July 2023 – Streaming thru America

Getting to Denver thru Topeka

July 30, 2023Posted in Airstream, Entertainment, History, museum, Photography, sports, travel, videoTagged Dirty Heads, Evil Knievel, Harley-Davidson, Ted Endley Gardens, Topeka KSLeave a comment

Rather than basecamp in Kansas City, Leah and I opted for something more pastoral, which we found at Lake Shawnee, the crown jewel of Shawnee County parks in Topeka, KS.

More than 1 million people visit Lake Shawnee each year for festivals, golf outings, ballfield tournaments, boating, fishing and camping or to hike/bike the Lake Shawnee Trail.

While circling the 6.5-mile lakeshore trail on our e-bikes,

we discovered a resident friend of the park getting his tan on,

We took a detour through the Ted Endley Gardens, a 37-acre botanical garden in the northwest corner of the lake with spectacular blossoms, although I was drawn to a wildflower display reminiscent of Claude Monet.

Our only commitment while in the vicinity called for an excursion to Kansas City to claim tickets for the Dirty Heads, an American reggae band on national tour with my son, Noah acting as VIP concierge. In fact, this is the job he chose over working as the Jam Tram admin during the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, from where we last left (see Bonnaroo–the Logistics).

With doors at the concert venue opening at 6pm, Leah and I had an afternoon to kill, so we settled on an unlikely museum that was annexed to the local Harley-Davidson dealership celebrating the life and times of Evel Knievel–an unlikely choice for Topeka, considering that Evel’s hometown was Butte, Montana in 1938.

Evel was a showman and a stuntman without rival during the 70’s, amazing fans around the world with his push-the-envelope antics on his motorcycle.

The museum has plenty of requisite motorcycle displays showcasing his many exploits.

Evel was very good at two things during his jumping career: breaking records and breaking bones (433 fractures, which is a Guinness world record).

There were many successes…

and epic fails as well…

Those who followed Evel’s career 75+ jumps will never forget the hoopla and disappointment surrounding his Snake River launch.

But the pride of the museum is Evel’s “Big Red,” which also answers the question of “Why Topeka?” of all places.

Simply put, Topeka’s Historic Harley-Davidson dealer, Mike Patterson put up the money for the 13,000 sq. ft. expansion, and funded the Mack truck restoration.

Visitors can delight over Lathan McKay’s world-largest collection of paraphernalia behind ropes and glass, from costumes…

to merchandise…

to memorabilia.

There’s even a VR-enabled activity for an extra $5.

After a visit with Noah at Grinders KC,

and an evening of rap and reggae…

it was time to continue our trek to Colorado.

Getting to Denver–Part 1

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023Posted in Adventure, Airstream, hiking, History, landscape, museum, Nature, Photography, travel, wanderlustTagged Arkansas, Big Dam Bridge, Civil War, Clinton Presidential Center, Little Rock, Parker's Crossroad, Tennessee Safari Park4 Comments

Much has happened since leaving Bonnaroo for Denver. There’s been a long-distance get-together in Rogers, Arkansas with a nursery school buddy from Pittsburgh…

and a long-overdue reunion with family from Pittsburgh, who now reside in Overland Park, Kansas.

We’ve also kept a watchful eye on the weather–always tracking the extreme conditions that have been swirling around us, the likes of tornadoes, hail, flooding, land slides, and record-setting heat streaks–yet with each destination, we’ve mostly managed to dodge a bullet.

There was also a handful of visits to some iconic sites along the way, and some less familiar, but definitely photo worthy.

Our first stop took us to Parker’s Crossroads, halfway between Nashville and Memphis, and the site of a celebrated Civil War skirmish in West Tennessee.

It was the final battle for Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who managed to outfox the Union brigades of Col. Cyrus L. Dunham and Col. John W. Fuller by escaping with his regiment across the Tennessee River and avoiding certain defeat in the face of an enemy nearly twice the size with two times the artillery.

Leah and I took the walking tour past interpretive markers depicting critical moments in the battle, and observed that Parker’s Crossroads battlefield, while a testament to the 737 fallen soldiers,

should also be appreciated for its serenity and pastoral scenes.

Only 45 miles west of us was Tennessee Safari Park in Alamo,

where we looped around a drive-thru zoo for an hour with 4 buckets of animal nachos for hungry wildlife roaming freely throughout the fenced prairie. We were immediately greeted by an aggressive mob of ostriches and camels that descended upon our truck sensing a meal was imminent.

With the passenger window down, Leah tentatively extended the bucket beyond the door, only to have the bucket ripped from her hand by a dromedary with no manners and fewer eating skills.

Kibble went flying everywhere–inside and outside the truck. Even today, I’m still fishing out morsels between the seats. Lesson learned.

However, the lure of food was a perfect ploy for pet portraits…

Continuing west, we traveled to Little Rock, home to the Clinton Presidential Center, dedicated on November 18, 2004.

We parked the Airstream directly across the Arkansas River in North Little Rock by a decommissioned WW II tug and sub…

and cycled the long way around the riverwalk trail (some of it kinda sketchy),

past the Big Dam Bridge…

until we circled back 8 mi. to Clinton’s library–a hulking structure clad in glass screens that cantilevers over the Arkansas River as a symbol of “building a bridge to the 21st century.” And it was air conditioned!

The building that houses Clinton’s legacy is enormous enough to collect and archive 2 million photos, 80 million document pages, 21 million e-mails, and 79,000 artifacts from the Clinton years (1993-2001).

Appealing graphics break down the headlines and the issues of the time: year by year, month by month, surrounded by wings dedicated to domestic policy, diplomacy, economy, education, civil rights, and scandal. It’s all on display throughout the Main Hall, modeled after the Long Room of Trinity College in Dublin.

Exhibits feature Clinton’s campaigns;

Clinton’s security;

Clinton’s Oval Office;

State dinner receptions under Clinton:

and impressions of Clinton by character experts.

Our journey to Denver continues through Kansas…

Bonnaroo–the Music

July 9, 2023July 9, 2023Posted in Entertainment, music, Photography, travelTagged BonnarooLeave a comment

Imagine being in a newish band from a sleepy town in Wales, and you’ve just released an album of 60’s-styled psychedelic rock. A promoter plays the record and calls you to offer up the biggest opportunity in your music career–opening Bonnaroo 2023.

CVC (Church Village Collective) took the stage under That Tent on Thursday afternoon at 2:30pm to plenty of fanfare. They kicked off a 45-minute set with a rousing edition of their new single, Good Morning Vietnam, setting the crowd of thousands into a frenzy. As much as I would have enjoyed partying with them, I was more thankful for a seat on the raised ADA deck.

Early into their second number, Woman of Mine, CVC was interrupted by a PA announcement: “All visitors are required to evacuate Centeroo at once due to a serious weather alert half-an-hour away.”

The band unplugged and left the stage. Everything seemed so uncertain.

Up until showtime, Leah and I had kept a close eye on the weather, and lamented about the possibility of this event turning into a giant mud bash.

Naturally, we packed all the appropriate raingear in the event of a storm, but now it seemed likely that our weather anxiety may have been justified by this recent threat of wind and lightening.

As we headed back to the Airstream under a gloomy sky, all we could do was speculate how this would screw up the scheduling and how the promoters would respond.

As I reported in Bonnaroo–the Logistics, over 100 acts across all genres were signed to perform at the 2023 festival.

With the exception of the evenings’ headliners: Kendrick Lamar, Odesza, and Foo Fighters, and a handful of notable acts scattered throughout the lineup, most of the performers were new to me. But that didn’t matter; I was at Bonnaroo for the experience and to discover talent new to me.

But that doesn’t mean I was evaluating all of the talent on my own. I got some much needed advice from my son, Noah–an aficionado of nearly every music festival under the sun (except Bonnaroo)–who was helpful in handicapping the lineup in order to maximize my listening pleasure.

Sure, there would be some missed opportunities given overlapping scheduling conflicts and 6 distant stages, but I was intent on attending as many bands as possible.

Centeroo re-opened at 4 pm without so much as one fallen raindrop. Gray skies had been chased by clear skies, and weather prospects were improving for the remainder of the weekend. By 4:30 pm, music had resumed at all the tents, and CVC was back on stage performing a compressed set.

The balance of my Thursday was spent hobbling between This Tent and That Tent, where the ADA attendants were some of the cheeriest people on the planet, as well as the best resource for canned ice water, courtesy of Liquid Death. “Happy Roo! Would you like some cold water?”

After CVC came transgender rager/rocker, Ezra Furman…

followed by bluegrass maestro, Molly Tuttle.

Celisse lit up This Tent with her powerhouse vocals…

and guitar shredding, the likes of Prince and Hendrix,

while Suki Waterhouse’s chic pop stylings…

brought back memories of her star-turn in Daisy Jones & the Six.

Leah and I called it a night after a non-stop, 1-hour power set of Latin funk from Cimafunk.

Stellar music performances continued unabated throughout the weekend with few production hiccups. We must have crisscrossed the Centeroo acreage dozens of times to find music we enjoyed. Leah’s Apple watch calculated 7 to 8 miles of daily trekking between shows and stages, turning large swatches of grass into a giant dust bowl when crowds would scatter at the conclusion of each concert.

Rather than critique every artist’s performance I attended, I offer a slideshow gallery of photo highlights from several notable performers: Danielle Ponder, Sheryl Crow, Leni Wolf, Three 6 Mafia, David Grohl (Foo Fighters), Hailey Williams (Paramore), Sammie Rae, Umphrey’s McGee, Franz Ferdinand, Hippocampus, Kip Moore, Paris Jackson, and Andrew McMahon