Tale of three rivers

Sunday, February 27, 2011

MARION, AK— A rumble of thunder and the patter of rain on our trailer roof woke us this morning, but with a travel day planned, a wet day wasn’t a big deal. At least the rain held off while we stowed stuff, pulled in the slides and prepared to move on.

Shortly before lunch we crossed the Tennessee River, which marks the dividing line between central and western Tennessee. It was wide, brown, and swift-flowing, and must have presented a major challenge to settlers journeying west when there were no bridges.

I didn’t mention the Nashville flood in my blog yesterday. Last year, on May 2, heavy rains caused the Cumberland River, which flows through the city, to rise several feet, causing extensive damage to many important buildings, including the Grand Ole Opry, which had six feet of water inside. There’s a major shopping centre near it which remains closed to this day because the insurance money hasn’t covered the cost of restoring it. We heard a number of flood stories during our stay there.

Our destination today was a KOA camp in Arkansas, just across the Mississippi River, which delineates the state line at the western extreme of the state of Tennessee. The city of Memphis sits on the eastern shore of this mighty river, and West Memphis is on the Arkansas side after you cross the bridge. The camp is a 15-minute drive from the city, so our plan is to take a tour from here to see Memphis tomorrow.

Val remarked that the Interstate 40 along which we were driving must have been covered many times by Elvis Presley in his early days, going back and forth between Nashville and Memphis to perform and develop his unique sound. This stretch is called the Music Highway, since it connects two major music centres.

We drove through Memphis to get to our camp; it’s quite a big and bustling city, and we actually got caught in a traffic slow-down for a while due to a closed lane. The 40 became a ring road around most of the city before guiding us across the Mississippi River, another impressive, brown, wide waterway that has inspired quite a few stories and songs.

The Arkansas landscape so far is extremely flat, with large expanses of farmland and sky. I spotted, in the brown stubble of a plowed field, a few white tufts still clinging to some stalks, which made me realize these were cotton fields. We passed a lot of them in the latter part of the day.

There also seemed to be a marked change from the relatively prosperous state we just left to one, in its first few miles anyway, where the roads and buildings were in really poor shape. We also passed a few small, dilapidated houses that looked more like abandoned shacks but were clearly still being lived in. I don’t think I’ve seen such poor housing anywhere in Canada or the US as what I saw today.

We encountered several rainstorms as we drove along, but nothing like a couple of days ago, thank goodness. Weather is a constant concern in these parts, as strong storms can blow in, sometimes accompanied by tornadoes. We’ve been given instructions both at this camp and the last of what to do if we hear the tornado siren go off: run to the nearest washroom building, because they are built of cinder blocks that should provide a safe shelter.

It’s actually pretty windy right now, and the trailer is moving a bit with each gust. The big weather news for us today was the thermometer in the truck, which measured an amazing 76 degrees! The warmest temperature we’ve had so far! I stowed away my new Binghamton boots and my winter jacket, hat and scarf in the deepest closet of the trailer. Won’t need those now!