Yep, there are at least two.

I got to sleep in!  There was no wet dog nose in my hand or anywhere near my face.  I didn’t hear a dog throwing itself to the ground and sighing with an impossibly deep and long breath!  I’m on vacation!  I’m afraid to ask my son how he woke up this morning.

We showered and packed.  Then it was a quick trip downstairs to the breakfast area to grab a bit before hitting the road.  I know there were a few other women in the room, but I mostly felt overwhelmed by the guys!  Rich was getting his eggs with biscuit and sausage gravy while I was standing in line waiting my turn.  A young man of about 25 or so came up and stood on the other side of Rich and was slowly trying to insinuate himself into line ahead of me.  Oh no you don’t buster.  I was here first.  I calmly stepped in front of him as Rich turned away in his direction.  This caused him to step back a bit.  A nice snarl would have been appropriate, I think.

After breakfast, it was time to transfer luggage to the car and turn in the card keys.  We dashed across the street to pick up the necessary supplies for a road trip.  We filled up our travel mugs and grabbed a couple of cold waters.  Getting back to the car, we adjusted for the environment and headed to the highway.  When I say adjusted for the environment, I meant that the windows were rolled down.  It was only 72 when we left.  That meant I could have the windows down.  I rolled down one of the back windows to adjust for pressure as well as comfortably airflow.

Rule number 1 is driver rules.  Whoever is driving gets to make the rules.  This is only superseded by rule number 2.  When the temperature reaches 84 outside of the car, the air condition goes on with no questions or begging from anyone, not even the driver.

Traffic was good again today.  Trucks were out and about, but not hogging the road and seem to be making their way in our direction without hindering us.  Our first stop was in the New Madrid rest area.  In case you don’t know, New Madrid in the site of the largest set of earthquakes in the U.S.  They started in December 1811 with roughly a 7.0 and continued through Feb 1812 with a 7.9.  It was during the last one that the Mississippi River is recorded to have run backwards.  It was said that the quake caused church bells to ring of their own accord in Boston.

In the building at the rest area, they have a graphically representation of the Mississippi on the floor with the 5 individual earthquake locations marked on the graphic.  Each earthquake location records the time and magnitude.  It’s pretty cool.  There is also a location shown for a set of waterfalls that appeared after the last earthquake that later disappeared.  The area where the river ran backwards is also marked.  Poor cool.

I recently found out that a distant cousin from my dad’s side of the family had been living in the area at the time of the earthquakes.  I so wish I could talk to him and his family about the event.  How cool would that be!

When we first arrived at the rest area, there was an old car sitting in the lot.  The couple inside were reading through a map.  It was a really cool, old hot rod looking thing.  There were signatures all over it and little sayings everywhere.  I could help myself. I had to stop and ask about the car.  Turned out to be an old Chrysler.  I didn’t know such a model existed.  Jerry said most people didn’t.  I told them how much I admired the car.

Connie and Jerry were headed to Mobile.  This was a driving car and no trailer queen.  I think he said he had put 180,000 miles on the car himself.  It was just too cool.  Then I noticed that he adjusted the steering wheel.  I made the comment that it had some upgrades.  Connie told me it had AC also.  Now that’s an upgrade.  Sallie’s AC is to open the vent under the windshield.

I realized after I said good-bye and went inside that I didn’t take a picture of their car!  That was dumb.  Hold a conversation and then walk away.  Later on, we caught up with them on the road and Rich got pictures of the back, side, and front.  Still a cool car, but going down the road.

From here, Memphis is a short way down the highway.  I was cruising along just a little above the speed limit.  I was in the processes of passing a truck when I suddenly had only something large and purple in my rearview mirror.  Where did that come from?  Apparently, a semi truck had been barreling down the highway behind me and I guess I just didn’t pay attention until he was right on me.  I got over and let him through.  He went blasting past me at probably 80 or 85.  I was hoping I didn’t find him later down the road with a family car under him.

No, somehow he must have thought better of his ways.  When I came across him again, he was actually doing the truck speed limit and no longer harassing cars or vehicles in front of him.

Construction season is still in full force in Memphis.  We ran into it just around West Memphis.  Then traffic pretty crawled into town.  We were getting off the highway just before our scheduled exit though.  Rich decided it was lunchtime and we should stop at Interstate BBQ.  The GPS got us through the local neighborhood alright and we pulled into the parking lot.  Right in front of us, written in large letters on the wall was Interstate BBQ.

Louie Washington (Hey, Louie) works in the group of engineers that I write for.  He’s from Memphis originally and highly recommended Interstate to us.  I was a little leery because this is the Neeley BBQ place.  You know the Neeleys from Food Network.  Pat and Gina, right?  How good could a TV show place really be?  Well, it was excellent.  I got the pulled pork dinner with baked beans and potato salad.  Rich got pork ribs with beans and slaw.  I was impressed.  The potato salad was just like my mom’s.  I haven’t been able to get that since she passed.  The beans were just right.  This is how I want to make beans.

Louie also recommended that we get the BBQ spaghetti.  Wait?  What?  It just sounded a little too strange for me.  Rich was up for it though.  He got a small bowl.  Guess what?  It was great.  I could see making this at home.  Don’t know if it would taste the same, but I could sure make some similar with Rich’s BBQ.  Now I have something to shoot for.  Thanks, Louie.  We’ll never doubt you again.  Go Tigers!

From Memphis, our hotel was only another 20 minutes south on Hwy 69.  This is part of the famed and much talked about Crossroads.  Funny, but 69 and 49 cross a couple of places.  I wonder if they got the right crossroad marked when they set up the sign in Clarksdale.

We arrived at the hotel a little early for check-in and found out that we could move our stuff right in.  Great.  We had a festival to get to.  First, Rich had to finish his 2:00 coffee that he got a little bit late.  So he relaxed, had his coffee and cooled down.  I forgot to mention to him along the way that the temp was jumping around in the mid 80s.  If he didn’t mention it, I was going to tell him.  The windows were down with the wind blowing through my hair and the temp was in the 80s for mid October!  Best vacay!

We changed into something cooler and headed out.  First stop was down to the Missippee River.  I wanted to check it out in the daylight.  We went down to the Riverfront Park in Tunica.  The Tunica Queen riverboat is moored here.  They offer rides up and down the river.  One barge was going south and making pretty good miles on the current.  Another barge was pushing its way slowly up river and seeming to have a really hard time getting anywhere fast.

We got back on track and headed to Helena, AR for the festival.  It was in full swing by now since it started on 9:00 AM this morning.  The first act I wanted to see was on at 4:00 PM.  We got into town and figured out where to head.  We passed a local college selling parking for $5.  I went around the block and came back to them.  Funny, one of the girls thought I had an accent.  I explained I lived northwest of Chicago these days, but I was originally from the Luval, KY area.  Maybe I’m starting to pick up some of my accent again.  That would be cool.  I miss it.

We wondered down the main street where the festival was going on.  After some stops and starts, we found Will Call in the souvenir building and got our bracelets for the main stage.  Everything else was free though.  We wondered back up the street to find the Front Porch stage for the first act I wanted to see.  It turned out to be inside out of one of the Delta Cultural Museum buildings.  It was made to look like the front porch of a sharecropper’s cabin.

The Lindsey Alexander Band was setting up.  Seems strange to drive from Chicago to Arkansas to see a Chicago band that I could just drive downtown to see.  Somehow, I never got to Rosa’s and Kingston Mines to see them.  I had to come to the King Biscuit Blues Festival to see them.  They were wonderful.  It was great music and he was quite the showman.  Several other Chicagoans appeared to be the crowd and definitely fans.

Watching them, I realized that the crowd was a bunch of old Rock and Roll hippies who just went further back into the roots of the music that they loved to reach the blues.  Was this the group of people I would be spending the few days with?  Probably.  They reminded me of my cousin, Jim.  He would definitely fit right in here.

Rich bought a CD from Lindsey.  I got out the Sharpie to have him go and get it signed.  Nope, he didn’t want to.  There is no point of buying a CD from someone like this if you don’t get it signed.  I marched right up to the front and got in line for a signature.  There were 4 guys ahead of me waiting for signatures.  When Lindsey stepped up to begin signing, I was the only one who had a pen.

I lent it to Lindsey to start, but told them I had to take it back when I got my signature.  The guys in front of me are thanking me profusely.  That wouldn’t be the people behind me though.  We learned a couple of years ago to bring your own writing instrument if you really wanted a signature.  You had to make it easy for them to give it to you.

The guy in front of me turned out to be German.  He was spelling his name, but in German!  I tried to help and realized what he was trying to say when I found out about the German.  Cool!  I told Lindsey he had fans all over the world apparently.  He said he knew that and now I knew, too.  Lindsey seemed surprised when I said I wanted it signed to Rich.  He signed with a little smile.  I think he knew my husband was too shy to ask for himself.  I have no problem doing it.

As predicted, the guy behind me got upset when I took my pen.  He begged me to just let Lindsey sign his CD first.  One of Lindsey’s guys was rummaging around for a pen at that point.  I’m sure they found something to go on with signatures.

We left this stage and made our way to the Main Stage.  Billy Branch and the SOBs were already playing.  This is another Chicago band that I had to come to Arkansas to hear.  The SOBs were the Sons of Blues.  They were a really great band.  We were seeing a lot of talented musicians out here.  With the humidity and temp, everyone was sweating.  Billy’s khakis were wet at the knees from sweating.  This just opened up a whole bunch of jokes from on stage though.

We had managed to find an empty spots to set up our chairs on the hillside not too far back, but not really that close either.  It was on the top side of the path, so we got to see a lot of different people walking back and forth through the crowd.  It was great people watching.  That’s one of my favorite pastimes.  Airports and bars are the best places for people watching.  This festival was probably going to rank pretty high on the list also.

The guy to Rich’s left started up a conversation and then asked Rich to hold his spot while he took his chair with him to another stage.  That seemed OK.  Rich moved over to take up more space.  I accused Rich of making friends with someone.  He shook his head.  Nope, just helping someone out, but he was going to lose blood to hold it for the guy.

After Billy and the SOBs were done, we walked down through the street to see what was out there.  We found all of the stages and found the theater where Roger Stolle was going to be holding a panel discussion with a lot of really old blues players.  I was interested in that one.  I was hoping to talk to Roger also.

Roger owns Cat Head Music in Clarksdale.  We used to hear his weekly report about the blues events in Mississippi on the old Bill Wax show on XM.  We felt like we knew him.  The last time we were in Clarksdale, we stopped by his store.  He spent some time talking to us and making sure we purchased things to take home with us.  It was amazing to talk to him.

When we went to Cincy Blues Fest a couple of years ago, Rich was accosted by Roger’s old college roommate.  The roommate brought his wife over to show her Rich’s t-shirt from the Cat Head Music store.  See, he said, Roger is famous and running his own business.  Too funny.  We could wait to tell Roger the story.

Anyway, we walked back to the Main Stage and found our chairs just as we left them.  Guitar Shorty was getting set up on stage with his band.  A lady behind me saw me looking at the schedule and asked when Guitar Shorty was scheduled to start.  Things were running about 15 minutes slow.  Wait.  She looked normal, like me, and not like the others I had seen.  I guess that was possible.

Guitar Shorty kicked off and turned out to be more rocking blues.  He sure played a lot of Hendrix.  Jimi Hendrix, in case you wondered.  The rhythm guitar and bass guitar players were really young guys.  But it turned out, they could play and were dancing around the stage.  You could tell their roots were 80s rock and rolls with the jumping and dancing moves.  I think that added something.  And Guitar Shorty seemed to be OK with them stealing the show in the background.  It was fun to watch.

About halfway through the set, it starts to pelt huge raindrops down on us.  I pull out the sheet of painter’s plastic.  This way I can stay dry and see the band.  The Florida guy next to Rich had returned by this time.  He stood up and shouted, “It will not rain.”  And the rain stopped!  Wow, to have that kind of power.  I packed up the plastic and the show went on.

So that set finally headed with the Hendrix version of Star Spangled Banner.  Rich was ready to go.  I guess we were staying to see Wet Willie.  This is a southern fried rock band from the 70s.  I didn’t know they were still alive, much less playing.  But Rich is tired so we pack up our stuff and take off.

We walked back down the street we originally came in on.  There was a hip hop club on the corner just down from our car.  They had speakers on the sidewalk and the DJ was spinning his records out there.  There were kids hanging out all over.  I think they were competing with their grandparents’ music up the street.

We got back to Hwy 49 and out of Helena and then out of Arkansas.  We crossed over the Mississippi River and were back in Mississippi proper.  On our way back, we decided that we were hungry again.  That BBQ just wasn’t holding us from lunchtime.  We went through Tunica without finding something that was appealing.  I thought there was something just up the road from the hotel.  Around here, the gas stations have some sort of food place inside.

This one was called A’s.  It was mix of southern, seafood, chicken, and Mexican.  We ordered food to go.  With a six pack of Ghost River Golden Ale from the beer cave at the gas station, we were ready to chow.  The food hit the spot, but was a little bit different than we expected.  Regional sure does funny things to food.

So after eating and a shower, I sit here drinking my Golden Ale, writing a blog, and getting pictures together to post.  Mr Zurek has given in and gone to sleep.  I guess I didn’t need that much help to remember the day.  What I’ve forgotten might not have been important anyway.

Tomorrow is a full day at the festival.  We have several acts on our list, including one from Chicago.  Got to support the home team here.