radical wacko

So, with short notice and good fortune, a chance arose this year for me to go back to New Orleans for Jazzfest after an extended absence. Also, owing to good fortune, this opportunity aligned with previously scheduled time off so as to allow me another of my grand road trips. Of course, you can’t have a good road trip without at least one good disaster. So far, this year it came in the form of a nasty sore throat which started early Sunday morning. It turned out to be a nasty case of Strep Throat. Thankfully, antibiotics still work and after after my first doctors visit in nine years, I was quickly on the mend.

However, the net result of the illness was that I got a very late start on Monday. So I spent most of the day speeding across central and eastern Texas with very little time for breaks. I slept at the beautiful Comfort Inn in scenic Longview, TX, soon to be featured in the upcoming essay “A short look at Longview”. (Thanks Mark)

This morning I got a pre-dawn start and made my way to Kilgore, TX, a down made and maintained by Oil and is darn proud of it. From there I wandered over to Jefferson, TX, a very well preserved 1870′s small town.

Northern Louisiana doesn’t offer much in the say of sightseeing opportunities. However, it makes up for that with vast stretches of open road where Dominique and I can frolic.

I made my way across the state and into Vicksburg in time to spend four hours touring the fascinating, if still very grim, Vicksburg Battlefield National Park. Tonight, I had dinner in the Cedar Grove Inn, an 1840′s estate which apparently survived much of the looting and destruction after the fall of Vicksburg due to the fact that it was build for General Sherman’s cousin by her husband. However, there is a cannon ball in the parlor wall that has never been removed, so it didn’t escape entirely unscathed.

NOTE: Pictures are in a raw state and haven’t been cleaned up yet.