Selma? Memphis?

      We’ve been cooped up (mostly) in Huntsville, Alabama for the better part of two years. I had a two month trip to Thailand and Cambodia planned, but that was in March, 2020. That obviously didn’t happen. I’ve managed to mask up and sneak away a few times, a few times to Santa Barbara to see my parents, once to DC for a work gig, then to Balad, Iraq for another work gig. Gwyne came with me to DC and then took a trip to Santa Cruz with her sister and mother. But it’s been mostly Huntsville and COVID, Huntsville and Delta COVID and now Huntsville and Omnicron COVID. We’re tired of this shit. I know everyone else is too. So when Gwyne blurted out of the blue, “Let’s go somewhere.” I said, “Sure, where do you want to go?” She didn’t know and I suggested Selma, AL because we both love history and I’ve been meaning to go there. But we looked at the weather and it said it was going to rain, rain, rain. She threw out Memphis as an idea. I looked at the weather forecast there and saw what appeared to be a decent window and checked things to do. I found a lovely 6 block walking tour of historical architecture and businesses downtown. Gwyne likes eating out, so I asked her to find an authentic BBQ joint because well, Memphis. The hotels downtown were $300 a night, so we made a reservation across the Mississippi River in Arkansas. And the next morning, we were off. On the drive there, we saw a sign that said Historic Courtland and we quickly veered left. We’re curious and had the time, so why not? It was a relatively quick drive through what may have once been historic, but turned out to be a town with broken down trailers (that still seemed to host human occupants) and shuttered store fronts. 

Courtland, Alabama

I said, “This is a dying town.” Gwyne replied, “This town’s not dying, it’s dead.”

     Onward to Memphis then! It’s about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Huntsville to Memphis, we’d be getting there at lunch time. Gwyne thought it would be fun to go a place featured in Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives so we plugged in the address for Leonards Pit Barbecue and took off. I have Siri set to an Indian woman’s voice, and she pronounced Leonards as Leo naards. It sounded so much more sophisticated. I thought we’d pick up some BBQ and take it down to a park and have a leisurely lunch on the banks of the mighty Mississippi. When we got there, the restaurant looked much more like Leonards then a Leo naards and while we were waiting for our food, they told us there was a Bowl game today and downtown was going to be crazy, so we might want to avoid going down there after the game. We took off for the park and as soon as we got there, the wind and rain came, 6 hours earlier than predicted. We could barely see the river but found a table under a patio and shivered as we noshed. The food, unfortunately, did not warm up our spirits or live up to Guy Fieri’s billing. I suggested going to the hotel to see if we could check in early, so we drove there (only getting lost once) through the driving rain. Oh, btw, neither Gwyne nor I enjoy driving. At all. I am a nervous driver. I drive the speed limit with cruise control (okay, sometimes 2 miles over the speed limit when I’m feeling a little feisty) and you can fairly hear drivers behind us yelling, “MOVE IT GRANDPA!” Gwyne is a short, distracted Asian woman. On the way back, I yawned and she asked if I wanted her to drive. I quickly said, “Oh God no.” We both laughed and laughed. I waited in the car while Gwyne went in to check on the room. She came back and said, “Do you want to hear the bad news or the bad news?” I paused and said, “Give me the bad news first.” Says Gwyne, “The hotel was completely booked last night and it’s completely booked tonight. No early check in AND there’s no secure place to store our bags while we wait. There’s a Bowl game tonight.” Right. There’s that darn Bowl game again. I’m not interested in American football at all so I just didn’t think to check on that. We thought we’d hang in the lobby of the hotel and see if there was anything edible left from the lunch. There wasn’t and we ended up throwing the rest away. Neither of us are particularly good at waiting around doing nothing, so we decided to go to the casino across the street for amusement purposes. Spoiler alert: it was not amusing. I enjoy gambling, but only for small sums of money when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor. The clientele inside, based on their walkers, canes and attire did not appear to have tremendous amounts of disposable income to fritter away. After less than 10 minutes, we went back to the hotel lobby and maybe due to Gwyne’s Hilton Diamond Member status, a room had been found for us early. We checked in and I raised the blinds. What a lovely view!

     So we chuckled about our mishaps, after all the planning had been mostly good, but the execution sucked. So far. 

     The next day we nibbled on the substandard hotel provided breakfast and went downtown for the historical walking tour, which was inexpertly guided by me. I was reading from a script I pulled off the internet and missed a few buildings. But it was a great experience. I think the highlight was the Lorraine hotel, where MLK was assassinated. Historical events. It takes my breath away when I’m right there, where it happened. The Civil Rights Museum wasn’t open, but they had some self paced videos outside of the hotel. Then we completed the rest of my inexpertly guided tour, took a walk along the Mississippi and then back to the hotel to check out. 

 

     The second day made up for the first day’s repeated follies. And when trips are relatively unplanned, you have to accept and be ready to laugh about a few unexpected twists, turns, shimmies and shakes. And speaking of unplanned trips, the 2020 jaunt to Thailand and Cambodia is probably on again. I say probably because I have tickets, reservations, vaccinations - I’ve jumped through every hoop to get approved for entry through the Thailand Pass system (which has since been suspended for new applicants) but I think with travel cancellations and COVID variants, I’ve got about a 50 - 50 chance to get on that plane in early February. Any international travel right now will be fluid, but if it happens, I’m hoping for more of a Leo naard experience than Leonards. I’ll probably get a healthy dose of both.