2018 THE BIG ONE ACROSS THE USA ....... 

 

Here is the  photo album click here >>>>>. PHOTO ALBUM

 

 

   

 

We meet up again with Beale Street drummer Rodd Bland proud son the Blues Hall of Fame legend Mr Bobby BLUE Band. A new memorial statue of Bobby has recentley been erected in his honour, we took the opportunity to have photos taken with Rodd and later that night we saw his band live on Beale Street.

 

Rodd also played alongside his father with and his godfather BB King.

 

Rodd was given the honour of carrying BB's Guitar (LUCILE) at his funeral procession on Beale Street.

 

We spent 4 days in Memphis and then return to Clarksdale for a few day s.

 

This epic 42 day journey then took us through Little Rock, Arkansas during an 8hr drive to  Dallas, we spent 2 nights in our first luxury AirBnB with 2 ladies.

 

 

The downtown Dallas area in Dealey Plaze was the site of JFK's assassination, photos of this and the rest of the trip are in Photo Album link at the top of this page. 

 

We enjoyed 2 nights in Austin, 3 in San Antonio and one night in El Paso - we drove for 7hrs through New Mexico from El Paso then into Arizona and a 2 night stay in Tombstone, then into California staying in San Diego for 4 nights. San Diego was such fun and a place well worth a visit.

 

From there we headed towards Santa Monica stopping at Long Beach to see the grand old ship The Queen Mary. We spent 3 nights in Santa Monica and visited Venice Beach, Hollywood,  Petersen Car Museum in LA and took a Uber to Malibu. Our Los Angeles highlight was a day having lunch near Rodeo Drive and an afternoon exploring Sunset Strip, we visited such iconic music venues as the Whiskey a Go Go, Rainbow Room, Viper Room and The Troubadour.

 

Next we set off for Monterey via Santa Barbara and I visit Pebble Beach golf links in Carmel and we have supper in Monterey harbour.

 

Next morning we had a 90 minute drive, to San Francisco, we dropped the rental car off  at Alamo on day 1 of our 5 day chill out without the stress of driving. We visited Alcatraz and the prison tour was great, we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito where Otis Redding wrote Sitting on the Dock of The Bay on his houseboat. We took in the giant Redwood Trees in Muir Woods. 

 

We then had an even more chilled out rest on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu for 5 nights, we met my buddy Paul Winter who was their waiting for us and the next 3 days went on a few a few trolley bus tours including Pearl Harbor. This wonderful Hawaiian Island of Aloha is very scenic but we found the beaches on Waikiki in Honolulu crowded with millions of tourists, mostly Japanese.

 

Not finished just yet, we flew to Anchorage in Alaska for a 3 night stay we took a day cruise from Whittier to see the thawing glaciers and from here we fly to Seattle our final destination for our last 3 nights in the USA. In Seattle we met Rockin' Johnny Burgin playing in the Highway 99 Blues Club, he called himself Rockin' Johnny in those days, his good lady Stephnie Tice kept me updated of their World Tours and in July 2019 they visited me for 3 nights in Birmingham. I managed to book Johnny to play our local Crossroads Blues Club on the first leg of his UK tour. ROCKIN' JOHNNY VIDEO CLIP

 

 

THIS IS WITHOUT OUT DOUBT A TRIP OF A LIFETIME, THE LAST BIG ONE