Day 15 - Memphis

We figured we’d get an early(ish) start on our trip to Jackson today as our destination is Memphis so we’ve got a lot of miles to cover today. We packed up, dropped the keys and were on the road by 8. Though I’m sure the girls would have enjoyed a morning swim, it was nice to not have to pack up any wet suits or towels. The girls enjoyed a bit of breakfast in the car to speed the miles up, got their math and reading done and before they knew it we were in Jackson. Our first stop was the Old Capitol Museum. 

The building alone was beautiful.

We intended just to quickly check it out, stretch our legs and use the restroom, but this place was awesome! It offered a lot of history on Mississippi and the building was gorgeous. After a major face lift after Hurricane Katrina (yep, reached all the way to Jackson) the building was restored to its original state and offered a fun treasure hunt and "I spy" game for the girls to play while they learned about Mississippi.

Overlooking the senate.

You can’t visit Jackson without talking Civil Rights, so from the Capitol we drove out to Medgar Evers house. We decided not to do the tour as the outside of the house alone offered more information than the girls were probably ready for. I love our road trips for so many reasons, but driving and seeing so many different places offers so many differing perspectives of history. It was interesting conversation discussing civil rights and Medgar Evers, right after visiting Dealey Plaza and discussing the assassination of JFK. The girls quickly made the link between JFK and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with Medgar Evers and his assassination. I am hopeful that these “lessons” they are learning on vacation help them better understand history and how far we’ve come and how very far we still need to go.

Medgar Evers house. If you have never seen "Ghosts of Mississippi" I highly recommend it, can't wait to watch it again now that I know more. 

From Jackson we continued north to Memphis. We had hoped to hit Graceland and Mud Island today, but our fun in Jackson delayed us a bit. It was nearly 5pm when we arrived in Memphis. We drove by Graceland and we were able to see the walls surrounding Graceland, the Mansion and a few of Elvis’ planes (notably, the Lisa Marie) and decided since we could see so much from the street, we’d save the money on the tour, *pretty pricey for those of us non-mega fans.* 

Welcome to Graceland!

Can you tell this stop was for Mark and I? The girls weren't too thrilled about Elvis, but they worked on their lip curls and hip swiveling and channeled their inner Elvis.

The Mansion. *We saved the $150 and scoped out the inside on line.

The wall surrounding the estate was really cool. The girls loved reading all of the graffiti from enamored Elvis fans.

We then checked out Sun Studio, The Orpheum, and Beale Street and decided Memphis didn’t draw us enough to stay this time around. Though plenty of things we could do, no one had their heart set on any of it. We decided to continue on to St. Louis. We grabbed a bite to eat at Checkers downtown Memphis and then loaded up again. Surprisingly, the girls weren’t itching to get out of the van, so we decided to make good time. Though we absolutely love St. Louis, they’ve been there a few times, (and it’s a fairly easy drive) so once we hit St. Louis, we decided to keep going. Though none of us are really ready for our vacation to end, we are all excited to spend some time in our new house. Having only been there 6 days before we left, there are so many things we are excited to settle in to. We drove until Washington and crashed at my parents’ house so we could make our last stop of vacation. Our last planned stop is to see Will and fill him in on our vacation adventures. We were so hoping he would be with us on this one…and he was in so many ways… but I’ll leave that for a different post. Thanks, South, for a fantastic 2 weeks!