CA's high desert, and finally Route 66.
The bigger picture.
If you go east from Amarillo, north of the I-40, toward the Oklahoma line you'll go through--not by, as happens if you go on the 40--towns with names like Panhandle (appropriately enough), White Deer, Pampa, Mobeetie, Brisco, Allison. Here are some pictures of White Deer (pop. ~1,000)
and Pampa (pop. 18,000). If there are more pictures of Pampa, that's because there's more there there. And that's probably because it's the county seat.
The Texas panhandle has its contradictions. Along with the cowboy/John Deere/religious iconography, there are signs for ending world hunger and a highway memorializing Woody Guthrie.
The panhandle seems to go on forever, every way you look. But eventually it ends, and shortly after crossing the OK line, you spill on to the Washita Battlefield National Historic site, which is worth a stop and look.
Today's map.
More on Ft. Smith, Arkansas tomorrow. Seems like a cool little town. Great barbeque and a visitor's center that used to be a "Social Club." I was told to go check it out.
I don't think I was really aware of Ft. Smith... although I'm pretty sure I'd heard of it. A cool little town. Big mural wall art, great bbq, an info center that had a mild wild west history, scenic view along the Arkansas River (the only time I'd heard of it was when I was in Colorado), some quirky things. Worth a visit.
I had heard and read that the Crystal Bridges art museum in Bentonville, AR, was fantastic, so it was one of my destinations. But it's right on the edge of the Ozarks, so that became a destination as well. First the Arkansas Ozarks. Then Missouri Ozarks after Crystal Bridges.
And fantastic it was, from the complex of buildings, designed by Moshe Safdie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Safdie), to the collection of American art, displayed chronologically but also conceptually, with the most surprising commentary next to the paintings, photos, installations, and sculptures I think I've ever seen in a museum.
Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri, is where the Netflix show takes place, but it was not filmed there. (Winter's Bone was set AND shot in the Missouri Ozarks, but neither setting or filming was at the lake.) What I saw was a bit, but not a whole lot, like what's on the TV show. Maybe bc the show was shot in Georgia? Didn't look much like anything I saw there either. I wasn't in either place long enough to really say. But I am pretty sure no pink houses have appeared on the show.
Highlight here was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Lots of other cool sites too, including the abandoned Burra Burra copper mine in Ducktown (yes, it's called Ducktown).
See here for more on Cherokee National Forest https://rootsrated.com/stories/demystifying-the-cherokee-national-forest-a-beginner-s-guide
Tastebuds in Lewisburg, WVa. Who'd a thunk it. And a 5-min walk from the motel where I happened to land. If I lived anywhere near here, I'd come back. See the menu second page for what I had. It was great. See/listen to the video and listen to the audio file for the restaurant's sound track. Owners super nice people. It was raining, but I walked, since I hate getting in the car after a day of driving. Mr. Owner gave me a ride back. They're making a go with this restaurant in a pretty unlikely place. I hope it does well.
I understand now what John Denver was singing about. Add in Smooth Ambler distillery, and you get closer to heaven, even in the rain.
Aside from knowing about John Brown's tragically failed attempt to end slavery in 1859, I didn't realize how important Harpers Ferry was in US economic development and in the Civil War itself. The historic old town is one big museum, and surrounding scenery is great, especially at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. But the history is what is most compelling.
Then about an hour south is Shenandoah National Park. Skyline Drive runs north to south, the entire length of the park. It's 100+ miles of jaw-dropping, eye-popping, not-to-be-believed scenery, with turn-outs every mile or two that permit gazing at the spectacular scenery. You can stop at each one, but then you'll never get anywhere, which wouldn't be so bad except that it gets pretty cold at night.
The Virginia countryside is famously beautiful. But I didn't expect to be as moved by Appomattox as I was. The enormity of the Civil War, its dramatic ending (at least in the popular imagination), and what it signaled the end OF--a brutal war and an even more brutal system of human slavery. Then at the entrance/exit to the park (it's a "National Historical Park") there is a single US flag fluttering... and but for fortune, there could have a been two flags or just the Confederate flag fluttering. This could have happened; it was not foreordained that the Union would win and the country would then begin the long, tortuous, and yet unfinished struggle to erase the US's original sin. The tenuousness of the outcome was driven home by the confederate cemetery, just a few hundred yards down the highway, courtesy of the Daughters of the Confederacy, in honor of their fallen heroes.
Gullah/Geechee, the community of slave descendents and the language, culture, and traditions they've supposedly been preserving, was disappointing. For starters, the "Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition" is, apparently, nowhere. I found it on the web (https://gullahgeecheenation.com/gullahgeechee-sea-island-coalition/), assuming this was a (if not THE center of action), and followed the directions on the GPS. Nothing there there. There was some nice scenery, some modest homes, and some gated communities. That's it.
Next I went to the The Gullah Museum of Hilton Head Island; check out the website, then compare with my picture. There's a little building. But it's locked up. It looks like it needs some caring for; and unless there is a wormhole that transports you somewhere else, what could be inside that warrants $20 (and $5 for children)?
The one thing I saw where there was actually something there was the Mitchelville Preservation Project. Mitchelville, founded in 1862 shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, was the first self-governing settlement for freed slaves. You can actually learn something here. And the scenery is also very striking.
Then across South Carolina and on to Atlanta.
It was striking to be in Georgia in October 2018, on the eve of possibly a historic election. Stacey Abrams already made history as the first black woman nominated for governor by a major political party. Now she might become the first black woman governor of a US state and the first Democrat elected Georgia governor in two decades. My Atlanta friends were hopeful but skeptical. An article in the LA Times today (Nov 2) called the race a dead heat.
It was in this context that I visited two iconic places in Alabama that are associated with the struggle for civil rights in the US--the Southern Poverty Law Center's Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery and the Edmund Pettus bridge, site of Bloody Sunday in 1965 in Selma.
Meridian to Natchez took me clear across nearly the breadth of Mississippi... through Chunky, Forest, Mize, Monticello, and other towns. Staying off the interstate has its rewards.
Natchez is a study in contrasts that should surprise no one a little familiar with Southern history--from the elegance and charm of the antebellum houses to ramshackle structures nearby to the depravity of the slave trade and those who fought to defend it and those who celebrated the defenders.
From Natchez, across the Mighty Mississipp into Louisiana, then on to Texas.
