Blowin' in the Wind

A musical tour through OK, AR, TN, KY, and IN

Apologies to the uninitiated; this post contains 11 hidden Bob Dylan references. There will be a prize for the first person to correctly identify all of them.

After 5 weeks of travel, the outdoorsy, crunchy parts have largely been left behind. The hours dedicated to primitive-style cooking and finding safe places to sleep have been replaced by lodging in hotels and dining in restaurants for each meal. These changes coincide with Dad’s arrival. Ever the Queens, NY native, he’s historically not been one for “roughing it”. Having not slept in a real bed in over 2 weeks, I was ready to crash in hotels for a stretch.

GQ has a long-running video series where celebrities are interviewed regarding items they deem “essential”. Each episode is titled “10 Things (insert person here) can’t Live Without”. As my trip is at an inflection point and in a parody of the GQ bit, I’ve compiled a list of items/services that have provided great utility over the last 5 weeks. In no particular order, they are:

• Spotify Premium Subscription

  • Every year, Dad gifts us a subscription to the family Spotify plan for Christmas. It’s the best present of all time. There have been days I’ve ripped through 8+ hours of music/podcasts on this trip.

• Window Shades for my car

  • Privacy & Security, wrapped up in one. They’re especially useful when I am sleeping and when I’m parked in a larger, metropolitan area.

• National Park Pass

  • Instead of paying ~$30 to enter each NP, buying this pass for $80 lets you access any park for an entire year. It’s saved me a few hundred bucks so far.

• Water Jugs and Camping Stove

  • I refill the gallon containers whenever I’m able; this is the water I use for cooking dehydrated food on the go.

• AllTrails App

  • I wander like a rolling stone when I hike. I cannot tell you how many times I would have gotten hopelessly lost without this app. Many trails aren’t marked nearly as well as a hiker with little experience (hello!) would hope.

• Running Shoes

  • Hiking in boots would weigh me down. All I really want to do is wear regular sneakers. The pair of Nike Pegasus 36s that I’ve been beating up may have to be retired after this trip, but they’ve served me very well.

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It is abundantly clear that I am my father’s son. This is an excellent thing 99% of the time. I have realized that one of my most irritating qualities (my insistence on arriving at the airport 2+ hours early for domestic flights) has been inherited from none other than Dad. Here are some excerpts from texts he sent on the day he flew to meet me in OKC.

“There are so many opportunities for delay: Traffic. Long-term parking shuttle. Check-in. Security.”

“I’d rather wait at the gate than miss the flight.” 

And later on:

“No traffic, no one around in check-in line, no one in front of me for security. Now I have almost 2 hours to enjoy responding to emails and texts!”

If you have flown with me or plan to fly with me, understand that this is a genetic condition; it’s in my blood. I wish I was not this way. Why try to change me now?

Armed with dozens of recommendations from my Oklahoma friends, Dad and I ate great food and found a number of nice spots for walking.

A walk through picturesque Martha’s Vineyard OKC. A good place to watch when the ship comes in.

No travel with Dad is complete without a trip to a used bookstore. He’s a voracious reader; my childhood was marked with monthly excursions to bookstores as a result. In his words, “every Barnes & Noble is the same” - he prefers used bookstores for more variety.

The NBA tour continues! Given their heights, 7’4” Victor Wembanyama and 7’1” Chet Holmgren have no business being able to move as smoothly and gracefully as they do.

San Antonio vs. Oklahoma City in NBA In-Season Tournament action. Thunder on the Mountain, I suppose.

My first conscious memory of secular adult music was listening to Bob Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go” as a child in the car with my family. In the last two decades, my appreciation for Dylan has grown tremendously. So much so, that Dad and I had made it a point to see the newly-installed Dylan museum since it opened a little over a year ago.

A self portrait with Mr. Zimmerman himself.

Dad and I share a combined 70 years of Dylan fandom. Even for fanatics like us, the museum offered so many new nuggets; there were countless handwritten notes to/from Bob, stories of his musical prowess, and artifacts from his career (including the guitar used to record “Tangled Up in Blue”).

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

It’s well-known that Dylan was good friends with George Harrison, but I did not know that Bob co-wrote my favorite Harrison song: “I’d Have You Anytime”.

In Memphis, Dad and I continued our musical pilgrimage at the Stax Museum, formerly home to a recording studio used by the likes of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, and Al Green. We spent a good 30 minutes enjoying the “Soul Train” exhibit and watched a number of performances from the Jackson 5, Chaka Khan, and Redding.

I never made it to Alabama on this trip, but it feels like I’m stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again.

In an unexpectedly fun excursion, we took a walk through the comically-shaped Bass Pro Shops pyramid. It’s right on the Mississippi River and shines more brightly than any of the buildings in the Memphis skyline: a weird and fun landmark for the city.

Approaching the promised land. We came to the pyramids, all embedded in ice.

As much as I love music and music history, I haven’t been exposed to much regarding Elvis Presley. I was excited to visit Graceland, but was ultimately disappointed by the experience. As with any museum, I’m there to learn. I was interested in Presley’s history, musical inspirations, and career arc. Graceland offered no educational value; I didn’t learn anything I hadn’t already known about Elvis, and the bar was LOW. It felt like a pretty shameless money grab. Per Dad, “Boy, they just print money there”. Elvis did build a racquetball court next to his home, which was cool!

The last site Dad and I visited was the National Civil Rights Museum, built within the walls of the Lorraine Motel. Especially throughout the last 3 years, I’ve been more cognizant of the shortcomings of my public school education with regards to the gaps in learning about the civil rights movement. I absorbed more from protest music of the 1960s than I ever took in from the classroom.

Each of the 23 sections of the museum contained an astounding level of detail. Everyone knows the broad strokes of the story of Rosa Parks, but I was particularly touched by learning of the resilience of the people of Montgomery, AL in the months and years following Rosa’s refusal to leave her bus seat.

A sobering walk through the exhibits with the histories of Emmitt Till, the Greensboro sit-ins, and the Freedom Riders culminated in a section dedicated to Martin Luther King, placed 10 feet from the balcony on which he was assassinated.

This museum was remarkably well-done and is must-see for everyone.

After dropping Dad off at the Memphis airport, I discovered that no car camping near the city was viable. I doubled back to Arkansas to find a spot for the night and revisited Highway 61 through the back-and-forth on the interstate.

Grizzlies-Celtics: A surprisingly competitive game despite Ja Morant’s absence.

Before heading home, I stopped to meet friends in Indianapolis. Lenie, Gia, and I completed all 4 turns at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5 mile track and peppered the tour guide with what felt like 200 questions: one for each lap that IndyCar drivers complete during the Indy 500.

“In Indiana, winners drink milk!”

On the aux this past week: Bob Dylan, Cleo Sol, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Amnesty, Justin Timberlake, Childish Gambino, and D’Angelo.