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| Hangin' with the homies! |
Our journey continues where it last left off - leaving Santa
Fe after a lovely visit with Acazia & Eric (thanks guys!). Now it was time to hit the road for a long
stretch of driving that would take us over the “land bridge” from the West to
East side of the country. First stop of
which would be Amarillo, Texas- where we decided to stop at the Big Texan, famous
for it’s 72 oz. steak. If you finish it,
you don’t pay- at least not monetarily ;) We didn’t actually attempt this feat,
for one, that’s a whole lot of meat, and two, it would take me all day (I’m a
relatively slow eater). But, having a
steak in Texas was our “treasure hunt” item for the state (we have one for
every state we go through), so we split the lunch size steak special, and
checked that off our list.
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| That's a whole lotta beef |
Back to the
road! For whatever reason, we hadn’t
considered making Oklahoma City one of our stops…but after a few hours of driving
and the proximity of it to where we were, we decided to check it out. So glad we did! Not only was the College Softball World Series
going on, it was also home to the Softball Hall Of Fame! To some, this might not be all that exciting,
but being that softball/baseball are the first true loves of my life (go figure
;) ) I was pumped! It was extra awesome
that we were able to actually go out onto the softball fields where the World
Series was being held and lay in the grass, do cartwheels, etc. Thanks to the guy at the gate who let us in
before game time!
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| Wessbiiannns!! |
From there,
we continued on to the Petit Jean State Park in Arkansas, which is a super
dense, super green forest. Great moment #3,219,090 of our journey- we were
laying in our tent (the first night of our whole trip it was warm enough that
we could sleep without our rainfly on!), and swirling all above us was flashes
of fireflies lighting up the sky! So
neat!! We both just laid there watching
them all around us until we fell asleep…until around 3 am or so when we both
woke up to a thunder/lightning storm erupting, and the slow pitter-patter of
rain. Uh-oh! We jumped up and threw our rainfly back on
just in time before the torrential downpour/hail storm hit! Crazy weather. Note to our readers: it gets super, suuuuuppeeerrr
humid out the day after a rainstorm. The
reality of which slapped us in our faces while on a sweat-drenching hike the
next day to which we both sucked our water dry halfway through- not a good
thing. We have coined this hike the
“Hike From Hell.” The next evening when
another big storm starting hitting with raindrops the size of quarters, we
grabbed our gear and decided it was time to head to Memphis, Tennessee!!
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| Drinking sweet-tea for the first time! |
Pulling
into the city where Rock N’ Roll was invented, I really feel like they could
have used better pictures of Elvis on the billboards. Instead of sweaty, bloated wasted Elvis, why
didn’t they use smokin’ hot younger days Elvis? Anyhoo- our first stop was to Sun Studio,
where the likes of Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and of course
Elvis, got their start. We opted to do
the tour, which in addition to the front room, takes you upstairs to a really
neat museum, and down to the recording studio where a whole lot of music magic
has happened. You know the saying, “if
this room could talk,” well what’s cool about visiting a famous recording
studio is that it can talk, by means of music. We got to listen to some of the original
recordings done in that very room- ‘Walk The Line,” “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Whole
Lotta Shakin’”, etc. – standing where the musicians stood as they sang. It was
a cool feeling.
On a less
lighter note, but also educational- we then headed to the Civil Rights Museum.
It’s located at the original site of the Lorraine Hotel (where Martin Luther
King Jr. was assassinated). They literally built the museum into most of the
hotel, leaving MLK’s room exactly as it was the day he was shot. Walking
through the museum, it was pretty gut wrenching to see the pictures and read
the stories of our nation’s history of absolute bigotry and oppression that we
somehow allowed to happen to African-Americans. Pretty awful what actions human
beings are not only capable of doing, but justifying as well. I can only
imagine how horrible the day MLK Jr. was assassinated was, to so many people he
brought hope to.
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| Sun Studio! |
On to
Nashville, Tennessee! This city, the birthplace of Country Music, is definitely
going on the top 5 list of awesome cities in the US! Bree & I had a great
time roaming the streets here- perfect balmy southern evening, live music
coming out of every open doorway, good food and cold beers. We spent much of
our evening at a bar called “Whiskey Bent,” listening to a great cover band and
taking in the southern culture. We hope to come back here again one day.
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| Kayaking the N.Cumberland River, KY! |
After
these few days in the city, we were ready to get back in our tent. While it
wasn’t in the plans to cruise up to Kentucky from Tennessee, we had a
recommendation for a great place to camp called Sheltowee Trace Outfitters that
we decided to check out. Unfortunately, we got there after dark, so after a bit
of time roaming around in the super creepy, dark woods to find a backcountry
site, we decided to spend the first night on the front lawn. But the 2 nights
following we had a great site, and enjoyed some kayaking (in what we were told
would be beautiful, swimmable waters, that turned out to be super brown &
muddy. Ahh well). Coolest thing about
our couple of days here was the magnificent lightning bug show every night.
There was a grassy meadow, with tall trees surrounding it on all sides, and
once evening hit the whole canopy seemed to sparkle with lots and lots of
fireflies. I don’t know if maybe we’re just easily entertained, but this was an
immense source of sensory pleasure. Another big thing about Kentucky that
really stood out was just how green it was. All over, up and down, left to
right- GREEN! Very pretty. Glad we stopped by.
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| Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas |
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