Yet another shockingly bad plastic breakfast before we ran away from the Heartbreak Hotel – highly unlikely ever to return!! The Elvisisation of Memphis has completley glossed over Memphis’ other claim to infamy – the assassination of Martin Luther King. So we made our pilgrimage to the national civil rights museum at the the Lorraine Motel where MLK was shot in room 306. It was a bit PC as you’d expect, but we did it. We passed the Amtrak station where Ant remembers stretching his legs on the platform when he and Kev did the US by Amtrak.
We leave Tenessese today, across the mighty Mississippi, and decided to drive on the back roads in Southern Arkansas to Tekarkana, literally right across the state.
We started out in the Mississippi delta region of Arkanas, which floods annually and is where America’s rice and cotton come from. The roads were beautiful, so smooth long and straight and encouraged driving at 86mph, until Ant sped past a state trooper who promptly turned around and followed us all lights flashing!! Oops – it was a 55 mph zone. The BDFG booked Ant, the miserable yankie b*****d, no good will come to him, him karma will be bad. Anyway a speeding ticket wasn’t going to spoil the day, so on and on and on we wended, town after town, village after village – therough the never changing landscape. We planned lunch at a diner, only to find refuge from a storm in a roadside pizza hut where the waitress was a muppet, and obviously ate all the left overs.
Heavy rain and sunshine all day and to be honest nothing to see for the 200 mile trip – except cotton, rice, beans and trees, some areas even flooded. Drove through Hope Clinton’s birthplace- no wonder he left!! But then we stumbled on another heritage site of the US, Walmart! And as this is now part of the Adsa family and was founded right here in Arkansas we had to stop. It was ginormous.... Adsa Swanley, eat your heart out. Which is exactly what the customers here seem to do. We were back in extra wide aisle territory. We of course, just bought some fruit.
Leaving all Hope (think about that one....) behind we arrived at Texarkana which had the feel of a motorwaty junction surrounded by millions of junk food places and motels. Serendipitously we found rooms at the Days Inn (rough) on the correct side of the street stateline which meant we could get alcohol, as the Texan county just across the other side of road was dry!!
We ate at the Cattlemans’ club – all wood panelling, but really a breeze block shell next to McDonalds and subway. It was next to the Days Inn but people seemed surprise that we’d walked!!
The alcohol laws in this country continue to confuse and annoy us. Depite this being a wet county, after 9pm you could only buy from a drive through rather than a liquor store. We had no pride, and as we had left the car at the motel, we we left all dignity well behind, as we went through the drive through on foot, cars in front and behind. Then we learn that after 9pm you can buy beer and alcopops but no wine or spirits – so Gill stocks up with four bottles of peachy fuzzy navels – the drink of choice in local trailer parks. Slept well in the dingy rooms.
We leave Tenessese today, across the mighty Mississippi, and decided to drive on the back roads in Southern Arkansas to Tekarkana, literally right across the state.
We started out in the Mississippi delta region of Arkanas, which floods annually and is where America’s rice and cotton come from. The roads were beautiful, so smooth long and straight and encouraged driving at 86mph, until Ant sped past a state trooper who promptly turned around and followed us all lights flashing!! Oops – it was a 55 mph zone. The BDFG booked Ant, the miserable yankie b*****d, no good will come to him, him karma will be bad. Anyway a speeding ticket wasn’t going to spoil the day, so on and on and on we wended, town after town, village after village – therough the never changing landscape. We planned lunch at a diner, only to find refuge from a storm in a roadside pizza hut where the waitress was a muppet, and obviously ate all the left overs.
Heavy rain and sunshine all day and to be honest nothing to see for the 200 mile trip – except cotton, rice, beans and trees, some areas even flooded. Drove through Hope Clinton’s birthplace- no wonder he left!! But then we stumbled on another heritage site of the US, Walmart! And as this is now part of the Adsa family and was founded right here in Arkansas we had to stop. It was ginormous.... Adsa Swanley, eat your heart out. Which is exactly what the customers here seem to do. We were back in extra wide aisle territory. We of course, just bought some fruit.
Leaving all Hope (think about that one....) behind we arrived at Texarkana which had the feel of a motorwaty junction surrounded by millions of junk food places and motels. Serendipitously we found rooms at the Days Inn (rough) on the correct side of the street stateline which meant we could get alcohol, as the Texan county just across the other side of road was dry!!
We ate at the Cattlemans’ club – all wood panelling, but really a breeze block shell next to McDonalds and subway. It was next to the Days Inn but people seemed surprise that we’d walked!!
The alcohol laws in this country continue to confuse and annoy us. Depite this being a wet county, after 9pm you could only buy from a drive through rather than a liquor store. We had no pride, and as we had left the car at the motel, we we left all dignity well behind, as we went through the drive through on foot, cars in front and behind. Then we learn that after 9pm you can buy beer and alcopops but no wine or spirits – so Gill stocks up with four bottles of peachy fuzzy navels – the drink of choice in local trailer parks. Slept well in the dingy rooms.
