Recipe for Don Deluise Mama’s Birthday cake
We have often made this for Lynn’s birthday. Very good!!
6Â eggs separated
We have often made this for Lynn’s birthday. Very good!!
6Â eggs separated
We arrived here yesterday in the evening. Our motel is the Best Western on the Beach, a very apt description. We got a beach facing room with a balcony.Nive view and we can sleep with the door open to our balcony to hear the waversall night long, or whenever we are awake.
We had dinner at Doc’s seafood. It was OK. I had friend oysters and Lynn fried shrimp.. A unique feature is they give you some horseradish and let you make your own cocktail sauce. Not too special otherwise.
We ate breakfast at Hazel’s Nook, #1 rated for breakfast. Really a buffet with an omelet bar.More fried food! Then we drove to Fort Morgan and stopped at Bohn Secour nature preserve and beach on the way back.  It was beautiful. White sands, mild surf. Also a crane on the beach, long thin neck some red markings on its belly. After that sublime time we went to a place named Lambert’s. More fried food! Moe other unique features of the place, but not nourishing or enjoyable. Then we drove to the pier at Gulf Shores Sate Park. Then back to our beach where we had a nice, brief time on the beach. We took pictures of the sunset from the beach.
For dinner we went to Mikee’s. Really very good! I had steamed Ruby Red shrimp, 6 steamed oysters and Lynn had a salad and pan seared shrimp. A pound of shrimp either way was $13.99!! Best meal yet in Gulf Shores.
Tagged fried food, gulf shores, oysters, ruby reds, steamed shrimpWe had a long drive to Natchez from Clarksdale. Some of it was our own fault because we decided to go to Cleveland, Indianola, Leland, and Greenvillealong the way. A restaurant in Cleveland had been recommended by a chef we talked with in Oxford. We had an early lunch at the Delta Meat Market in Cleveland. Excellent food. The restaurant was in a strip of businesses, a gentrified part of town. We stopped into Abraham’s clothing store. THe help was great but we really didn’t want to buy anything.We eventually started talking with the owner, Dannyy Abraham. He had a baby grand piano in the shop and asked if we wanted to hear some blues. Who wouldn’t? He played and sang for us Hewas very gregarious and we enjoyed talking with him. He told us the real Crossroads, where RobertJohnsonmadea pact with the Deveilwas at the intersection ofroutes8 and 1 in Rosedale, MS>  We deceidedtogoforit, about15 miles out of our way.  him
Drove from Oxford to Clarksdale via Avalon – Home of Mississippi John Hurt. Nothing there but a dirt road and some broken down, decorating shacks/buildings.
Then took a semi-paved road to Money where Emmet Till was abducted and killed. remote areas. Small towns. Only agriculture, mostly cotton. Our primary destination was Clarksdale MS. Lots of Delta blues lore and music there. We stayed at the Shack-Up Inn the self proclaimed lest American Bed and Beer establishment. Spent the night in a converted share cropper’s shack.
Heard acoustic blues at the Inn then went into town to hear blues at Ground Zero and reds. A full music night. Ate chicken wings at Levon’s. It was very neat to hear all that music in a variety of settings. Rain started overnight.  Many puddles the next morning as it continued to rain.
Drove on the Natchez Trace Parkway. Beautiful/. Got off near Tupelo and stopped in a Elvis Presley Birthplace.. Not bd but fairly unremarkable. Then drove yo Oxford, MS.Spen the night at Ole Miss Motel. Cheap but clean and quiet. No frills. Walked to town and he Square. Ate dinner at Neon Pig. Next morning went to Big Bad Breakfast and then to Ole Miss Campus. Taylor Grocery was closed do drove to GRIT and had excellent red beans and rice topped with catfish.
We visited with David Popkin, Pam Perez, and Dan Popkin at David and Pam’s home in Nashville, Oct 20-23.
It was great to spend time with them again.
We also got to spend time with Oliver and the rest of the folks in A Place to Bury Strangers.Â
Tagged a place to bury strangers, aptbs, nashvilleWe drove to jonesborough, Tennessee on October 19. As usual Lynn did all the driving. We traveled on interstate 81 most of the way. Scenery was nice but lots of cars and trucks
We had a reservation at Franklin House BNB where we spent the night. The item got is tickets for “A Spot on the Hill” a one hour performance telling the stories of several people who were in the local cemetery.Â
The performance was at the cemetery. Interesting stories. Jonesborough is where national story tellling competitions and held.
After that we walked around town. Bought some CBD oil at a hemp store. There was obviously a party or outdoor music going on in town. We were directed to the local distillery where a band was performing outside. I think it was an event to promote breast cancer research. ≥
Today we drive to Nashville to visit with David Popkin and Pam. And see Oliver and APtBS on Monday. It seems we’ll have a drive in the rain.
Tagged jonesborough, Tennessee, TravelA Place to Bury Strangers are on the road again. A Place to Bury Strangers & Kraus at Starline Social Club, Tuesday, October 9, 2018 is a review of a recent show in San Francisco.
Bringing their trademark disorienting and immersive live experience to the bay, APTBS dished out a multitude of tracks, including many from their latest album, ‘Pinned’.
The band has also recently released the album “Re-Pinned” a remix of many of the tunes on Pinned. Andy Frisk wrote a review of the album in the piece  A Place To Bury Strangers Gets Remixed on Re-Pinned in his blog Shutter 16.
Tagged a place to bury strangers, album, aptbs, reviewRarely does a great album, or artist, get to be the object of such great re-mixes. APTBS and Pinned are one of those lucky artists and albums.
We’re in Virginia Beach for a few days. The hotel we are in, The Breakers, is on the boardwalk and a short walk to the ocean. Aa usual, I get up around dawn to take pictures of the sunrise. While I was taking photos this morning I got the idea to take some shots of the waves at a relatively slow shutter speed. 1/20 or 1/25.Â
Some examples are in this post.
They are dark, being taken in the early morning. Not the most satisfying but I think they may have their place. So often I see and indeed take shots of waves at a higher shutter speed to freeze their motion. That is appropriate, but showing some motion is really much more realistic. We live with the motion and see the motion, but part of a moving image. The task here is to record the motion but to freeze it as well.
Tagged blur, photos, waves
We were near the end of our visit to Highland County, VA having spent a week in the Wilson House not too far from Monterey, Virginia. A friend mentioned an abandoned swimming pool in Bolar, Virginia. Riding back to our place from Monterey we decided to take a ride along Rt. 220 not sure where we were going. Just about the time we felt like we had driven enough and it was time to turn around we came upon a sign for Bolar. Turned off the main road and followed a road to Bolar. A very small town with a few houses and a 25 MPH sign. Just as we were going through the speed zone we saw a road on the right and took it. We never found the pool but did see these 3 crosses on 3 trees in a flat area off the road. They seemed like they had been put up recently, maybe with the last year. The crosses in a very pastoral setting with good light made the picture easy to take with little post-processing.
Tagged Bolar VA, crosses, trees, view du jour