How low can we go.

[gspod]

We out ran hurricane Ian and made it to Nashville. My mate Jim had organised for us to stay with a friend - she had come over for a semester but I didn’t meet her, Jim had stayed in contact and that tenuous connection was enough for her to kindly put us up.

We spent a couple of days looking around Nashville and soaking up the atmosphere. TBH it wasn’t really what I was expecting, I thought it would be a bit more organic with music bars on street corners and hidden away venues. Instead I found it a kind of ‘music resort’ with a main street where every building is a bar with music - a bit like a Mediterranean party resort for cowboys and girls.

The atmosphere was great with people from all generations, everyone dressed up and of course no drunks. The organisation and logistics of the place is incredible with each bar having live bands playing constantly from 11am till 2/3am. Some of the bars had 3 floors with a different band on each level, the amount of bands needed in the town, at any one time, must be in the hundreds.
I’m not a big fan of New Country music but I wanted to visit Roberts Western Bar which is one of the original Honky Tonks and still playing traditional Country and Western. And we went to see the Ryman Auditorium, spiritual home of the ‘Grand Ole Opry’ - my mum had always wanted to go but never got there.

The biggest surprise in Nashville is the life size replica of the Parthenon complete with statue of Athena - as a lad, at school, I had seen the original in Athens so it was nice to see it in it’s complete state

 

[gspod]

Unexpected pleasure

 

[gspod]

From Nashville, south, there’s another recreational road similar to the Blue Ridge Parkway - recreational roads are closed to commercial traffic and do not go through any urban areas and therefore have no traffic lights or roundabouts, they can be found in many parts of the US.
The Natchez Trace Parkway is 444 miles long and reckoned by many to be the oldest road in the Union:

Natchez Trace Parkway (U.S. National Park Service)

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444-mile recreational road and scenic drive through three states. It roughly follows the "Old Natchez Trace," a historic travel corridor used by American Indians, "Kaintucks," European settlers, slave traders, soldiers, and future presidents. Today, people can...

www.nps.gov

There was very little traffic on the road and, with the initial speed limit being 50mph, it was a sedate and relaxing way to ride. As we crossed county lines the speed limit changed and 65 is a perfect speed - not that we saw those heady heights as we had agreed that the perfect speed for the Himmie was 58mph with limited increases for overtakes when necessary.

 

[gspod]

Natchez is not far from New Orleans and we had thought about a few days there, however we had a problem in the shape of Liz Truss
Since we’d been away she had come to power and the £ had crashed against the $. We weren’t even getting parity, this, coupled with general price increases since Covid, meant that we were spending too much in the US. We wanted to continue our travels so something had to give and, unfortunately, that was New Orleans.
So we headed east, once again, across the southern states towards Texas.
There’s not much to see down there so, as the Americans would say, we hopped on the Slab and rode through the heat.
We reached the Louisiana/Texas border and had to hole up for a while so I could recover from flu like symptoms, looks like Covid finally caught up with me.
It was no great shakes as we had to wait for a delivery anyway. We found a good hotel on the banks of the Toledo Bend Reservoir and did a deal on the room for 10 days.
It was a holiday place but not like any I’ve seen before, with scattered houses around the vast shore and a couple of trailer parks. Out of season it was quiet but I can’t imagine it would be that busy anytime. A asked the young receptionist about swimming in the reservoir and she said that technically it was not allowed and then uttered the classic line “but we’s country here, so we do what we like”. Asked if there were crocodiles she answered of course but likely they’ll leave you alone. After finding this website

https://www.ktbs.com/news/first-time-hunters-harvest-big-gator-from-toledo-bend/article_115af65e-1014-11ec-9d3d-533c82ed27b9.html

she gave the swimming a miss

 

[gspod]

You can’t visit Louisiana without having catfish. The round things are called Hushpuppies and are basically round cakes covered in sugary breadcrumbs and deep fried - and yes they taste like they sound, something that should be eaten with custard, not fish and chips

 

[gspod]

We pressed on to Houston and rode in on freeway 69 which went straight to the centre. After cruising quiet roads for so long it was a bit of a culture shock to ride straight into a major city and the gentle US speed limits seemed to go out the window. It was a little nerve racking for A, chugging along on the Himmie, with huge trucks thundering out of short slip ways into her path and not much power to get out of trouble - it was the only real time she missed her GS.

We found a down town bike shop, run by Mexican guys and got oil changes, I also got a new rear tyre. It was a good place for information on Mexico and one of the mechanics had worked in a Royal Enfield dealership not far from Mexico City, he gave us his number “any problems, give me a call” nice.

We had decided to cross into Mexico at Laredo but the ride there was going to be a flat, hot, boring slog. My brother in law told us that San Antonio was a lovely place and we should check it out - hmmmm, remember the Alamo, as Brian Glover said in The Slaughtered Lamb.

San Antonio truly is a lovely place. It is known as the Venice of Texas and has a below street level river system which is lined with bars and restaurants in amongst abundant greenery. The actual street level buildings are mostly brick, Art Deco style and this makes for a beautiful city.

Upon trying to park outside the Alamo, for a couple of pictures, we were severely told off by a policeman so set off for the border town of Laredo - the journey was broken up by the rescue of a turtle - after some research I believe it may have been a Red Eared Slider Turtle.
We found a nice B&B in a gated community and prepared our paperwork.

 

[gspod]

Dunlop Trailmax Mission - it proved to be a very long lived tyre.

 

[gspod]

A did manage to get a cheeky snap of the Alamo as the local Bobby was bearing down on us

 

[Simon_100]

Been there, done that - not the Alamo but being borne down upon while snapping illicit photos

 

[PMVern]

About time Dermot a fantastic read on a wet Tuesday morning, keep it coming

 

[gspod]

About time Dermot a fantastic read on a wet Tuesday morning, keep it coming

Thanks Paul

 

[gspod]

We had originally planned to cross the border at Columbia bridge, which is about 25 minutes from Laredo, as I had read that it’s quiet. However, our B&B hosts told us that the Laredo crossing would be fine and, the next day, we duly rode down there.
Well the queues were horrendous and as we looked on we saw a couple being escorted from their car with sniffer dogs going berserk - organised chaos? It looked like something out of a Hollywood thriller. We turned around and headed for Columbia Bridge. The difference could not have been more staggering, there was no one at the border at all. We went straight to the window, got everything done and were riding in Mexico 25 minutes later - quite bizarre.

We rode on the Toll roads to Monterrey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterrey) where we had a city centre hotel booked with secure parking. In the evening it was a short walk into the vibrant old town which is full of independent bars, restaurants and night clubs frequented by young trendies - much like ourselves .
We really enjoyed our 2 night stay, after 6 weeks in the US it was lovely to be somewhere with a European vibe.

 

[Micky]

Crackin' photographs .... thank you

 

[gspod]

We left Monterrey on a sunny Saturday morning, which was great because riding through the sprawling suburbs on a weekday would have been interesting .
We rode along 2 main highways that were connected by a 50 mile B road which twisted through a mountain range and broke up the monotony of the dual carriageways nicely.
We stayed in a motel on the edge of a nondescript town called Cedral. The motel had recently been refurbished to a very high standard and seemed a little out of place but we weren’t complaining

 

[simondippenhall]

Derm: Just caught up with this and am enjoying it …and looking forward to future instalments through central and South America. Thanks for taking the trouble to dredge your memories and give us this exciting tale

 

[gspod]

The next day we headed for Huasteca:

Huasteca - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It’s an area, that until recently, was little known outside of Mexico but travel bloggers are spreading the word. It really is a stunning area with a high percentage of indigenous who are very proud and protective of their region and environment. It’s famous for it’s many waterfalls - so many in fact that we had a hard time choosing which ones to visit.
We found a nice hotel in Tamasopo so our first visit was to the local falls which is a large area of falls, rapids and pools and has been turned into a water park - it’s been tastefully done and, as we were out of season, it was very quiet.
Next day we visited a local swimming hole which was very atmospheric.
Number 3 was God’s Bridge, a fast flowing river that falls into a Cenote style pool where we went for a swim. It was a bit of a scramble but an absolutely brilliant experience.
The last waterfall has only been cleared and open to the public since 2018. The road there is very rough and the climb down was a bit challenging for A’s fear of heights but it was worth it. Due to it’s inaccessibility it’s not that popular and we had the place to ourselves for over an hour.
I’ve got some great photos in the cloud so bear with me

 

[gspod]

Derm: Just caught up with this and am enjoying it …and looking forward to future instalments through central and South America. Thanks for taking the trouble to dredge your memories and give us this exciting tale

It’s nice to go through the photos again

 

[Hairnet600]

 

[gspod]

 

[gspod]