It's a Small, Often Beautiful, Sometimes Bizarre World!

Today we visited this house. Do you know whose house this was?

But before that...we left Florida yesterday morning after a fabulous two weeks. I've never been a fan of that state until now and still, I prefer the Gulf side and the Panhandle to the more popular Atlantic coast and Keys.

We (meaning Rich of course) drove more than 400 miles yesterday from Panama City Beach, Florida to Tupelo, Mississippi where we 'camped' at a Wal-Mart. Passing through Hoover and Birmingham in Alabama brought back memories of our visit when Sandee and Shawn went to school in Tuscaloosa...Roll Tide Roll! From Birmingham to Tupelo we drove Hwy 78 through the longest stretch of undeveloped land we've seen in many years...beautiful rolling green hills and forests.

This morning we hit the road early and pulled into our KOA in Marion, Arkansas just west of Memphis, TN about 10 a.m. After going around Memphis, we crossed into Arkansas on the I-55 bridge over the Mississippi River...this state line crossing was a special one because until today there were only two states that Rich had never visited, Arkansas and Hawaii. Now he has been to 49 states! I'm not sure that he'll ever catch up to my 50 though!

After getting the RV and the girls settled, we went to Mud Island in Memphis. There, the Riverwalk is an exact scale model of the Lower Mississippi River flowing from its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois 954 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico. It features twenty cities mapped along the Riverwalk; the main rivers flowing into the Mississippi; river engineering structures such as floodways; four watershed walls which map the entire drainage area of the Mississippi River; and then the model empties into an acre size Gulf of Mexico. It is so very cool and something I've wanted to see since hearing about it several years ago. Here are a few photos: The first is the mapped version of Cape Girardeau, near where our niece lives and below that is the mapped version of Baton Rouge where our son-in-law grew up, and the last one is the model of the Mississippi River at the Gulf of Mexico. I did not know until today that it spreads into many streams or tributaries or channels that all flow into the Gulf...the river does not just 'dump' into the Gulf as one wide body of water...fascinating? It was to me!

After leaving Mud Island, we had a great Memphis BBQ mid-afternoon dinner before visiting that home you saw earlier. Did you guess correctly?

Yes, Rich and I toured Graceland, Elvis Presley's home in Memphis.

And if that isn't bizarre enough (for those of you who know us well and know how out-of-character that was)...we came back to camp and did laundry. While at the laundry we met two other campers...one couple was from Des Plaines, IL and the other from Valencia, CA...talk about what a small world it is!