MAY ROAD TRIP: Route 66 to Texas to New Orleans to Home

We have been planning to go to New Orleans this spring for the the reunion of the 

WWII 100th Bomb Group, which my dad was in. Then I was invited by a local poetry group in McKinney, Texas to give a reading of my latest book, On Maria Blanchard, just about the week before at the Heard-Craig Center for the Arts .  McKinney is located just 45 minutes from the Meadows Museum in Dallas, which houses the largest collection of Spanish art in the U.S., including a painting by Blanchard, which the museum permitted me to use in my book, and so:

Road TRIP!!!

Paul, who mastered the road trip long before I knew him and who has accompanied me on several since (two to the West Coast, many to the East Coast) sprang into planning and had the road and some sites and some rooms planned as quick as you can turn the page of the Atlas. 

First up, we realized we could do the first lap of the trip on Route 66 and by the second day, we could visit the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, OK. We watched Samantha Brown's Route 66 videos on PBS and found lots of other places along our way too. We'd love to see the mounds, figure we can pass on Uranus fudge.

Soon enough we will be in Texas. So I contacted the Meadows to see about viewing Blanchard's Seated Woman, only to learn it is currently in storage, and thus, unviewable. *SOB!* but then, the museum got back immediately and said they could arrange a room for me "and a few friends" to see it in, along with, perhaps, a very special Goya (my favorite) and a Dalí. If you can't meet us in Texas, the museum has a sweet little video about the painting here .

From Texas, we head east and south, stopping in Natchez (why? because Paul has never been in Natchez) then onward to New Orleans. If you know us, you know we fell in love there and then had our honeymoon there and go back there every five years or so to check on the place. We will visit the Tomb of Marie Laveau (iykyk) and other favorite, uh, haunts, and this time for the first time, I will visit NOLA's National WWII Museum and with some of the "kids" (like me 70 year old kids) of my dad's outfit and the young people now staffing the 100th BG Foundation, hear presentations on the making of Spielberg's Masters of the Air and other programming.

On the way home, we may stop in Memphis and see the ducks at the Peabody Memphis and hit Berea, KY for their gift shops.

If you have favorite stops along the route or in these cities, let us know!

Rennie and Rebus, alas, will not make this trip but will stay and be guard dogs, which they so excel at.