Sue's Road rage Tour!!

I can't tell you what a relief it was to get into that taxi!

When there was first talk of Kasim Sulton playing a US tour with The New Cars I decided that I wanted to see the first few, the last few and any in Texas (as that's one state that I've flown into several times but never really visited). Of course, I was lucky because the second concert is in Texas so I could kill two of those birds with one stone (it's just a shame that they're not playing more in Texas).

I also decided that this was one tour when I was actually going to be organised beforehand and it wasn't going to be a last minute rush. Unfortunately about 3 weeks before the start if the tour, my laptop broke and (eventually) I was told that it would take up to 6 weeks to get it repaired! As well as "doing" KasimInfo.com I do website maintenance for a couple of clients and they wouldn't have been too impressed if I couldn't have maintained their websites for a couple of weeks! Thankfully one of my accounts jobs offered to lend me one! (This wasn't quite as generous as it sounded as they also want their accounts kept up to date while I'm away too!)

Anyway with all that, plus having to work until 11.30pm 3 out of the last 4 nights before I left to complete some month end accounts, it was such a relief when the taxi arrived and picked me up at 4.30am (even though I'd only had less than 4 hours sleep)!

We got to Heathrow Airport by 5.30am and I checked in immediately and was through immigration by 5.45am! Then started my day of sitting around! I caught the 07.55am American Airlines (my favourite airline but also the cheapest for this trip) flight to Chicago which left pretty much on time.

(Thankfully!) it was an uneventful flight and I had a double seat to myself. I wasn't too impressed with their film choice but I had loads to read so the time went quite fast. We landed almost on time at 10.30am and I sailed through immigration for once. (As I've visited US so much, I often get the third degree but this guy just looked bored and asked me why I was here ("a holiday") and didn't even ask how long I was staying!). I had almost a three hour wait at Chicago so I did some work (it's so nice having a laptop with a battery which lasts three hours rather than 3 seconds!!) and read some more. When I left UK it was lovely and sunny and in Chicago it was windy and rainy (later when I got to Memphis on The Weather Channel they were showing pictures of the weather in Chicago!).

My American Eagle flight left about 20 minutes late but it was only an hour and 20 minutes flight to Memphis. When I got there I discovered that my suitcases had caught an earlier flight again. (Sorry but after the Lockerbie bombing back in 1989 I still think that's so dangerous but it seems that they haven't learnt anything.)

I collected my hire car and that was a bargain as I'd paid for an economy car but they only had an "intermediate" so I had a bigger one. Don't ask me what make it is - I just know that it's silver! It's funny but I landed in Tennessee, I'm seeing Kasim in Mississippi and I'm staying in Arkansas! It was only a 10 minute drive to my hotel.

I think this hotel must have been new when The Cars was first around as it's definitely seen better days! There's a big sign outside it saying "Welcome Music Fans" but I think they mean country music fans as there's some sort of festival on here at the moment!

It's funny but when I first came to US to see Kasim (1996) my priority was a hotel with a swimming pool. In 1999 I always looked for a hotel near a library or Kinko's as I'd e-mail another one of the JudyGirls and they'd upload the stuff to the website. In 2000 and early 2001 I'd look for a hotel with Direct Dial to the UK so that I could use my Psion (a hand-held computer) to e-mail things for someone else to upload again and from 2002 onwards, I'd look for free locals calls so I could dial in on my laptop using an ISP. Recently it's been high speed access and now it's free wireless! I wonder what it'll be on the next Kasim Sulton Solo Tour???!!!!

Anyway I updated a couple of sites and then went out again. I felt really tired so I just looked for a pharmacy and stocked up on my favourite US shampoo. I was amazed that I was served by someone wearing a Police uniform! I fancied some dinner but I didn't like the look of the restaurant near me so I just went into KFC opposite and I was disgusted to discover that they've stopped doing Zinger burgers!! How on earth can this be progress? I had some over-spicy buffalo snack thing instead.

And then this rock-chick (as they call me at work!) got to bed at 8.30pm as I was shattered and I'd already been up for 24 hours by then.