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.
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