road trip USA

Introduction - 22nd April

Welcome

- to Philip Fred Grayson's log of his wanderings in America. This will be an occasional, and probably erratic, travel account, or blog of his road trip. If I ever manage to get the wi-fi link working and I find myself with nothing much to do of an evening, I shall endeavour to put pen to paper.

I shall also put up some pictures in the albums - have a peek in the links on the left-hand side of the page.

Where is everybody? Passengers outnumbered by crew...

The big day has dawned (after years of planning). The flight to Washington DC from Heathrow - mercifully T4 and not T5 - was notable chiefly for the lack of passengers.

Check-in at Jury's Hotel Washington found me in a queue with a large assortment of musicians and instruments. This was to prove a major blessing. More of that tomorrow...

A quick reccie of the area revealed (a) the Senegalese Embassy next door (b) The West Wing was accurate - Washington is full of joggers. Tomorrow I'm going on a tour in the TrolleyTour Bus. If Dubya isn't around, maybe I'll bump into the NCIS team.

The Hotel room is great - probably the best I'll have all summer - and the Hotel hosted a Cheese and Wine party to encourage guests to mingle. We duly mingle, and discover that the musicians are playing at the Congressional Blues conference tomorrow night. In fact, they are the lead and principle organisers. A group of the guests decides to go along. It proves more complicated than just buying a ticket - admission is free, but we have to join their club for a year. However, at $35 it sounds worth it, as their Raison D'Etre is to support musicians at the grass roots, including many older performers who have little means of support.

Extensive discussions ensue amongst guests, as we all struggle with the online booking. Eventually, I am deputed to act as ticketmaster, and my laptop comes in handy for the first time. As part of these discussions, a lady of hispanic origin struggles with my name and purpose (my own Raison D'Etre being less clear than our musical companions') and comes to the conclusion that my name is Tripper. The name sticks: Mr Tripper organises the tickets.

I have a chat with Captain Luke, who is a dignified and gracious man. I am not so rude as to ask his age, but guess he is over 80. He walks with a stick but is otherwise sprightly, and reveals tomorrow a penetrating and vibrant bass voice. He is happy to hear that some of us plan to come to the performance. I'm happy to have met a Blues legend. It occurs to me that if he can be so warm hearted and charming to someone with whom he would not have been allowed to share a bus seat 50 years ago, America must be healing its racial divide, at least in the music world. In walking Washington's streets, the folk that I see begging or sleeping rough seem to come exclusively from the black community, so I guess the economic divide takes longer to heal.

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