Any Excuse to Travel

Stories from travels in

June 2013

A trail of tears

Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn – ah, yes, Robert Burns, you certainly got that right. The countless thousands I have in mind

Odd ducks and Beale Street

Memphis might be the home of the blues but in the heat of the sun on a Thursday afternoon in June, it’s heart was bordering

When the sun came out

Sam Phillips didn’t know his ass from his elbow when it came to recording music. He winged it. And he made mistakes. And those mistakes

What a waste of a good man

Memphis, Tennessee, where Elvis’s voice seeps through cracks in the pavement and every public TV shows him in action. Hotels have guitar-shaped pools and 24/7

Her Majesty

Meet Her Majesty. Her friends call her ‘Her’, as in ‘I know Her!’. Her has been a professional hula hooper for four years now and

Horses for courses

Belle Meade – the fifth richest city in the USA per capita – is about 3.5 square miles and lies on the outskirts of Nashville,

The Grand Ole Opry

I’m rapidly eating into my 15 minutes of fame. I made the newspaper in Henderson, KY and was one of the screaming masses in Nashville,

A stream of Southern consciousness

As I write, I am sitting somewhere north-west of Nashville, Tennessee, on the second of a three-day stopover in the state. It’s been a little

Be still my fickle heart

Nashville is my heaven – or at least one version of what heaven might be like. What more could a gal ask for than country

Boating and bourbon beer

Bourbon is the mainstay of Kentucky. It goes into everything. I’m travelling onwards laden with recipes that call for a drop or two or seven