It's good to be back home!

Over all, a very good trip. Ride down and back was enjoyable, thanks to my back seat buddy Lexi, who kept me entertained for the most part. Seeing Chris, Krista, Alyssa, Brionna, Bryce and Christian was, of course, the best part of the trip. Spending time with family is always the best part of any trip in my book, especially when they live so far away.

Food was good too, from the great cookout Chris and Krista provided on Friday, to the meal we had Saturday evening at Outback! in Memphis, even though it caused some problems for me later that evening. I think being so used to a certain diet for so long and then subjecting your body to a much larger variety over the course of a weekend tends to cause problems, especially for those of us advancing in years.

As Krista and the kids were leaving Saturday evening to attend a baby shower, Randy decided we should take a side trip to Memphis to see the place where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. This was my first time to see the site, even though I have been to Memphis a few times since this event took place. I guess I wasn't all that aware of the event as it took place while I was in high school and during a time when I was distracted by other things. It was interesting to me from a historical point of view, but I'm not usually one to care that much seeing where someone was killed. I have the same reaction when passing by an accident as I do my best not to look at the misfortunes of others.

One thing I didn't know about this site was that there has been a protest by one woman since 1988. The events surrounding her protest are somewhat unclear. Some sites say she was living at the motel when Dr. King was shot, but then others say she started living at the motel in 1973 when she was hired as a maid. Whatever the case, her protest there has been active now for over 23 years. She has a website and makes several claims about how the on-site National Civil Rights museum should be boycotted because the museum has become a Disney-style tourist attraction, which seems preoccupied with gaining financial success, rather than focussing on the real issues. I suppose you can judge that for yourself if you ever decide to check it out. You can visit the museum's website for more details.

Of course all of this meant nothing to an 11 year old as Lexi was completely uninterested, but she was instead captivated by catching a glimpse of what she called a peep truck! She was totally upset by her father's refusal to turn around and go back to see it and have her picture taken with it. Even so, I managed to find several images on the web which display the odd vehicle, which is actually referred to as a peep mobile. As expected, the organization which uses this vehicle for promotional aspects is the Peeps brand candy which is popular during this time of the year. My daughter, Autumn, plans to digitally insert an image of Lexi standing next to the car so she can have her picture with the peep truck! Kids...


No trip to Memphis would be complete without a picture of the King's mansion, and it was certainly true this time around. We just did a drive by on this one also, so no really good pictures were taken. I did take pictures when we visited Graceland in '98, but they were taken on a Ricoh digital camera with only 640x480 resolution. The image quality is very good for an early example of a digital camera, but one of the reasons I chose this model was for it's known good quality photos. This image above was taken walking up the drive to the mansion. 









As long as the light was good, the images look very good, but not being able to use the flash inside led to some blurry looking images. This is caused by the shutter remaining open a lot longer to capture enough of the image to be viewable and it's almost impossible to hold the camera steady long enough to make this happen. I suppose if one had the camera mounted on a tripod the results would have been much better. At least you can make out what things are and I was glad to at least have this ability. Some images turned out much better in the low light, like the picture of the artwork above. No doubt because of the light on the painting itself, more light equals better pictures with older cameras, that is for sure! At least you get an idea of what conditions were like way back when inside Graceland. 

Once back to the hotel in Blytheville, I didn't waste any time in going to bed as we wanted to get an early start on our journey back home, but the No Rules Parmesan Pasta with chicken that I ordered did not sit well at all and I was up again about 1:30 until after 4 before I finally was able to get a little sleep. Back up after 6 and headed for home after a short goodbye with Chris and to pick up Lexi. 

Back in Indiana we made a brief stop in Madison to pop in at my granddaughter, Carly's, baby shower. We left Lexi there to ride back home with my other granddaughter, Jordan. Made another brief stop in Versailles to pick up Kylie from her grand parents house and then we were finally on our way to Seymour. 

I didn't stay up very late and shortly after 11 I hit the hay where I stayed until shortly after 10 this morning after getting a voice mail on my phone. I feel much better now and very glad to be back doing my thing at home!