Southern States Road Trip

Dan and I decided to go on one last adventure with just the two of us before our little baby girl joins us in November.  Over the 4th of July weekend, we took a road trip through 6 of the southern states: Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

Texas:
Dan got off work at noon on Wednesday and after we ate lunch we headed north east through the state.  We mostly followed US 59 up to Texarkana which was 293 miles, but we also took some smaller country roads as well.  It was really pretty with a lot of forests and 'country life' living.  We saw a few men who looked like they could be on Duck Dynasty, with camouflage hats and big, white curly beards.  We stopped for dinner at Texarkana.  I had never really thought about where the name of this town came from until we stepped into the Applebee's and noticed that half of it was full of Texas memorabilia and the other half Arkansas; the city straddles the border hence half Texas and half Arkansas.

Arkansas:

After dinner, we headed 121 miles to Benton, Arkansas to stay the night.  As soon as we crossed over into Arkansas gas became much cheaper and there were a lot more weeds along the highway.  We also saw a lot less huge pickup trucks.
On the 4th of July we left Benton and headed for Memphis, Tennessee.  We drove through Little Rock, Arkansas and it didn't seem to be much.  Another difference between Arkansas and East Texas was that we saw more crops, mostly corn. There were also some hills here and there. Later on down the road on two separate occasions, we saw a BYU fan car and a Uof U fan car both from Arkansas...

Tennessee:
We drove 159 miles from the middle of Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee. The two states are divided by the Mississippi river and it was pretty to see Memphis sitting on the river front. We were too early to check into our hotel in Memphis, so we continued on another 13 miles north east to Bartlett, Tennessee where the Temple is.  The temple was really tiny and looked like it had been built on the existing stake center's parking lot.  Even though it was tiny, it was still very pretty.

I thought that I had booked our hotel to be in downtown Memphis next to the Baseball Park, however when I checked my email, I realized that I had booked it about 10 miles south of downtown next to Elvis' Graceland.  We were still too early to check in to our hotel so we went and checked out the Mississippi River.  It was very pretty and they had a walkway where we could walk along the river for a little ways.  We then decided to go check out the area next to Graceland.  Graceland itself is pretty expensive, like $30 just to see the mansion, so we decided just to drive by it and watch the people touring it.  We then went to a strip mall that was solely Elvis Souvenir shops.  It was pretty fun to see all the crazy things you could by there and all the pictures and items they had of him.
Finally we got to check into our hotel!  And finally I got to take a nap!  After our brief rest we headed back into downtown Memphis to attended the Cardinals' AAA team, The Memphis Redbirds vs. the Brewer's AAA team, The Nashville Sounds.  We had pretty good seats, we were 4 rows up from the Redbirds dugout.  It rained on and off throughout the game, and we spent some of the game up in the concession area to stay dry, once enough people had abandoned our section, we went back and sat down and opened our umbrella.  After the game we got to watch fireworks that were lit from the field.

Heading to our hotel after the game took about an hour because of all the 4th of July fireworks and parties traffic.  The fireworks were lit from the Mississippi River and we could see them reflected in the buildings around us.  There was a truck in front of us in traffic that decided they were going to enjoy the fireworks.  The passenger rolled down his window, sat out of it while leaning on the roof of the truck and to top it off, also set his beer on top of the truck and sat and watched the fireworks.  It was pretty funny.


Mississippi:
Friday morning we got up and headed to Jackson, Mississippi via I-55 for 209 miles.  Mississippi was really green and had some rolling hills.    From Jackson we headed South East towards Hattiesburg, Mississippi on US-49 for 90 miles.  It is a lot more interesting to travel on non-interstate roads.  You get to see how the people on the back roads live and also see a bunch of fruit stands.  Mississippi had a lot more crosses everywhere than Arkansas and Tennessee, but still not as much as we saw going through Kansas last year!  From Hattiesburg, Mississippi we drove 100 miles to Tillmans Cove, Alabama which is about 15 minutes south west of Mobile, Alabama.

Alabama:
It rained the whole time we were in Alabama.  Friday night we ventured over to the gulf and drove on some roads that were right on the edge of the water.  We then went to bed early to get ready for our last leg of our trip.  We woke up early Saturday morning and headed out of Alabama, again with it down pouring rain.

Mississippi Again:
We drove 134 miles from Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana, the majority of which was through Mississippi.  We encountered very heavy rains!  Everyone on the highway slows way down and turns on their hazard lights so the cars behind them can see them.

Louisiana: 


It was really cool to drive across the gulf a couple of times!  The road to New Orleans stretches for miles across a section of the gulf.  We didn't want to worry about parking and traffic in New Orleans, so we just drove by downtown.  It was kind of dirty and worn down looking, probably from all the weathering it goes through with each storm.  We drove along St. Charles Ave and saw some beautiful mansions, and the houses around the area were also really cute!  We then got out and walked around in Audubon Park.  From New Orleans, we headed back home!

Texas Again:
After a straight drive of 368 miles we made it back home.  The sun seemed to become much hotter and the roads much busier as soon as we drove over the Texas border.  Also, we were bombarded with state flags again, the only other state that really had their state flag hanging around was Mississippi...
Well, that was our trip!  We are really glad we got to go on it and spend some time on vacation out of the state together!

Total Mileage: 1487  A Special Thanks to 'Kathy' our GPS for getting us around the South!