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| Where Martin Luther King died |
We spent half the day in Memphis. If Nashville is the home of country music, Memphis is home of the blues. Beale Street is to Memphis what Broadway is to Nashville, but different music. Lots of neon lights, blues clubs and music blaring everywhere, live or recorded. We started by spending 2-3 hours in the National Civil Rights Museum, a must do if you come to Memphis. They built it around the motel where Martin Luther King was shot and killed in 1968. Growing up in Vermont, we are isolated from the 3-400 year struggled African Americans have endured. I had tears several times today.
The take away is that the United States has been striving toward "All men are created equal" for generations and we are slowly gaining ground. Powerful place.
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| Memphis is Blues |
We then walked around the city until we found Beale Street and found some coffee and took in the "scene" there. We ran into what we first thought was a meter man, but turned out to be one of the dozen or so city ambassadors who make the rounds helping tourists find their way and peppering us with Memphis history and information.
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| Light lunch |
He pointed us to Central Barbecue for lunch and we were not disappointed. Pretty inexpensive and awesome barbecue. We finally made it out of Memphis and across the Mississippi River and into Arkansas in the early afternoon. We were trying to find "The Ozarks" and at first we seemed to run out of the rolling hills of Tennessee and onto the flat plains. Looked like cotton and corn were grown there, but maybe something else. We headed north and the countryside slowly got hillier and finally it got very rolling with lots of ponds and lakes. This was the Ozarks. Pretty rustic like Vermont and of course no leaves since it is January, but you can see why people from all those flat places flock here to enjoy the mountains and lakes.
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| Map of last two days |
We only made it to Mountain Home before it started getting dark, but that was plenty. We are way ahead of schedule so we can goof off.
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