Cross Country Road Trip: Richmond to San Diego and Back: Day 1-3:
Hey, here it is, Valentine’s Day, and my Valentine has agreed to a cross-country driving Trip to San Diego and back. She wants to attend a military change of command ceremony for her close friend’s son at Miramar, home of Top Gun. I agree, with one stipulation: it is a round-trip cross-country drive. She loves our historic drives, but not more than a couple of weeks max. This was going to be a little more, but she agrees.
My goal for the first day was the University of Tennessee, my alma mater (and Peyton’s). I stop there every chance I get, as I love their Bill Dance fishing hat, and it brings back youthful memories(Bad and Good). Knoxville played a significant role in my life.
We make it at dark and my Choice Privileges card begins the journey. I like it on our trips for the good coffee, including breakfast, clean rooms, and reasonable rates.
Next morning, we are up and at ’em and drive the beloved Hill of UT. I park across from Neyland Stadium. It contained 58, 000 seats when I first attended. I left with 72,000 seats and now it is over 100,000. Welcome to Southeastern Conference Football and the Vols. At the Bookstore, I grab my hats and a couple of sweat-shirts, then drive my memories around before “we split for Memphis, where they say Y’all and the swinging cats are having a ball.”
We pass through Nashville on Route 40 heading for Memphis and the Mississippi Delta. The Delta, the home of the Blues, is not to be confused with the Mississippi River Delta below New Orleans. Our destination was Clarksdale, MS, where legend has it Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical talent to play the Blues.
My wife and I had passed through the Delta the previous year on our way to Tupelo and Ole Miss after visiting Central High in Little Rock. I knew nothing of the historic musical significance of the Delta. I always thought it referred to the River–got that one wrong. That route did take me to my namesake of Clarendon, AK, and the starting point of the Louisiana Purchase survey.
We made it to Clarksdale late, again using the Choice Privileges card-the bacon was excellent. The next morning we make a beeline to the Crossroads and its monstrous blue guitar landmark. Cross Road Blues is a historic song that helped shape Rock ‘n’ Roll. Robert Johnson, on his slide guitar, did it first. Elmore James and Eric Clapton with Cream helped immortalize it. Clarksdale is considered Ground Zero for the Blues. Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club, voted the number 1 blues club in America, is located in Clarksdale, as is the Delta Blues Museum.
After a misty, rainy drive around the blues spots of Clarksdale, we headed towards Dallas. We took Mississippi Rt.#8 and #1 to check out Rosedale, which also lays claim to the Crossroads. There were no historic markings other than Robert Johnson’s Red Hot Tamales reference and a Piggly Wiggly. I hadn’t seen one in years.
A painful ache hammers your soul as you drive through the Delta: the abstract poverty. This, historically, has been one of the poorest areas in the United States. Here, the Klan, lynchings, and segregation reigned supreme. Money, Mississippi, where Emmett Till was murdered, is just down the road.
As we continued on our path to Texas, I stumbled upon one unexpected historic marker and site that I knew nothing about. It was called the Mississippi Mounds. The mounds were left by an ancient culture that left no written history. These mounds were up to 55 ft. in height. That was interesting, but we had no time to explore.
We managed to get to the Great State of Texas that evening and prepare for the next day, one of the primary, if not the primary, reasons for the drive: Dealey Plaza and the assassination of President Kennedy.
To be continued:
Leave a Reply