Ramblin'

2012 was a ramblin' year.  I spent time in or at least passed through 24 states.  Yeah, you read that right. New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine (thanks, Amtrak!  I love you!). Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut (and points north) on a winter holiday jaunt to New England.

It's been a dog's age since I took a road trip, and the journey to the northeast was almost too amazing for words -- the sheer, unrelenting flatness of the Delta; the gradual changes in population and flora and architecture; the Christmas lights sparkling up and down Virginia Beach; the sorrow-tinged nostalgia of going home.  The best part of the experience, though, was travelling the Blues Trail in Mississippi.

The poverty of the state shocked me; I had forgotten that such places exist in this country, and I felt great shame.  But there was also the stunning richness of the musical culture.  I love old, deep, acoustic Delta blues, and the opportunity to visit so much  hallowed ground blew my mind.  I stood in Moorhead, where the Southern cross the Dog, and could almost hear the whistle of a long-gone train.  I crouched by Robert Johnson's grave outside Greenwood and left a cigarette butt next to myriad half-empty bottles of whiskey.  Dusk came and I shivered in the shadows of old buildings at Dockery Farms while the moans of Charley Patton filled the heavy air.  When I crossed over into Tennessee several hours later, I felt bereft.  Spending time in Mississippi had made the blues feel more alive than ever, 75 years after Robert Johnson died.

Maybe the blues aren't your thing...but whatever inspires you is somewhere in this vast and varied country.  Get on the road and find it!

"I laid down last night
Tried to take my rest
My mind got to ramblin'
Like wild geese from the west
From the west."

--Skip James

-kiki