7.10.2012

Monday night we stayed in West Memphis, Arkansas so in the morning we crossed the great Mississippi River into Memphis, Tennessee.

In Memphis, we hit up the famous Beale Street, which is known as the home of blues music. There's a statue of Elvis, since Memphis was his home. Jaime's in love with Elvis, so this was a good day for her.

When we got downtown, they had this section of Beale Street closed off to cars, and I was a bit confused and under pressure and ended up turning the wrong way onto a one-way street. Not my best moment, but fortunately there weren't any cars coming at the time and a kind gentleman, who I'm sure was questioning whether or not I should be driving a car, directed me so I could flip around.

This is the kind of stuff they sell on Beale Street. She didn't end up buying it. I'm not sure why.

After Beale Street, we headed to Graceland, Elvis Presley's home. We really wanted to go inside but it costs about thirty dollars just to get inside the gate in front of his house. Rip.Off. So we looked around the gift shop, looked at his private jet (from afar since you have to pay to tour that, too), and peeped his house from outside the fence. Oh yeah, all this was after we'd already had to pay ten dollars to park. Outrageous.

That's as close as we got to the real deal.

His plane is called "Lisa Marie" and for a small fee of only fourteen dollars you can go inside of it.

I think this was our best find. They look good together, don't you think?

On our way out of Memphis, we stopped at a place we found on the Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives website to try some authentic Memphis BBQ. They gave us a few suggestions and then they brought out a complimentary sampler for us that had a few other things on it since it was our first time. Holy food. We ordered rib tips and pulled pork...or beef...I can't remember, with potato salad and deviled eggs. It was all really good, but I'm not really a big barbecue person. I could eat that sandwich, then have some salad or fruit on the side and be set. The thought of piles of meat smothered in sauce doesn't really do much for me. It was good, though, and I'm sure if you love BBQ, you'd love this place. We definitely had enough food for about four people.

We then crossed over into Mississippi. I had made a playlist with a few songs for each state so when we hit Mississippi, we were definitely rockin' Faith Hill's "Mississippi Girl."

We stopped in Topelo, Mississippi which is where Elvis was born. On the grounds they have the house he was born in, the church he first sang in, and a couple of other memorials. All free. That's my kind of place.

Statue of Elvis when he was twelve years-old I think. Maybe thirteen... It actually was pretty cool to learn about his life and realize what a humble start he had. I also didn't realize that he was a pretty legit musician. He grew up playing the guitar, which I didn't know.

Second time through my trip odometer. We figured we logged about 3,600 miles over the course of our whole trip. (If you'll notice, the regular odometer says 142,599. It still says that over a month later. Pretty much I'll never be able to get anything for my car.)

As previously mentioned, I loved the trees and hills that we saw in Arkansas and it carried over into Mississippi and then later in Alabama. We hit some pretty heavy rain throughout the South but the scenery was beautiful, including a rainbow.

That same day we crossed over into Alabama and stopped in Birmingham for dinner. Neither of us was very impressed with Birmingham. Ok, that's not totally true. It's really pretty because it is absolutely covered in trees. It's so cool to see the city as you're coming in from the north because you can tell it's a pretty populated area with buildings sticking up here and there but the treetops take up most of the skyline. That being said, we got off the freeway downtown and it took us probably twenty minutes to find a restaurant that was open. Downtown. What kind of a city doesn't have restaurants open downtown at 7 pm?

The rain continued to pound us all the way into Georgia, which is the sign you see here.

We ended our night in Atlanta at our friend Jayne (Smalley) Weaver's house. She's living there with her husband for a while. He's selling garbage pick up and she's just hanging out. We hadn't seen each other since her wedding almost a year ago so it was really fun to catch up. We slept on the couch in the living room and she had a blow-up camping mattress that she and Jaime put some hot air into. We talked about the Bachelorette and we all agreed Emily should pick Jef. Well...she did. So that's great.



7.9.2012.

Day three started in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Well, Norman, Oklahoma to be exact. We stayed the night at my friend Devon's house, which is just south of Oklahoma City. When I told my 8th graders that I went to Oklahoma City this summer, they wanted to know if I went to an OKC Thunder game. Nope. We did go see the memorial, though, which I think was a better use of our time.

I obviously remember that the bombing in Oklahoma City happened but I think I was about nine years-old at the time so my memories are pretty faded and even then, I didn't really know what had happened. The memorial had several places that told a little of the story and if we'd gone into the museum, I'm sure we would have gotten a complete vision of what happened that day.

We entered from the west side which has this big wall with an inscription on it.  

You can look through the opening across the reflection pool and there's a wall exactly like it on the other side. These walls symbolize the city's (and nation's) crossover from innocence to hope through extreme circumstances. On the inner sides of the walls are the time stamps of the minute before and the minute after the bombing itself . The times on the wall are 9:01 and 9:03; the bombing itself happened at 9:02 am April 19, 1995. The reflective pool is in place of the road in front of the building that was bombed.

Along the west side of the reflective pool, on the ground where the building had stood, is a lawn filled with empty chairs. Each chair has the name of a person who was killed in the bombing. The larger ones are adults and the smaller ones are children. They're arranged into rows based on the floor of the building that they were on, and on the east side there are five chairs outside the formation which represent the five people who died on the street outside.

There's a wall built with tiles that children from around the country decorated and sent in after the bombing in support of those affected by it.

This tree is called the Survivor Tree. It stood across the street from the building that was bombed and withstood the force of the attack. It stands as a symbol of resilience.

I was so impressed by the memorial. The symbolism was powerful and touching and it was really easy to see and feel the impact that that day and the time following it has had on that city as well as the country. After visiting the memorial, Jaime and I both were really curious about the reasons behind it and what had led up to it. I spent a lot of time on wikipedia as Jaime was driving, reading articles related to the bombing.

While in Oklahoma, we hit up Braum's, which is apparently famous for their ice cream.

Jaime tried to get me to taste her blue ice cream but I refused. It looks radioactive.

That afternoon, my love affair with the South began, starting with Arkansas. Arkansas is gorgeous. I loved the rolling hills and dense trees. Loved.it.

We stopped in Little Rock for dinner that night. Little Rock is along the Arkansas River and has a nice riverfront area with an ampitheater and market.

We went to the Flying Fish and tried catfish for the first time. Tastes pretty much like most other kinds of fish...

That night we ran into some heavy traffic delays in eastern Arkansas due to construction. They'd been warning about it for miles but it never actually materialized so I hadn't really been too worried about it. It showed up, though, and in full force. It took us I think 40 minutes to go just a few miles. As soon as we hit the traffic, we realized we were pretty much out of gas and the closest exit wasn't for a few miles. In normal driving conditions, we'd be fine, but in stand-still traffic, I was worried we'd idle away all our gas. So we turned the radio off and said a prayer, asking forgiveness for not being more prepared and asking for help to just reach the next exit. I'm not exaggerating when I say that within a few minutes, my gas gauge was hovering around a quarter tank, when only a few minutes before it had been on E. We made it to the gas station without problems and went merrily on our way. I know that Heavenly Father was looking out for us, heard our prayer, and sent us a very real miracle that night. It reminds me of Christ's analogy that he is the bread of life and the fountain of living water. If we come to him, we will never hunger and never thirst. We will apparently also never run out of gas. 

 7.8.2012

Day two started in Albuqueque. We went to a singles ward at the University of New Mexico and it was so weird. The meeting itself wasn't too bad, but afterwards they started in the back of the room and went through every single person, who said "Hi, I'm (enter name here)" then everyone in the room would say "Hi, (person's name.)" It was so awkward and I refused to be present, let alone say my name, so we high-tailed it out of there almost immediately. Unfortunately, we got outside and found that there was someone parked directly behind my car. We parked in a spot but apparently when people come and the lot is full, they just park in the middle of it, whether or not there's a spot there. I'm not kidding. There were cars parked haphazardly all over the lot. So.Weird. Just when I was thinking New Mexico was a downright pleasant place, compared to the oppressive heat of Arizona, they go and do crazy stuff like introduce every person by name in Sacrament Meeting and park wherever the heck they want. I went inside and actually had the person directing the mass introduction announce that such-and-such car needed to get the heck out of my way. Not quite in those words, but pretty much. So awkward.

We went back to our hotel room to eat our lunch. We'd purposely gotten a room with a kitchen (it was an extended stay kind of place) so we could cook our own lunch the next day so we wouldn't have to stop for food on a Sunday. We bought a frozen pizza - quick and easy - until we realized our kitchen didn't have an oven. The pizza was bigger than the microwave. We ended up cooking it in the microwave, somewhat bunched up so it would fit. It still tasted good, though!

Before heading out of New Mexico, we went to Old Town Albuquerque, which was a great little taste of what I think was a colonial period.

This church is called San Felipe de Neri Church, which was built in 1793.



This whole part of town made me feel like I was in an old western movie.

See ya, New Mexico!

Texas.

We weren't in Texas very long - we drove through that very narrow northern part. We wanted to stop and see something in each state, though, so we found this art display along I-40 called Cadillac Ranch. It was commissioned by a Texas millionaire and consists of ten Cadillacs buried in the ground at the same angle as the Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. The cars originally showed the evolution of the car, including the tailfin, but have since been vandalized and painted over to the point that you can't really see any details.

It was so windy that day, so we were getting blasted with dirt and debris.

I guess it's not really surprising that there's a giant cross along I-40 in Texas. What was funny, though, was that about six years ago I saw an equally giant cross in Effingham, Illinois along I-70.

 

We stopped at a rest stop for a very windy peanut butter and banana sandwich and cheez-its lunch. 

We were getting chased by a legit storm but it never caught us. Just a foreshadowing of what would come a couple days later in Alabama and Georgia.

Our day finished in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma where we stayed with my friend Devon Lasiter and her mom. Devon was my supervisor at Institute and she flew in to OKC the same night we got there. We actually beat her to her mom's house. It was fun to introduce one of the good parts of Institute to Jaime. It was also really fun to meet Devon's mom. She had a little spill when they first got home, but she was in great spirits and entertained us for a while that night.

7.7.2012

After five long weeks in the Valley of the Sun, Teach for America Summer Institute was over July 7th. I was so, so ready. Jaime and I had been planning our Road Trip of the Century for a few months and it was finally here! Over ten days, we passed through nineteen states and two countries, and we had a great time.

Our trip started, obviously, in Arizona. I got up that Saturday morning, packed up my car in the already suffocating heat of the morning, and headed to the Phoenix airport where I picked Jaime up. We started on the road immediately. Poor Jaime. She didn't even get a break between the plane and the car.

One of the goals of this trip, the beauty of it really, was that we'd have no rules and no agenda. We wanted to just drive and stop when we wanted, see what we wanted, and do what we wanted. We did have to make it to a couple of places at certain times throughout the week which constricted us a little bit, but for the most part we just winged it. That's what we do best.

The first day, I had found a couple of places in Arizona that I wanted to visit, both in the Flagstaff area: Meteor Crater and Walnut Canyon, which has some ancient cliff-dwellings. My car had some other plans, though. About an hour out of Phoenix, the thermometer in my car started rising. We stopped in Camp Verde, Arizona and spent an hour and a half at this middle-of-nowhere mechanic's shop where they discovered nothing. I'm not sure how legit this place was, since I've since taken it to two different places that were able to diagnose the problem within an hour. Hmm... We were able to watch Men in Black II in the tiny little waiting room, though, so at least we were enjoying some nice Will Smith scenery. :) We got back on the road and, even though it rose a little bit a couple of other times throughout the trip, we didn't have any other major problems until our last hour in Indiana. As soon as we got to Indiana it got way worse to the point where I had to fix it or sell it. I know that a loving Heavenly Father was watching over us and allowed us to make it back safely. That's not the only proof of that. We had several other miracles throughout the week that I'll mention later. I'm really grateful not only that He watched over us, but that we were able to recognize it and show gratitude as we went along.

Anyway, since we took our little break to watch MIB II, we didn't get to go to either of the cool sites in Arizona. I'd been there for plenty of time, though, and I was more than happy to get out. Flagstaff was, though, an absolutely beautiful and pleasant place compared to Phoenix. It was a full thirty degrees cooler, which was very welcomed.

As we went along, we tried to get pictures of each of the state signs. We weren't entirely successful, but we did grab one of the signs in Arizona.

And New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.

We made it to Albuquerque that first night, but we first stopped at the historic Hotel El Rancho in Gallup, New Mexico. Back in the early movie-making days, this was apparently the hot spot for movie stars that were working in the west.

There was a Native American dance going on outside but we missed it. We didn't miss the costumes, though. They were parked right next to us.

Late that night, we rolled into Albuquerque, swung by a grocery store to get some food for the next day since it was Sunday, and crawled into a much-appreciated bed. Oh yeah, did I mention we stayed at a hotel? I love hotels. All of them.

Thursday was my first day teaching. It was fine, but I'll admit - I didn't love it. To be honest, I never really wanted to be a teacher, least of all in middle school. After this week, I'm still not sure I want to be one. I know things will improve and I'll grow to really care about the kids, which will help. After Thursday, though, I was left with a sense of lacking - like maybe this isn't my life calling. I really wanted it to be. I've never really been passionate about much - never felt like I found what I was just supposed to do. I was hoping teaching kids who so desperately need help would be it. I don't know if it is.

That night, I drug myself out for my nightly run, which Thursday was just a walk. As I walked past the baseball diamonds by my house, I found myself reminiscing about summer nights spent at Hope Summer Playground (HSP). I loved being there, whether I was playing softball or whether I was just meeting up with friends. I loved being in the dug-out cheering on our hitters. I loved the Little Debbies that other parents brought for treats after the games, because we never had Little Debbies at home. I loved buying concessions, and I loved sneaking up to the scorekeeping room to catch a glance of whoever I was crushing on at the moment. Good, good times.

Later that night, I noticed a thunderstorm was starting up so I went outside to watch. One thing I really missed while in Utah was the Indiana summer thunderstorms. Those combined with HSP form the perfect image of summer. Throw in some fresh corn on the cob, and you're set. I sat there on the porch thinking about those memories and enjoying the subtle power of the rolling thunder and the startling beauty of the lightning, and for a a moment I felt so small. The power and majesty of the storm was enough to make my life look miniscule. There were thousands of other people watching the same storm that I was, but none of us could do anything to stop it or re-direct it. It was controlled by the most powerful being in the universe, who had created everything that storm touched, of which I was just a small part. At the same time, I felt an overwhelming feeling of importance. I was struggling that day, and my Heavenly Father knew it. Through this brilliant display of power, He was bringing back memories and feelings that made me feel at home. Since I decided to come back to Indiana, I have received multiple confirmations that this is where I'm supposed to be. I don't usually receive quite so strong of confirmations, which makes me think there will probably be just as many, probably more, moments where I will question whether or not I made the right decision. Thursday was one of those moments. Why would I leave my friends and comforts and move across the country to take a job I'm not even sure I'll like? I'm still not sure, but as confirmed to me that night, I am sure that it was the right decision. I'm home. Right where I'm supposed to be.

As I was pondering this, the scripture from 1 Kings 19:11-12 came to mind: "...but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." For me, the Lord was in the wind. He was in the thunder and the lightning and the rain, but His presence wasn't fierce or mighty or loud. Through that storm, the still, small voice of the Spirit whispered peace to my soul and restored hope to my heart.