2829 km

Denver Dodge Ponca Fort Smith Little Rock Memphis Nashville Huntsville Atlanta Athens
Wildfires, extreme temperatures, museums good & average, hotel breakfast bars, landscapes, zoos, gunfights, miles of straight roads and a variety of new tastes
A great three weeks but now ready for home. Shame we lose a day on the way.

Athens GA

Uni football stadium bigger than Eden park.

Atlanta- home to two international icons

CNN headquarter tours & Coca Cola "museum" within two blocks of each other. These are two extremely slick visitor operations, great experience even though you are part of an entertainment/marketing sausage machine.
NZ CocaCola artwork has pride of place in the entrance foyer.
CNN Worldwide mug for sale has most of SE Asia / Australasia missing on its map :-) & NZ flag has white stars with red borders - think they may have mixed up OZ & NZ :-)

NASA USSR Centre

Some one did not check the how the US Space and Rocket Centre would look as an abbreviation :-)
This is a centre which needs the guiding hand of a really good museum curator, lots of potentially interesting material but a lack of good story telling.

Though out of place, the Apache helicopter simulator was great fun & trying to control the final burn stage of the Apollo rocket was challenging.

Johnny Cash's Guitar

Just walk the line

Nashville

Trip Advisor recommended Country Music Hall of Fame as top visitors site in Nashville. Who are we to argue.
Banjos, steel guitars, embroidered shirts, Elvis's car with Gold (yes real gold not plate) fixtures. Bluegrass, rockabilly, pop country crossover, who knew the variety.
See y'all later

Too much to write about

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis addresses all aspects of the civil rights movement in the US and is the site of the assassination of The Rev. Martin Luther King Jn.
It does a great job of documenting this period of recent history, but too much to summarise here.
No photos from within museum, just did not seem appropriate.
Really strange to see the motel as it was familiar from long forgotten TV news footage at the time in '68

Memphis busy on a Friday night especially with a game against the current world champions The Cardinals

Unsorted Photos

https://picasaweb.google.com/109277603335503091877/USA2012?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Blues & Rock

Staying just up the road from Sun Studio in Memphis.
On the way out of Little Rock we visited Central High and deviated from the Interstate to purchase some tree ripened peaches ( thought that was how they got ripe ) they are good.

The high humidity makes coping with the high temperatures more difficult than in Denver where humidity was as low as 5% one day. Everyone walks so slow, but after passing them at a pace you realize why.

Little Rock

Fourth of July in the State Capital of Arkansas. Local delicacies included grits, turnip greens, catfish and mud pie. Tried them all, much to my surprise enjoyed them especially catfish .
Clinton library was way beyond expectations, really good replica of Oval Office & daily itineraries for all his years in office available to consult.

Patriotic music & fireworks viewed from Bubbas Bar.

Still over 30C at 10pm

Surprise Estate in Ponca

The oil baron of Ponca E W Marland in the 1920s created the most surprising mansion and estate rivaling in many ways the stately homes of Europe. The gold leaf on one ceiling would cost $1.5 million to replace today. I also suspect he was quite a party animal as he had a huge hall with its own bar in the basement with underground tunnels to th boathouse next to the lake. The tunnels also had a secret whiskey safe used during prohibition years.
Now in Fort Smith just in Arkansas from where members of the 188 deployed to Afganistan today.

Kansas & Oklahoma

The wayward GPS took us on a convoluted journey across undulating lands peppered with oil extraction devices of varied types ending up in the city which is also home to the oldest oil refinery in USA. It turns out that it is now very economical to extract reserves which have been known for years and Ponca City is seeing a bit of a boom in contrast with the surrounding areas. GPS also took us through all the residential streets rather than the direct route an insight into middle USA
Great landscape features but exploration limited due to temperatures & warnings from the locals about the active rattlers. It is recommended that you take a note of the variety of rattler you meet as their venum varies. They all look the same ! :-)
Had to finish off the day with a Mexican beer to accompany the fajitas & carne verde

Long drive to Dodge

What did we do before GPS?
Easy flow from airport to I70 in bright red impala with Texas plates !
350 miles of dry landscape and up to 105F outside.

Arrived in Dodge just in time for the gunfight at Boot Hill & missed the huge thunderstorms which hit all along the route after we had passed

Heatwave tops 40C breaks all records

http://m.denverpost.com/denverpost/db_108614/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=9PifkEAi
Downtown Denver covered in a smokey sky with the occasional lightning strike is HOT today. A dry heat which for a while is really pleasant but after walking in the thin smokey air becomes oppressive. Must be time for a cold beer, it turns out Denver is the home to lots of micro breweries in addition to Coors

Delayed flight has some advantages

The low evening sun accentuates the desert rock formations

Connecting Flight to Denver delayed by 2 hours

Did not have WIFI but lovely lady at United took pity and gave us complimentary access to the United Club
Now have WIFI & a free cup of tea :-)

It is still Monday, it has lasted 34 hours already and there are a few more to go

With time zone changes we will probably get to Denver at Midnight

Lesley busy marking exam scripts on the iPad - no chance of the papers blowing into the sea .... more of that story sometime

Nearly the last on the plane

Got stopped at departure gate & boarding cards were found to be incorrect

:-) Upgrade to Premium Economy !
Could get to like this