "I present Marcus The Good, a chivalrous mann who hath come from a distant land to command our Fair and raise it from its lowly stage to a realm of great glory!"

"Huzzah!" cried like seven people, one of whom wore Birkenstocks with his medieval tunic. Better let them down easy.

"That's very nice of you, Leofrick, but I'm just stopping by. See, I'm on a road trip from California to New Hampshire. I'm just here in Little Rock for the night. I'm driving to St. Louis tomorrow. (pause) I like your outfits... maybe?"

The medieval seven looked confused. I tried again.

"I can't lead your medieval group to glory. I have a job waiting for me in New Hampshire. Have you heard of a man named Otis H. Basketry? He's a true leader, much more of a leader than me. (pause) You aren't ghosts, are you?"

More confusion. One of the seven fell over. "Prithee, tell us of thine journey," Leofrick said. "What is this 'California' thou hast spake of? Is it near the Papal States?"

Ah, the language! The only way out was to give some excuse in medieval-speak. Remembering my "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," I stood up straight and said, "Good people, I am in haste. Lord Basketry requires that I journey to a faraway place known as New Hampshire, where I shall advance your noble cause. Together we will drive a stake through the heart of the scurvy cow of destiny! We shalt take thee and thine and thou and sample wares together! Excelsior! Onward! Klaatu barada nikto!" Then I ran for the door.

Now listening to: Otis Redding, "Mr. Pitiful"

(Photo by divemasterking2000)

And here I thought I'd paid my respects to Hank Williams when I visited his boyhood home on the way to Montgomery! No, Hank's alive and well in Nashville, the home of the Grand Ole Opry - and I do mean alive. More on that in a second.

Arrived in Nashville about midday, and proceeded to have about four bags of hot roaster peanuts for lunch, which were good but not really filling; the rest of the day I felt like I should be at a baseball park or something. Downtown is nice - the state capitol grounds were surprisingly nice, and the Country Music Hall of Fame was very interesting. Interesting fact: Walter Cronkite is in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Just kidding. (Minnie Pearl's in there, though - she's right near Elvis.) There was a guy in the front area who was visibly upset that the Marty Robbins exhibit had closed. "I told you we should've come in the spring," he told his family.

A quick stop at a local cafe for a meal that wasn't peanuts, and then it was time for a ghost tour. I actually freak out a little at ghost stories and other occult stuff - I remember hiding behind the doorway when the folks rented "Night of the Living Dead," and I have to skip past those ghost shows on A&E, but I figured what the heck. Turns out there are ghosts everywhere in Nashville, including none other than Hank Williams. Hank is a busy ghost - he's been seen onstage at the Ryman Auditorium, backstage at the Ryman, in the alley next to the Ryman, and about 20 million other places too. My sixth grade teacher used to tell us about how Thomas Jefferson's ghost could be heard playing violin at the White House. I wonder if Hank doesn't show up to jam sometimes.

Anyway, Hank was just one of a bunch of freaky sounding ghosts, including Andrew Jackson's wife Rachel. Now I'm back at the hotel and I can't sleep cause I'm thinking about the ghosts, so I'm just going to write about some random stuff until I fall asleep.

I heard a cool story on Studio 360 about Bell Labs.

The Maxwell House of coffee fame is here in Nashville.

Shannen Doherty is from Tennessee (not Beverly Hills)

Here's a video of someone thumb wrestling Mr. Monopoly:

PLEASE LET ME SLEEP GHOSTS

Now listening to: Rockwell, "Somebody's Watching Me"

(Photo by Brent and MariLynn)

Still living the dream from yesterday's disco epiphany, I decided to make the most of the day - no lameness, no excuses, no bizarreness. Today would be Normal Road Trip Day! And that's pretty much how it worked out. Pretty much.

Took off early from NOLA, driving along the gulf coast. Went south at Mobile so I could drive into Florida (just to say I'd been there), and then headed back toward Montgomery. Stopped at the Hank Williams Boyhood Home and Museum and their memorabilia, and then on to Montgomery for locations of great historical interest: the Civil Rights Memorial, the Alabama state capitol and Dexter Avenue church where Martin Luther King preached.

See? Normal day, right? Except that I stopped at a coffeehouse for dinner, where a guy was playing really solid folk blues guitar - I don't play myself, but he was doing this complicated fingerpicking where it sounded like he was playing two guitars at once. At the break I tried to go over and compliment the guy, but my post-disco exuberance was wearing off; plus, acting normal for an entire day had made me a little punchy. So when I tried to say "Great job, man, that last song you played was awesome" what came out was "Great! I am last song, are you?" He sort of looked puzzled, and I tried again with a little more success. "Thanks, man," he said, "can't get much better than Mississippi John Hurt."

Now I know who Mississippi John Hurt is, but owing to the aforementioned punchiness, I replied as if he'd been talking about John Hurt the actor, and mumbled out "Yeah, he was great in 'V for Vendetta.'" The musician - I think his name was Tom - frowned. "Not funny," he said, turning away to his guitar case. Then he threw what I think was half a Hostess Fruit Pie at me. It was lemon, I'm pretty sure. "Out of town drunks," he muttered, walking back to the stage area, after ensuring that even Normal Road Trip Day wouldn't be completely normal.

Now listening to: Mississippi John Hurt, "Candy Man" (what else?)

(Photo by extraface)

Happy 4th of July! As you can see from this article, young people are coming from all over the country on Independence Day to help out in the Lower Ninth Ward. I'm a young person, and I'd intended to help out in the Lower Ninth Ward, but driving from Dallas took a little longer than expected. (Actually, it was getting up in the morning that took a lot longer than expected - curse you, spicy Dallas food!) I showed up in time to put a couple ladders back in a truck and high-five a couple people. I was thinking of doing good on the way there, so I helped create good vibes!

Speaking of vibes, I came to New Orleans to visit a very special place in my field of expertise. As you may know, I was a History of Disco major in school, and my advisor used to tell us about a club he worked at in New Orleans back in the day. Called "Too Much Heaven," the club was supposedly one of the few to proudly proclaim its disco influences through the "Disco in the wilderness" era that was the 80's and early 90's. It was able to do this because it was an underground club and proudly proclaimed its disco influences in private. There's a password and no song after about 1979 was allowed on the turntables.

After circling the rough area of the club for 45 minutes or so, I finally found the place and gave the password. (I can't post the password, but e-mail me if you want it) It really was like time had stopped. Loud jewelry, sequined vests, mirror balls and outfits that made me want to buy stock in a small polyester factory. The lights made it hard to be sure, but it sure looked like at least one member of the Sunshine Band was sitting in the back corner. The room was grooving to "Fly Robin Fly."

A tall woman came up and asked me to dance. This was not a good development - I am not a dancer by any stretch, and my interest in the club was purely scholarly. But she insisted, and we got out to the floor just as Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" started. Moving as little as possible, I swayed to the rhythm. Soon I started feeling the beat (or maybe the lights were getting to me?) and entered into a dreamlike disco trance that bordered on magical, a transcendent bliss interrupted only slightly when I knocked to the floor by several large hairdos of people around me. Too Much Heaven indeed.

Now listening to: Silver Convention, "Fly Robin Fly"

(Photo by T Hall)

My super-timing has returned! While resting in Abilene, I listened to a podcast of a show from KERA-FM in Dallas called Anything You Ever Wanted To Know, which appears to be the format as well as the title - you call in or e-mail a question and the audience calls in and e-mails answers. And in the most recent episode, the second e-mail is from a guy who says "I want to take a year and travel the United States... I really want to see the best that each state has to offer. Where can I find the perfect or most ideal travel plan?" I've only seen a fraction - a fraction! - of this country, but I'll definitely share some suggestions from my trip thus far.

• Go to Vegas and meet the guy who wants to build Flintstone Head Hotel!
• Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau is awesome, even if you end up there by accident.
• Idaho Potatoes!
• The Mike the Headless Chicken statue

It's pretty clear that these fit the e-mailer's description of the best America has to offer. Oh, let's also add in the Munster Mansion, which is not too far outside Dallas. I only got to see it from the outside, but it's highly unlikely that anything in Texas will be cooler than this. I am consulting Texas Twisted just to be safe.

When in Dallas it's easy to wonder if the city is bigger than all the non-Dallas stuff put together. Everything just screams Hugeness, like the Pioneer Plaza Cattle Drive. Took a tour of the Dallas Zoo (though I didn't get to ride on the SpongeBob 3-D adventure) and then made the obligatory visit to Dealey Plaza to see where JFK was shot. This was full of a Dallas-sized crowd of tourists and conspiracy buffs. The following sentences were overheard by me in Dealey Plaza:

"Hey, remember that one X-Files? They talked about this"

"The (expletive deleted) Mavs... it's like, I'm Kennedy and watching the Mavericks is my Oswald"

and my favorite:

"It definitely could've been suicide. Did they ever test Kennedy's hands for powder burns?"

For dinner I wanted some real southwestern fare, so I went into a place that got strong recommendations. I ordered something that came to my table on fire, and then set my mouth on fire with spices. I have been making drinking fountain runs every ten minutes at the hotel. This may not sound like much, but keep in mind that I'm filling up a cooler each time I go.

Now listening to: John Lee Hooker, "Nobody Knows"

(Photo by glennharper)

Note to self: always check the web before driving several hours to something!!! Being a bit weird, I wanted to drive to Alamagordo to see the Trinity site - the site of the first atomic bomb test - but it's only open a couple times a year, and today wasn't one of those days. D'oh. In the interests of taking lemons and making lemonade, I visited The International Space Hall of Fame. Interesting fact: Walter Cronkite is in the International Space Hall of Fame. (He's been inducted, I mean - he's not stuck in there or anything)

Then I drove - forever - hoping to push to Dallas in a day, but it would've been way too much so I stopped in Abilene for the night. Had I not gone through Alamagordo I probably would've made it. The same truck (I remember its vanity plates) passed me three times on I-20. Was he doing laps around me, like the track runners used to do to us slowpokes in gym class? At least it wasn't the UFO people in Roswell following me. Gotta appreciate the little things.

Now listening to: David Bowie, "Starman"

You probably already guessed this about me, but I, Marcus Franz, am part of the conspiracy. Area 51, the alien interview tape, the whole deal, I'm in on the secret and I'm supposed to keep it from you. I didn't want to leave you in the dark, but this thing is so huge that if I were to spill the whole story, who knows what could happen. Actually, I do have to be careful what I say about UFO's, because the Viva Bread Party, the one I'll be working for in the fall, has a line in their platform that we should protect our yeast supply in the event of "natural disaster, military attack, extraterrestrial invasion or other catastrophic event." Should any of these things happen we're supposed to call Will Smith and ask for help. But even knowing that proves I'm one of Them, doesn't it?

I'd actually just come down to Roswell just to say I'd been there and because it sounded like fun (though a friend of mine from Colorado told me "I been to Roswell... no sane alien would go there!"), but it's a good thing I got here, or I might never have been clued into my conspiratorial streak! It turns out the annual UFO Festival is happening later this week, and the real diehards are already in town. I was driving over to the Roswell Museum and Art Center and a somewhat wild-eyed couple flagged me down. "Hey Prius! You shouldn't be here!" says the woman.

"Prius?"

"We know which side you're on," she said, with more disappointment than anger. I'd let her down without even knowing it. "That hybrid engine wasn't developed in a lab... not on Earth anyway."

"I got this car as a graduation present from my mom and dad," I said, trying to bring the conversation back down to at least this galaxy. "You'd have been a lot angrier if you'd seen my last car dropping rusty auto parts all over your town."

"This isn't our town, Prius," said the man, who I should point out was wearing a painter's cap and jean shorts that were so thin to only qualify as shorts by technicality. "And did you ever wonder why your mom and dad bought you that particular car?"

He rapid-fired me with questions before I could even try to answer.

"Are either of your parents government employees? Did they send you here on a disinformation campaign? What's the mission, to trick the normals into thinking I'm crazy? What else have they had you do - cult recruitment? Infiltration? Do they want us dead, or just imprisoned? We're onto you, Prius. The car is a dead giveaway. I've seen this a thousand times. I'll bet they kept saying they bought that car 'to save gas,' too."

"We're keeping an eye on you, Prius," the woman added. "You tell the Zetans that our thoughts are our own!"

I think I'll watch cable at the hotel tonight.

Now listening to: Antietam, "1-2-1"

(Photo courtesy toddross)

Answer me this, faithful readers: am I just an idiot, or am I not the only one who believed Pueblo, home of the Federal Consumer Information Center and its many free pamphlets full of consumer tips, to be a giant repository of free literature, sort of like a Fort Knox of consumer pamphlets? I remember seeing all those TV commercials where you'd write Pueblo, Colorado for a free catalog for various things. I hope the post office is good here, or the locals would drown in free catalogs.

As it turns out, I didn't see any catalogs in Pueblo, and apart from a quick trip to the Riverwalk, I didn't see too much of anything - another long travel day, but thankfully one without a lot of drama. I did see that if I make it to New Mexico tomorrow that I should avoid certain kinds of tomatoes, though I'd already known about that thanks to the free information source known as All Things Considered. Maybe Melissa Block is a Pueblo native?

Now listening to: The Who, "Real Good Looking Boy"

(Photo by The MaintainIT Project)

Just my luck - Weekend Edition Sunday had a story about summer road trips! I should have written in but then my trip has been a little hard to believe as it is. Tuned into Yellowstone Public Radio's Sunday Classics to keep mellow while driving into Montana, which many people warned me is a dangerous place to drive. None of the people who made this warning have actually been to Montana, but whatever.

My aunt and uncle are here in Billings and seem good. The whole town seems excited about the new baseball field - Dehler Park - which is the new field for the Billings Mustangs. Today was the park's official opening day, though the Mustangs don't play there until Tuesday. Instead we saw some little league clinics and then a game in the American Legion league between the Billings Scarlets and the Bozeman Bucks - or, rather, we saw most of a game, until the game had to be called on account of darkness - the new lights didn't come on as scheduled and so that was that. (Here's a local news story about the whole thing)

We went with a friend of my uncle's, who is about the biggest baseball fanatic you could ever meet. He's been to a park of every team, even if they're not the team's current home field, so he was telling us story after story about games he'd seen in different states. The best story was at Wrigley Field. "I'm sitting behind this guy who'd had too much to drink," he says, "and the Cubs were having a bad game. So the drunk guy says, 'If that pitcher gives up a home run I'm gonna punch him in the face.' Sure enough, the next batter hits a home run, and here comes this drunk fan onto the field. The thing was, though, the pitcher was some kind of martial arts student, and so the fan was the one who got knocked down."

So clearly having the lights fail at a park isn't the weirdest thing that can happen in baseball.

Now listening to: Steve Goodman, "Take Me Out To The Ballgame"

Update: here's audio of my uncle's friend (with a few extra touches from Andrew P. at NHPR and Ken Siebert at Yellowstone Public Radio).

(Photo courtesy Ken Siebert of Yellowstone Public Radio)