We started our stay in Alabama by staying 2 nights in Huntsville. On our way to Huntsville we stopped at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, located in Sheffield, Alabama. They recorded many top hits mostly in the 1960s and 70s, with the Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, etc. Its obscure location was attractive to many top recording artists since they could come and do some recording while being able to remain under the radar. The studio also boasted a band which had a very cool and unique sound and people wanted to come record with that band.

The next morning we went to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. I must admit I had no idea that Huntsville Alabama had such a rich rocket history! The Saturn V rocket that was used for the Apollo missions to the moon was developed and built there. It was flown from 1967 to 1973 and was used for nine crewed flights to the moon. They have a real size model of it and it is very impressive! It was amazing to read about all the work that went into the development of the rocket, and figuring out how to make it go all the way to the moon – and a lot of it done with pencil and paper!

The next day on our way to Selma, we stopped at America’s oldest baseball park, Rickwood Field in Birmingham Alabama. It was being used for a high school tournament today – which was fun to watch for a few innings. But its history is amazing! It opened in 1910 and many legends played there such as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Ted Williams, just to name a few.

When we arrived in Selma we went straight to the bridge and walked over it and back. It was surreal to see the bridge in real life after seeing it so much in the media. Also crazy to learn that the bridge is named after a Ku Klux Klan leader! Unfortunately, the town of Selma was pretty run down. We stayed right downtown in a place that had been completely refurbished, but the surrounding buildings were in disrepair. Hopefully now that the hotel is done and nice it will bring more interest to the area and nearby buildings will get fixed up.

After our night in Selma, we went down to Montgomery. We saw the first Confederate White House and a lot more information about Rosa Parks and the bus boycott. Looks like we’ll be dodging thunderstorms on our drive to Florida tomorrow!

I want to take a quick moment to give photo cred to Larry. Yes, I’ve taken a few (the ones he’s in) ha ha. But every other picture I’ve used has been one he’s taken. So a big thank you to Larry for the great pictures and for sharing them with me! 😁

After our big day at Graceland and the Shiloh battlefield we spent the night in Tupelo, Mississippi. We continued our Elvis theme the next morning by visiting Elvis’ birthplace home. His parents lived in a two-room house that his father and grandfather built. He was born during the depression, and they were very poor, but they had music, church and the love of family.

Our first full day in Tennessee was in Memphis! We were busy, packing in as much history as we could. We started out at the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel. The Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated is the front of the building. The museum has been built around the motel, with a lot of information about civil rights, going back in history to slavery. It moves through history, and all the struggles, protests and violence that have occurred through the years. It ends with a look into the actual motel room and balcony that Dr. King occupied when he was assassinated. Next you can leave the museum and go across the street to see the view from the boardinghouse where the shots were fired from. There was information about the Little Rock Nine, which was kind of cool since we had just been there.

We then went to Sun Studio, “The Birthplace of Rock ‘n’ roll”, where Elvis recorded his first song, along with other legends like B.B. King, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. The studio where these recordings occurred is not only still there but is still in use to this day! It was amazing to be in that studio, which is largely unchanged, and think about all the legends who have been there and recorded songs there.

Our last stop of the day was the Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, which again had a lot of historical information about the origins of Rock and Blues music. There was a bit of overlap in the two music museums, but both were valuable places to visit.

Next up was Graceland! After our big day of museums the day before, we were at it again. I like Elvis, I know who he is, I know his songs, but I’m not some huge fan. But how can you go to Memphis and NOT visit Graceland?! I didn’t have a lot of expectations of what Graceland would be like — but I pictured huge, opulent, garish, over the top, etc. It isn’t. They have been able to keep the house in the exact same condition and decor that was there when he was alive. There were some weird things, like green (avocado) shag rug that was everywhere including the ceiling in one room. And a rec room that had tapestry all over the walls and ceiling. But otherwise it was fairly normal looking. We saw lots of his things and memorabilia — I even got to touch his guitar. It was all a pretty neat experience and I’m glad we went.

On our way out of Tennessee we went to the Shiloh National Military Park, a Civil War battleground site. It was an epic battle that lasted two days and had more than 23,700 casualties. We arrived a little later in the afternoon than would be ideal, but we were able to look in the visitor’s center and do some of the driving tour around the site, reading accounts of what happened.

We stayed in Arkansas just one night – in Texarkana. The city of Texarkana straddles the state line between Texas and Arkansas. But trust me, we did stay overnight on the Arkansas side! On our way out of Arkansas to Tennessee, we made some side trips.

We didn’t think we really had time to go to Bill Clinton’s Presidential Library in Little Rock, so we went to Hope, Arkansas, his birthplace. We toured the house where he lived the first 4 years of his life with his mom and grandparents. His father tragically died in a car crash 3 months before he was born. It was fun to hear how his early years there shaped his future. Also cool that his grandmother wrote in a letter when he was 4 years old, that they bought him a roll top desk because he was going to be President of the United States one day and needed a desk!

After stopping in Hope, we did go to Little Rock and stopped at the visitor’s center for the history of the Little Rock Nine and Central High School, and the protest that happened in 1957. Critical history in the Civil Rights Movement that I really didn’t know much about. Central High School is still there and is a public 4-year high school and is basically unchanged. The visitor’s center is just across the street from the high school so the pictures from 1957 could easily be matched up to the current day scene.

This is one of the “cheap” states. We are not staying overnight here. We did drive 70 miles through northwest Louisiana though! We also stopped for gas AND lunch. 🙂 We drove to a place where 3 states converge: Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. It was just a little spot, but it did have a small cement marker with 3 sides labeled as to what state each side of the marker represented. 🙂

Texas started out with a funny story. You’ll probably know where this is heading before long … but we drove on Saturday from Carlsbad NM to Lubbock TX. In doing so we went from Mountain time to Central time and lost an hour. We have been waking up fairly early on this trip, hotels tend to get a little noisy between 6 and 7 as people are leaving and doors are slamming. So it’s not been unusual that we are up before 7:00. Sunday morning I woke up thinking it was the middle of the night. But I looked at my watch and it was 7:20! Pretty late for us. Then Larry went over to put up the window shade and it was pitch dark outside. I said “why is it so dark outside?!” And he says “I don’t know, I was thinking the same thing!” So we were like well, we are on the western part of the Central time zone… oh well it’s dark and it’s weird. I went down to the gym to work out. When I was done I noticed the clock on the wall said 6:58 and I thought hmmm the clock is wrong. Seriously. That is what I thought. I did NOT figure it out! Then I came back to the room and Larry said it’s Daylight Saving time. We felt so ridiculous that this had NOT occurred to us, and me, even with the clock an hour off. We laughed so hard at being so far removed from everything. We had actually just talked about it too. We had lost not just one hour, but two! But on to our Texas adventures.

We first stopped in Lubbock. Buddy Holly was from Lubbock so there is a lot of him around — street signs that have his famous glasses, etc. They also have the Buddy Holly Center. We took a few hours to go through the center and it is just so tragic. We all know the story, but to realize again that he was only 21 years old, and his career was only 18 months old when he died is just so moving and thought provoking. What more would he have accomplished had he lived? How many more hit songs would he have written? There was lots of memorabilia, guitars and records, etc. But I thought one of the most interesting things were his glasses. The actual glasses he was wearing in the plane crash. And they looked perfect. Not broken or bent or anything! We then headed over to the American Windmill Museum and saw so many windmills. It’s amazing to see huge windmills that were constructed in the 1800’s. Big, huge windmills. And we certainly learned a lot about wind power!

Our second town was Waco. After spending a number of single nights in a row in hotels, it was nice to stay here for 2 nights. Turns out Dr. Pepper was invented here, and there is a big museum about it! It was interesting to learn that carbonated water was considered good for you, and pharmacists would then add flavors and syrups to the water to encourage people to drink it. That is why there are soda fountains in drug stores. Carbonated water, and then flavored sodas go way back to the mid 1800’s! The challenge came in selling it in containers that would maintain the fizzy property of carbonated water. We also went to Baylor University to take a look around. It was nice to have an afternoon with not much to do except hang out a bit. We have been really packing in our days with activities and driving, so it felt good to take care of some things from home and relax.

We stayed 3 nights in 3 different places in New Mexico. It’s been pretty cold, in the teens at night! I didn’t know it got that cold in southern New Mexico. We even had snow this morning, but nothing like the Grand Canyon snow!

The first town we stayed in was Deming. Prices are going down as we head east. We had a spaghetti dinner with salad and bread for $8! On our way to our next stop, we went to White Sands National Park. This is the world’s biggest gypsum dune field. It’s very nice soft sand, and truly amazing in its vastness.

Then we went onto Roswell, and the UFO Museum. Lots of information about the Roswell UFO incident. It was interesting and our alien friend felt at home. Ha ha

Lastly, we went to Carlsbad and Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It was great that they had an elevator option to get down into the cavern. Interestingly, outside it was a very cold and windy 18° with the wind chill, but the cavern was quite a bit warmer at a balmy 56°. With all the pathways and lights, it was nice to be able to walk around and explore.

According to our criteria I hadn’t been to New Mexico before. I had only been to 4 corners, putting an arm or leg in all 4 states at the same time. Fun trick, but it doesn’t count. I got a good first taste of the state. I’m looking forward to coming back through in May to Taos, which I’m sure will be quite a bit different from the towns we were in this time around.

I’m guessing by now you’re thinking, what is going on?! Are they really going to go to all 50 states or just go in circles around California and Arizona? We are feeling a bit like that too! From now on though, it gets real! We’ll be visiting states at a much faster pace.

We purposely wanted to stay around the west coast so we could attend the pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas and our nephew’s baseball games in San Diego.

After being able to attend these events, we were able to spend 3 nights at my brother and sister in law’s house in Sun City West where we were treated to a beautiful place to stay, great company, laundry facilities and a home cooked dinner! Very fun couple of days riding ebikes, checking out the Mariner’s spring training facility, and visiting. Unfortunately, with the baseball lockout going on, we couldn’t go to a spring training game as we had planned. But we were able to go in and check out the minor leaguers who were participating in drills and workouts.

We were also able to visit with our former next-door neighbors who had moved from Bainbridge to Arizona over 10 years ago. We had such a great time catching up with them! It was almost like no time had passed and we picked up where we left off.

Our last night in Arizona was in Bisbee. On the way we took some side trips to the Titan Missile Museum and to Tombstone. While in Bisbee we went on the Queen Mine Tour.

If you have known us very long, you know that Larry and I are sports fans. We love watching sports, both college and pro sports. One we really enjoy is women’s basketball. Yes, we follow the Storm, but college women’s basketball is one of our favorites. We even had season tickets to the UW Huskies until the kids got old enough that they were doing their own sports and school activities and it was getting more difficult to attend night games in Seattle.

When the Pac-12 started having a women’s basketball tournament, it was fun to watch on TV. When it was in Seattle at Key Arena, it was even more fun to attend the games in person. It has been in Las Vegas now for the last few years, so this year we purposely added it to our journey. Nevada needed a stop! It’s always fun to see all 12 teams, their bands, mascots, cheer squads and fans all in one place.

We also were able to take in the Cirque de Soleil show “Beatles Love” and visit The Neon Museum. But believe it or not we did not gamble at all! Not even one slot machine. Clearly, we are not risk takers. Or maybe we were just busy with other fun events! 🙂