So I did some travelling recently and I covered a fair amount of territory.
Ignore the time on this as I didn’t do the drive all at once and it was split up over a week. And when this trip was done, my newly revised total of U.S. states visited went from 38 to 41.
The trip started in Indiana where I attended my niece’s graduation from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. I’ve been to Indiana on several occasions before, but this was the first time I’ve actually spent a full day there. It was nice to catch up with family that I had not seen in person since before COVID.
After the graduation, my wife and I spent the night in Terre Haute, Indiana, the last city of any consequence until our next stop of St. Louis. I didn’t investigate, but I’m pretty sure they do have a public library. The high point of Terre Haute was dining at the local White Castle and I got to see a person wandering by on the street and vomiting into the bushes. They had not eaten at White Castle! (Or so I wish to believe.)
We then headed out across Southern Illinois which is not exactly loaded with people. I stopped and showed my wife the farm in Breese, Illinois where my father grew up, although the better picture is from the farm next to it, which is owned by a different family of Timmermanns (there are a LOT of Timmermanns in Breese).
The cross was erected in thanksgiving for the family surviving a cholera epidemic in Breese in 1832 by the family that lived there before it changed into Timmermann family hands around the Civil War.
We ate lunch at a diner in New Baden, another city in Clinton County, Illinois, where my father grew up. The diner gave off a vibe that just demanded a New York Times writer visit to ask the patrons what their opinion of the debt limit negotiations was. Overall, most people were having the all you can eat chicken and dumplings for $6.29.
We eventually got to St. Louis, in particular the suburb of Clayton, to visit another brother and spend two days there. Missouri and Illinois were the first states outside of California I ever visited, back in 1966 , when my family traveled out there to celebrate my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. As I was less than a year old, I didn’t recall it much at the time. Although as I grew up, my mother liked to remind me that I sat on her lap and got her wet. Because my mother, like all mothers, enjoys telling embarrassing stories about their children.1
Leaving the St. Louis area, it was time to hit some undiscovered country for me. We took I-55 south out of St. Louis as it ran alongside the Mississippi River for a surprisingly long time until I reached the previously unvisited state of Arkansas.2
We weren’t in Arkansas long, but I figured that since I’m getting close to 50 that I better gather some photographic evidence.
We had actually stopped in Batesville, but there wasn’t anything distinctly Arkansasan there. So I stopped a little further down the Interstate where this nice highway sign did the trick. The Arkansas portion of I-55 is probably not the best representation of “The Natural State.” 3
After about five hours on the road, we got to state #40 for me, Tennessee, as we pulled into the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.4
Memphis is a very nice city and I wish I had more time there than the one night there. We got a great meal at a restaurant called “The Beauty Shop.” We opted against going to hear music on Beale Street as it was very crowded, even on a Wednesday night, and the Peabody’s lobby bar was much more calm. We visited the National Civil Rights Museum the following morning, which is definitely worth the visit. It is at the site of the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.
It does not take long to drive out of Tennessee leaving Memphis and you quickly find yourself in Mississippi (where I visited in 2011). We stopped for lunch in the town of Holly Springs, population 6,968.
Despite its small population, Holly Springs is an important city in U.S. History. The first African-American senator, Hiram Revels, was born in Holly Springs. And in 1862, fearless African-American journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells was born there. There is a small museum there, the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum, It turned out that it is only open by appointment. Fortuitously, we drove up there as the museum’s executive director, Rev. Leona Harris, pulled up to the museum as we did. And she decided to let us in and she gave us about 90 minutes of her time talking about Ida B. Wells, a woman she has devoted much of her adult life studying. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the museum, but it was a fun experience. And now we’re members of the museum!
Our much longer stop in Holly Springs cut into our time in our last stop and last new state for me on the trip, state #41, Alabama.
This photo was taken at a Shell Station in Hamilton, Alabama.
We ended up in Birmingham, Alabama, where we ultimately flew home from. A woman at the hotel restaurant welcomed us to “The Magic City.” I was hoping that this referred to something very special about the city, but it was actually a marketing slogan that the city developed early in the 20th Century because Birmingham had soil that contained the three necessary ingredients to make steel: coal, iron ore, and limestone.
I can’t say much about Alabama one way or the other except that I have a bone to pick with them about their highway signs.
Here is an outline of the state of Alabama.
Here is an image of the sign for Alabama State Highway 14
That depiction of Alabama goes way too far to the east. The sign has pushed Alabama into Georgia. And what does Alabama do when there are three digits on the road sign? They make the state even wider! Effectively, they draw up the Mobile area to scale and then just make the rest of the state shift to fit in the number depending upon the number of digits.
Dear Alabama, I have spent much of my time on this planet looking at maps and atlases. I know what your state looks like. You’re already first in alphabetical order so people spend a disproportionate amount of time looking at your state. Please figure out a way to make the proportions of your state outline on road signs correct or just use a different symbol. I’m sorry this is non-negotiable and I shall not return to Alabama until this is fixed.5 Governor Kay Ivey, you know how to reach me. I await your response.
The states still missing from my life list: Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska.
Note, my mom has been dead for 30 years and I miss the embarrassment.
Missouri has an area called “The Bootheel” that goes further south than the rest of the state: 36 degrees, 30 minutes as specified in the Missouri Compromise. An influential landowner petitioned Congress to keep that area in Missouri for commercial reasons.
Seeing that it was “The Natural State” I kept wondering if life in Arkansas is nasty, brutish, and short.
Yes, we saw the ducks. But didn’t take a photo as we were pretty far away.
It’s pretty likely I wasn’t going to anyway, but I am willing to negotiate.
You know the whole Beale Street experience is enhanced by all those people. Did you at least eat some ribs that Memphis is famous for. Soudns like you missed the #1 attraction in the city, the home of a very famous singer. And then you skipped his birthplace when you got to Mississippi.
When you entered Alabama were you asked, "Who you for?"
My friends who have travelled to Arkansas rave about it but they don't want too many people to go there and fall in love with it so it turns into Beale Street.
I went there when Clinton was president. I still believe in a place called "Hope" becasue I went there.