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We woke up early and headed over to Sayre, Oklahoma, to see a colony of prairie dogs. We saw a bunch of dirt mounds from the road, but couldn't really see much... until we took out the binoculars and saw ten to twenty little prairie dogs scampering around! I saw a few standing on their hind legs (probably standing guard for their homes), which was probably the highlight of the trip for me. Unfortunately, they were a few hundred feet from the road, so we couldn't get any pictures on my camera.
We then headed west through the Texas panhandle, where there was literally NOTHING. I don't think I've ever been on a highway where there weren't any exits, restaurants, gas stations, etc, for over a hundred miles. After living in highly populated areas for my whole life, it was bizarre to pass through such a desolate landscape.
We did stop at a Welcome Center that was built right into the side of a hill. Besides looking incredibly neat, I couldn't help but marvel at the intelligence of the architecture. The grassy hill provides natural insulation from the heat and shelter from bad weather, while large glass windows allow enough natural light into the building to minimize the use of electricity (which seems to be powered by a windmill and solar panels anyway). Dany insisted on birdwatching, even though signs indicated danger from tornadoes and poisonous snakes.
We stopped in Groom to view a cross billed as the "largest cross in the Western Hemisphere" standing at 190 feet tall. Further investigation shows that it's actually the SECOND largest cross in the Western Hemisphere, as a cross erected in Illinois stands 198 feet tall.
Here are some facts about the cross from the Cross Ministries' website:
-- The cross can be seen from 20 miles away.
-- One thousand people stop by the 19 story cross each day.
-- It took eight months to complete the 2.5 million ton monument.
-- Rest rooms are available at the gift shop 24 hours a day, seven days a week. -- "Truly, all things are possible for those we believe."
Around the foot of the cross, there were 12 statutes representing the stations of the cross. The statutes seemed fairly graphic, not to mention oddly Catholic for this section of the country. I originally thought that the Romans killed Jesus, but upon seeing the feather headdress on one of the statutes I started to think that maybe Native Americans were involved somehow.
We hit New Mexico next, which seemed like a much cooler state than Texas from the get go. At the state's Welcome Center, there was a bronze cast of a brontosaurus bone with teeth marks from a predator dinosaur which was soooo cool. The eastern half of New Mexico was surprisingly wooded, mountainous, and beautiful.
We ended the day in Sandia Crest, which was a woodland park in the mountains outside of Albuquerque. We thought about camping there for the night, but decided to stay at a hotel since 1) camping was not actually allowed in the park, 2) we didn't have any water or food with us in the car, and 3) I needed to use the internet to help me decide whether to attend USC or UCLA for law school after getting accepted off of the waitlist at UCLA earlier that night.
We left Memphis this morning by driving west. We soon crossed the Mississippi River (neither as wide nor as impressive as I was expecting) into Arkansas, where we spent a few captivating hours driving through the state on the Blue Star Memorial Highway. We passed a number of bucolic small towns, but I remember thinking that the state seemed as rural and poor as the statistics seem to indicate.
We probably saw more religious billboards in Arkansas than in any other state. I couldn't get a photo of my favorite one reminding drivers that adultery is a sin, but I found the sheer number of billboards to be ironic for a number of reasons. Chiefly, 1) the famous exploits of the state's former governor, 2) the name of the gas station where we stopped for fuel, and 3) the graphic graffiti found inside that gas station's bathroom.
Please note, I did not post photographs of the more explicit graffiti...
After lunch, we hit the corners of Missouri and Kansas to fill in spaces on my map. I thought that it was funny that the first thing over the border of Kansas was a strip club, so we stopped and took a picture of the sign. Go figure, there were two cars in the parking lot already.
Next came Oklahoma, the tenth and last new state for me on our road trip (see below). We drove southwest on the Will Rogers Turnpike, passing through Tulsa and later Oklahoma City where we stopped to visit the bombing memorial. The memorial was beautifully done with a reflecting pool and 168 lights representing each of the victims. I have to say that I almost choked up when I noticed that there were 19 smaller lights, which specifically represented the children who died at the daycare center.
We ended up staying the night in a small town called Elk City. I can't remember anything about the hotel, so I think it was pretty unexciting.
Today was an "off day" for driving. Instead, we filled the day with an epic amount of sightseeing around Memphis. First stop? Graceland, naturally. As we were driving to Graceland via Elvis Presley Blvd., we couldn't help but notice all the Elvis themed hotels (the Heartbreak Hotel, the Memphis-Graceland RV Park). Even the Days Inn advertised a guitar shaped pool and a tv channel that played Elvis movies 24 hours a day. The parking lot at Graceland was packed with Elvis fanatics from all over the country, some of whom paid $68 for a "VIP Ticket" to see the full estate, planes, jumpsuits, etc. We chose the cheapest ticket ($28) because all we really cared about was the mansion itself.
We put on our audio tour headphones, then jumped on a tram to cross Elvis Presley Blvd into Graceland itself. Graceland was exactly as trashy as I expected it to be... Elvis had paintings and photographs of himself in many of the rooms and probably the gaudiest tackiest decorations I've ever seen. One of his sitting rooms was jungle themed with green shag carpeting on both the floor AND the ceiling, not to mention an indoor waterfall and a monkey stuffed animal. It is hard to believe until you actually see it with your own eyes, so make sure to check out the ridiculous photographs above for a small taste of Elvis' home. The other people seemed so impressed, but the whole time I couldn't help wondering which toilet was the one that Elvis died on.
I hate to say it, but I think that Graceland will be one of the highlights of the trip... if not my life.
After that, Dany and I headed over to the old location of Stax Records. The historic label (home of Otis Redding, Booker T & the MGs, Isaac Hayes, etc) has been defunct for over thirty years, but is now the site of a great museum called the Museum of American Soul Music or something like that.
We took a quick drive to the Lorraine Hotel, where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. We were late for dinner so we didn't go inside the Civil Rights Museum, but it was neat to at least see the building from the outside. Somewhat ironically, there were anti-crime billboards in the area ("Don't take the wrap for others," "Don't be quiet when you see a crime," etc).
So we've been in Tennessee the past two days. Not really my choice of stopover points, but this is where my mom lives now, so I'll deal with spending time in this crazy state. But it really wasn't that bad.Before we get to that, there's a lot of catch-up to be done as we started off in Franklin, KY yesterday morning. I am not sure if this town actually exists beyond the odd gas stations, lodging options and fast food joints. If it weren't for the trucking industry, this town would be dead. But the $50 Days Inn was nice.
Anyway, our drive yesterday was to start just over the border in Kentucky from where we would head south into Tennessee, through the Nashville area, south into Alabama (a new state for me, #39), west into Mississippi and then north into the Memphis area. But of course we made a few stops and luckily stayed on schedule.
Apparently cigarettes are really expensive in Kentucky. Gas was cheap though.
The first drive through Tennessee was rather uneventful -- just some traffic and the countdown to a new state. The first thing that stood out about Alabama were the rockets, as Huntsville has a very strong tie to the space program.
There were also a lot of churches, like a ridiculous amount of them, most of which were Baptist and Pentecostal. These southerners are a church going folk, which was pretty clear on a Sunday morning as almost no cars were on the road. Except in Muscle Shoals, which is home to the famous FAME recording studios, which is where some of the greatest musicians in history recorded, like Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones.
Plus, the studio had some cats that Beth was into. I had to convince her not to steal them.
Lastly, I will always associate Muscle Shoals with the payday advance establishment. Where the rest of the state had a lot of churches, this city had more payday advance locations than you could shake a stick at. I guess it's a poor town.
Mississippi was boring. I had first visited the state in '00 on cross country roadtrip #1, staying in Biloxi and then driving up the state through the middle, so I've seen way more than I really need to. It's not much different than Alabama.
Just across the border, we were reminded that we were going to hell, which really upset Beth, so she bought a tractor. It didn't fit in the car and we couldn't tow it, so we sold it back. I think we're still going to hell though.
