Here are the highlights from my first day of travel.

Alcenia’s – Memphis

I found this Memphis soul food restaurant doing a casual search on the Diners, Dives and Drive-Ins website. I was actually looking for another place I had visited a few years ago called the Cozy Corner. Alcenia’s, topping the alphabetical list of Memphis restaurants, looked very interesting and it seemed like a better choice than repeating an experience I had already had.

The place was easy to find, it’s essentially at the base of the Memphis pyramid building. I had fried chicken because it’s Tuesday (the daily lunch special). While the food was fantastic, it was the spirit of the place that really stayed with me. The owner, a cheerful woman named BJ, came bounding out from the back to greet me shortly after I sat down. She gave me a hug and kiss and welcomed me to her place. I told her where I was from and she asked me to sign her guest book. Apparently she treats every customer this way. Unfortunately, she was very busy and she disappeared before I had a chance to ask her if I could take her picture.

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I’ve had an idea for a trip brewing in my mind for several years now. A trip through the south that includes highways and places that have been important to me from a variety of cultural references – places that have shown up in music and literature that have stayed with me over the years and made me, for one reason or another, want to see them. After putting it off repeatedly, I’ve finally embarked on that journey today.

I plan to spend a week on the road, leaving the last leg of the trip open. I try to do that when planning each trip so as keep myself from becoming too regimented and destination-focused.

This trip will take me through rural Mississippi on Highway 61. As a highway, whose towns and locales are the birthplace of the Blues, Highway 61 is almost as legendary as Route 66.

After a few days in New Orleans, I will head west into Texas via Highways 190 and 12. This is one of the routes followed by Sal and Dean in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. They depart late at night and head for the West Coast after visiting with Old Bull Lee (William S. Burroughs) in Algiers. It’s my favorite passage in the book and, like Sal and Dean, I plan to travel it at night.

I’ll find somewhere to sleep in Beaumont, TX  — or thereabouts — and then plan to spend a day with my daughter and grandson in Houston. My son in law was transferred there for at least 6 months and they are moving down there this weekend.

Finally, I’ll spend two days in Austin, capital of weirdness in Texas and one of the music capitals of the world.

The last few days will probably take me through Hot Springs, AK and then back into Memphis, but I may come up with something else entirely.

More details as I go.