650 Mile Overnight Road Trip

Author: Linda Wefler
Date of Trip: July 2015

The four of us (all adults) including daughters 19 and 23, took our shortest road trip ever. The girls add to their bank accounts when they say together the next state we enter. For a new state, never saw it before, it’s double the money. Our Road Trip took us through Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. Mississippi was the new state.

We delayed our trip for a day because of bad weather in some of those states. Good thing we did; we missed all bad weather. Even with our cell phones alerting us in two states about flooding, we never got touched.

We celebrated the 4th of July at Ole Miss, Oxford, Mississippi. What a wonderful site to see! Especially for Ray. Even though he is a Buckeyes (National Champs) fan, he’s from Ohio, he has always admired Ole Miss’ football. We stayed in Germantown, Tennessee and thought the town was lovely and quaint.

July 5th we allowed ourselves one hour in Memphis, in order to make it to a show in Branson, Missouri. Memphis was a new city to us. We saw Beale Street, really dead after the city’s huge 4th of July celebration. We also saw St. Jude’s Children’s Cancer Research Hospital (where a college roommate of mine had done research) and that pyramid that houses Bass Pro. We hail from Bass Pro Headquarters. In fact, some women on an escorted tour with me that I took to St. Simons Island recently had told me about that pyramid. And to make sure to go in. That was it in Memphis. Ray and I definitely want to hear the live Blues music on Beale Street, the Birth of the Blues, another time. And even though the weather alerted us to West Memphis being under water the day before, we decided to go anyway. We are glad we did.

So funny how our terrain changed from a big city to the boot heel of Missouri. We enjoyed passing Hardy, Arkansas, again and decided out of all the little towns we had passed in northeast Arkansas, Hardy definitely won the most patriotic, hands down. We enjoyed seeing tons of red, white and blue and several U.S. flags decorating the very short street.

We got lost in the boot heel, so lost that we wandered around in the very green, and flooded, fields and fields of crops. I was concerned if we kept going, we would find a flooded road that had given way. Thank God we didn’t. Ray turned around and found a 2-lane road that led us to a 4-lane highway. Thank God! Later, we found out from a local, the GPS had been correct. I just hadn’t trusted the roads in those fields to keep going.

Because of us getting lost, I knew we couldn’t make it in time to Branson, so, thank goodness, we could exchange our tickets for the later show! It was many hours to go. The trek through the boot heel, then Arkansas, then Missouri seemed to take forever. Ray and I both learned that the shorter way (a different way from yesterday) was not necessarily the best way. But we made it…20 minutes to spare! Surprise, girls! Dixie Stampede!

We thought the show was fantastic! We had done a lot on our overnight road trip. The girls were richer and they had fun posting all the photos that they had taken. When we entered our home town of Springfield, Missouri, we heard that the city had flooded that day. And for a whole week it, along with Branson, was in the news because of flooding and evacuations. We had missed it all…on our overnight road trip. It’s good to get away once in a while.