Holiday Weekend Driving...

 I don't know if it was the high gas prices or if maybe everyone was home on their phones but the highways and campgrounds for the most part were very manageable on our recent trip from East Texas to Indiana. Even a pass through Little Rock, Arkansas which seems to be a magnet for every big truck in the tristate area was easy. Only one campground was really packed and on out final leg home Sunday the Love's Travel Stops where I buy gas because I have the 10 cents off per gallon app had crowds but it might have just been the fast food boxes of fried chicken livers that all these in the Midwest and south serve. 

Our first stop outside Memphis was T.O. Fuller State Park. It's a famous place, built by African American CCC workers it was the first state park east of the Mississippi open to their use. The pool was our of order which is something that seems common in these older CCC built sites but there was plenty of good day use areas in addition to the camping and an Indian village, excavation and museum which we will have to check out in the future. It's usually the kind of site I like to visit but with just an overnight stay I'd have had to ride my bike 4 miles on a farm road that was pretty narrow to share with automobiles.        

The most crowded park was John J. Audubon, also a CCC built park, in Henderson, Ky where we made three nights. It was handy for visiting family in Evansville, In. and close to attractions and good restaurants. Not crowded the first couple of nights but as the weekend progressed the campers poured in and sites were close and as there were more arrivals I noticed some challenging camper back ins and there were lots of kids on scooters and bikes. I tried to capture it in these photos. 

There was the John J. Audubon Museum on the grounds which is the largest collection of his art in the world and though he was very prolific and hard working he was very much the starving artist. 

Our last camp on the way home was Willow Beach, a Corps of Engineer facility located off the old Arkansas River. Good spaced out campsites and we had one of the best. Campground was full but only a couple of groups using the beautiful day use picnic sites along the river on a holiday weekend Saturday. Guess they were on their phones or something. 

There was a good boat launch and plenty of people fishing from modest boating rigs instead of the big bass boats with not a live scope sonar in sight. There something calming about casting a spinner bait and not worrying about gas prices. Works for me every time.  

  

 

    

The Latest Road Trip...

We are back home after 1641.3 miles and 33 hours of driving that saw us, along with Cathy's brother Matt visit Evansville, Indiana and see their sister Margret, husband Kevin and daughters Grayson, graduating from high school and Addison who had a birthday. We stayed in campgrounds in Tennessee, Indiana and Arkansas. You can check the truck dashboard photo for the full statistics.  

Here's Cathy and Matt at T.O. Fuller State Park in Tennessee. All equipment performed flawlessly. I'll probably do a run down of my campground reviews later.  

Cathy, Margret and Matt. 

Margret, Addison and Kevin celebrate Grayson's graduation from Signature School in Evansville, Indiana. She will be headed off to Georgia Tech to major in bio-medical engineering. Georgia Tech is a good place to be for that degree.  

 

In the lower right of this photo made from the balcony Grayson accepts her diploma and gets a hug from her grandfather, Bob, who is the President of the Board of Directors of the school. The 80 odd graduates on stage represent 24 million dollars worth of scholarships to top colleges around the nation. Signature is a very good high school.   

Since Georgia Tech is in Atlanta and we must drive right through there to visit Morgan, Ali and the grandkids is South Carolina we might see more of Grayson in the future.  

It was a good trip and I am sure I'll write a bit more later but in the mean time I need to get ready for the next one. 

Beachfront Camping Report...

Once, in another life, I was parked beachfront in my truck just sitting on the tail gate enjoying the sun. Three girls came walking by and said hi. I was at a loss for words but quick thinking led me to ask them if they wanted to toss a frisbee. I did not have any idea what girls wanted to do but I was giving it my best shot. One of them said, "Nah man, I could never throw one of those things," and they continued on down the beach. I've never asked a girl if they wanted throw a frisbee again. I've never even asked my wife if she would throw a frisbee. She'd probably say,  "Nah man, I could never throw one of those things."

We made of first beachfront camping trip of the summer this week at our secret spot on the Brazoria County Free Beach. If you are a regular reader here you will know it's where we camp free on the beach. No hook ups but bring water, run solar on the camper and a generator as needed. It's a sweet deal. We stayed Monday till Wednesday morning, avoiding the weekend crowd and pretty much had it to ourselves. The fish left us to ourselves as well with a rough surf and wind making conditions less than ideal for the surf. By Wednesday morning the wind had subsided, the surf lay flat and the sea weed rolling ashore had diminished and green water is expected with a couple of tide changes. 

In fact browsing the fishing reports looks like they caught them off the jetty yesterday and the surf was good this morning. I had netted a few live baits and tried lures since I did not feel the percentages were going to be high for me but I'll be ready with some shrimp for bait next time. 

Water looks pretty in this photo and even though no bites I wouldn't say I had a bad time. Some one once asked Cathy if Carl had to catch fish. She said, "I don't think so. He looks at stuff, makes pictures." I like the beach and I'm glad my wife is a beach girl. 

Water looks pretty in this reflected photo off the camper glass. 

On those windy days the fire felt good sitting on the beach at night as the air cooled when the sun went down. We never used the air conditioner but on the morning we left it was warming, the wind had dropped and made it easier for the biting horse flies to torment you. If the fish are biting I have enough repellant to make that tolerable.   

If ever on Surfside beach and you see a guy that looks like he wants to throw a Frisbee by all means, stop. 

 

 

Used Records This Week...

 I've just about sworn off buying records and cds. The cd rack is full and while I can always stack records on the floor it is always a possibility that the back room where all this lives, which was probably originally some kind of old fashion sleeping porch might collapse into the backyard. That said when a friend called and told me my mom's old church, Lifepoint was having a garage sale and there would be records I had to go check it out. 

Sure enough they had just what I wanted. One of the things I collect is the old readers digest box sets. They made millions of them so the price is always right. Usually I'm on the lookout for the swing music/ragtime/big band/Latin sets and so forth and the sale actually had one of the swing years sets I already own but I couldn't resist two other which though not swinging like I like it's the most perfect sappy white jazz singers backed by strings that would go great with an evening of martinis after I got home from the grey flannel suit everyman salt mines. That is if I drank martinis, worked in a salt mine and had a gray flannel suit. When Cathy heard these two records she said, "my grandparents music" and meant it in a good way. What will my grandkids say about our music? Probably, "Pop Pop did you ever see the Sex Pistols, you were a teen then" and I'll have to say no.  

I have a lot of Al Hirts and recently counted them but don't recall so it's a no brainer to add another. I did not have this Herb Alpert but I said, "maybe I can adapt that Lonely Bull Trumpet for tuba," and why not Nat King Cole? See how my kind kind of collecting goes. 

Actually my friend, Ray who tipped me to these records told me they came from my parents neighbor, Ray's mother in law, Shirley's home. Shirley lived to be 104 and always said I was the prettiest baby. Maybe these smooth jazz sounds will add to my longevity.

Long live listening. Never trust someone without music of all kinds in their home.     

   

Trout Fishing in America...

From the title you may have thought this would be another fishing report but last night at the Live Oak Listening Room in Nacogdoches, Tx we saw a concert by the musical duo Trout Fishing in America. 

Ezra (6'9" tall) and Keith (5'5") have been making music together for 50 years. I probably first saw them at the old Crossroads bar in Doches in the 1980s. I took my kids to see them at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in the 1990s. In 2017 we had a big family outing to the Mucky Duck in Houston including grandchildren Warren and Coraline, who were with us last night as well, to see the band. The music appeals to everyone with styles ranging from blues, jazz, country and more with nursery rhymes and other kid adjacent themes mixed with much humor and the enduring inspirations of adult life that seemed to be reflecting a bit on getting older and not acting your age.  

For those wanting to go a bit deeper the band took their name from the book of the same name by Richard Brautigan, an abstract work critiquing mainstream American culture. 

I think this might have been the best show I have seen by them. I am not sure why I felt that way because they have always been a good band. Playing as a duo the sound of the band is very full and the Listening Room was a great place with another great video loop by Pat Casey running in the background. Possibly besides reflecting on some of the songwriting themes that touched me such as where's my cell phone, banjos on the moon and yes you are a pretty girl now where's your momma and imagining the confidence to musically explore 50 years together brought me to the fact that there were friends at the concert that I have known for 40 to 50 years and it was just amazing to all feel the same things.  

After the show the band were very gracious taking the time to sit on the edge of the stage to sell t shirts and cds while chatting up the crowd, signing autographs and posing for photos. Here's Warren and Rose with the guys. 

Keith shares important insights into the music business and life in general with my grandson Warren. The band repeatedly mentioned though the night how they were always looking everywhere to find songwriting inspiration. I know their music is an inspiration to me. 

 

 

Your Favorite King...

 Cathy and I were driving home last night. The night skies were beginning to light up with  late spring thunderstorms that promised to bring much needed rain. It's only a side note that King Charles is visiting the USA because the USB drive plugged into the car which makes it a random play stereo on wheels started to belt out a long slow blues by Albert King and the stinging sustained notes from his signature Flying V guitar must have made the hair stand up on the back of both of our necks because Cathy asked, "Who is your favorite King?" 

If you are a blues fan you should know there are four Kings. There is Earl King from New Orleans, Freddie King from Gilmer, Texas, B.B King from Mississippi and the one we were listening to, Albert King also born in Mississippi. I had to answer that probably my favorite is Albert. 

Actually Albert has been on my mind as it's that New Orleans Jazz Fest time of the year and I always think about music that was the soundtrack in the car for long rides south on I-10 to the fest as well as the music I've seen at the fest. There was plenty of Albert King on those old cassette mixtapes we played in the Rocket 88 and actually saw Albert once at the fest but for what ever reason, too much beer in the sun or too many funk and tropical sounds for me to sit though a set of 1234 blues in the middle of the afternoon. My loss. 

I took a quick count of the music in my collection and found these three records. That live one has had the most play and if you don't count the greatest hits package these are not even his most well known recordings. Though I have seen Earl King twice I think I might only have one side by him on a jazz fest compilation. I never got to see Freddie King but I think I might have three or four cds. I have seen B.B. King live twice, have two of his albums and though he is a great maybe my least favorite. 

So I guess to answer that stormy question who is your favorite King:

1. Albert

2. Freddie.

3. Earl

4. B.B.

Don't let my thoughts influence your judgment. Take a late drive. Crank the tunes. They will speak to you and maybe rearrange your hair.   

  

Pre-Big Bass Splash Fishing Report...

 This weekend is a Big Bass Splash Fishing Tournament on Sam Rayburn and the lake was strangely quiet the day before an expected 3000 entries try to hit the water and win. There was plenty of parking at the ramp and I could only see one camper in the park but many campsites are still in disrepair from Hurricane Beryl and after all the popular big bass spots on the lake are on down a way and it was a perfect day for our late afternoon catfish trip. 

You can see from this photo how close to the shore we were. Right in front of the boat juts a little sandbar which when we untied to leave we let the stiff south wind blow us up on and caused me to take a swim in belly deep water to float us off. The water is 82 degrees which is probably a little warmer than our water aerobics class has been lately so swimming season is on us. 

Cathy caught this fat channel cat on the first cast dropping her slip cork rig in a 4.5 foot deep creek which dead ends in the first photo but at normal lake levels is passable into the the Deer Stand area cove. Final total was 8 channel cats, nice fillet size. There was a lot of shad activity in this cove and we had many throw backs as it was just full of 8 to12 inch cats in a feeding frenzy. 

The lake is so low looks like I'm bank fishing in this photo.

I think this is a man made structure of branches piled around a stump to create a fishing holding spot along an edge leading up to a point which when the lake comes up should hold some fish. 

Of course we ate fried catfish, blackened potatoes on the blackstone and salad. 

I pronounce that summer has arrived. Be careful with those tournament fishermen on the lake this weekend but truth be told we caught these fish after the time of what will be their final weigh in so if you leave late should be good.