Day 2

The sun was shining brightly when we arose for a quick continental breakfast. The day was ready to prove some old adage about lemons and lemonade or best laid plans or something. The motel allowed us to leave the camper parked there while we went in to Memphis to do some sightseeing, thus giving us our 6^th state visited, so far. J We turned the last corner into the downtown and saw the very familiar Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was brutally gunned down. The hotel now houses a Civil Rights Museum, which we found is closed on Tuesdays! L There was nothing to be done but to drive to Graceland, to see if it could be viewed without taking a tour. We were pleasantly surprised to find that there is a pull-out drive alongside the grounds, where one can easily and safely take a few pictures. J It proved to be more modest than I had expected. Leaving Memphis far earlier than expected we decided to go back to get the camper and drive a less traveled road to Parkin Archeological State Park, the sign for which we had noticed at the motel exit. For several hundred years between A.D. 1250 and the early 1600s, the Parkin site was a thriving Native American community. When an expedition led by Hernando de Soto traveled through the region in June 1541, this village was home to a powerful chief who controlled over 20 smaller communities in the area. The village of around 4000 took its name, Casqui, from the chief. Now there is a visitor center with a short video explaining the village and its history, a museum of artifacts found there, and a self-guided tour of the site. It was a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the so-called Mississippian Native Americans, a group with which we were unfamiliar. J From there we rambled for a while on back roads and ate lunch at a local bar-b-que place called Mike’s Family Restaurant. Yum! J The sun was still shining and the temperature reached 52° as we drove. We got to Lake Catherine State Park later than we had expected, because it was much farther from Little Rock than Marv had calculated. L But we set-up our camper in a nearly deserted campground and were happy to have electricity so we could easily heat it up (the temperature was back into the mid-40s) and bake dinner while we walked around the campground for a bit. We enjoyed a great supper of meatloaf, sweet potato sticks and salad. We went to bed that night satisfied with how things had turned out after all.