Mar 30 - You know what it's like when you come to a place you've never been before and you instantly like it - or not?! When we drove through Salt Lake City, UT, on the way South, I instantly liked it. Birmingham, AL, also seemed a especially nice place to live. Well, Memphis, TN, was the opposite. At least the part we saw I didn't like at all. Elvis Presley Blvd., of all places, was one of the worst commercial roads we've seen on this trip, with one cheap, greasy, chain restaurant besides the next. And this is where Graceland is located. I can only belief the area looked much different when Elvis was still alive. Graceland was named after the prior owner's aunt, Grace. Elvis bought it at age 22 for just over 100,000$. It looks nice from the outside. To appreciate the inside, you must like the seventies. It was certainly interesting, to say the least, with some weird concepts such as the mirror encased stair to the basement, the jungle room, the blue and yellow entertainment room. It seemed to be a place for family and company, so I hope Elvis was happy there.
The same day, I also visited Laura Ingalls Wilder's home in Mansfield, MO. Very different place, and more to my liking. Mostly homemade furniture, very low counter tops because Almanzo and Laura were both smaller than me, it started out with one room and then added rooms whenever they could afford it. This was the place where Laura wrote her famous "Little House" books and it felt special to see her desk.
Mar 31 only consisted of driving, and it wasn't nice driving. It had gotten really cold over night and the wind was blowing with up to 40knots - on the open prairies! The motor home swayed right and left all the time and we had to go much slower than usual. It got down to -8 degrees Celsius that night and we were grateful for the heater. Our winter clothes have since been unpacked.
April 1 - This morning, we visited Buffalo Bill's farm in North Platte, NE, but it was closed for the season. There was a little bit of snow on the ground; nice house telling from the outside. Pretty interesting guy, too! Started his career at age 11 as an ox-team driver and was the youngest Pony Express rider at age 14. He did lots more...
After that, we visited the world's largest rail yard, the Union Pacific's Bailey Yard, also located in North Platte. We enjoyed an overview from the Golden Spike Tower. One piece of information I thought was interesting was that, starting in the 1850s, orphans were brought from New York to the west with the so called "orphan trains", to be placed with farmers. Apparently, diseases, poverty and neglect had brought those children to the street where a minister realized the problem and created this solution. Guess you can see that I wasn't really interested in the rail yard, though it was an incredible sight.
One more tidbit from the road: in Sidney, NE, we got served Marshmallow Sauce for the sweet potato fries. Those Americans come up with ideas... ;-). I have to admit, though, that I quite liked the fried pickles we got in Alabama. Hit and miss, I guess.
Also, we've driven through or past some interestingly named places, such as Egypt, Amazonia, Pocahontas, Peculiar, Humansville, Hamburg or Oshtosh (not in that order). I liked "Bliss" the best, but that was on the way South.
Today, on April 1, we are headed towards Rock Springs, WY. Home is getting closer, but it's still more than 2000km away.
....
New comment hours later: at least that's what I thought at the time of writing, that we were going to Rock Springs. Well, not today. Got into a snow storm at Hanna, town of Elk Mountain. But around Rawlin, it got even worse. We decided to call it a day and booked a room in the Hampton Inn. Special treat, this is just so not the weather for sleeping in a motor home! So that's where we are now, hoping it'll be better again tomorrow, so that we can continue home.
No comments:
Post a Comment