July 13th - Day 31
Every day we see new things. Today we saw another beautiful state, lots of large bugs (thank you Arkansas), and gasoline at $3.90 per gallon. Plus, we also saw what we set out to actually see today; the Lorraine Motel Civil Rights Museum, and family in Little Rock. It’s been a pretty good day… minus the very large bug (she states was the size of a hummingbird) that chased Becca around in the campground shower.
A few highlights from the day:
Before leaving our campground along the Mississippi this morning, Becca and the kids explored the treehouse viewing platform they had discovered. Only Becca and Aubrey reached the top, but enjoyed the birds-eye view it allowed for.
We spent the entire morning and early afternoon touring the Lorraine Motel & National Civil Rights Museum. One of the things that was great about this experience is we could view both the room that Martin Luther King Jr was staying in at the motel, along with the boarding house room in which James Earl Ray rented across the street and the shared bathroom from which he fired the fatal shot which killed MLK. With visiting all of these sites, one of our goals is to provide our kids more context to what they learn in their studies. I think this accomplished that. They will never think about MLK Day the same and will hopefully be inspired to always live their lives as allies for their friends and family of color.
From our perspective, and after visiting Civil Rights sites in Atlanta, Greensboro, Birmingham, and now Memphis; the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis seemed to have the greatest amount of content and the greatest depth of information. With that said, after a history heavy week like we had, everyone had information overload and was having trouble absorbing further information (or patience for our non-readers in the huge museum). Otherwise, we probably could have spent another hour or two.
Following our time at the Museum, we needed to find somewhere for a late lunch before getting on the road to drive to Little Rock. Once again, since we were in the South, BBQ seemed like the best option (this also happened to be the only restaurant between the Museum and where we parked). Now that we’ve eaten Carolina, Nashville, and Memphis styles of BBQ, we can rank our favorite. It was the Nashville style BBQ we had while in Chattanooga, although our sample size, both literally and statistically, should be larger. Next week we’ll be sampling Texas BBQ.
Upon arriving in Little Rock, we set up camp at Maumelle Campground before being picked up by Becca’s Uncle Wayne to go have dinner with him and his family. With the Maumelle Campground on the banks of the Arkansas River, we have now camped on 11 different bodies of water; the Snake River, Jackson Lake, Wind River, Keyhole Reservoir, Big Stone Lake, Lake Michigan, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Atlantic Ocean, Mississippi River, and the Arkansas River. Each location has been beautiful in its own way, with more locations to come.
A few pictures from the day:
