USA Road Trip – Alex hits his 50th state in Mississippi

Written by Kim

We left Little Rock this morning headed to Tupelo, Mississippi. It was about a 4 1/2 drive mostly through cotton fields and other farms, It was all agriculture and no livestock. As we’ve done on many of our drives we took country roads and state highways (Alex forces it in Google Maps with interim stops). We went through a lot of towns named for places in Europe – England, Stuttgart and Denmark. Many towns boasted populations of 170 or 206 or 218.

Arkansas was very flat with farms as far as they eye could see and a scattered house or small town once in a while. After we crossed the Mississippi River into Mississippi it got greener and a bit more rolling.

We got to our hotel just in time for the First game of the NLDS so watched the Mets beat the Phillies! LGM. It was weird we had to watch it on our phone on Fox because Fox on the hotel TV was playing NASCAR.

After the game we ventured into downtown Tupelo. It has a cute little Main Street that’s trying hard to revive. There were several restaurants and stores but many vacant storefronts too.

Tupelo is most widely known as Elvis Presley’s hometown. He was born in a two-room house in East Tupelo, and lived in town until moving to Memphis at age 13. Elvis of Tupelo, that is, the little boy from the wrong side of the tracks whose mama bought him his first guitar at the local hardware store on the corner, starting a chain of events that would change music forever. It was too late to go to Elvis’ home but we saw lots of his painted guitars around the city.

Some Elvis trivia for you – Did you know the only Grammys Elvis won were for his gospel albums? Did you know he was an identical twin, but his brother passed away at birth? I also learned Elvis served overseas in the military, but never performed outside North America. There’s just a lot more to learn about Elvis than what I’ve gleaned from pop culture. 

Tupelo has a bunch of murals around the city too.

After we walked around town, my hubby took me for a swanky Italian dinner at a pizza place. We both had chicken parm and got a few laughs as we ate like cavemen because they didn’t give us a knife. Memories….😂

Tomorrow we will drive the Natchez Trace Parkway from Tupelo to Nashville then go visit Alex’s mom for a few days before heading home. I will reach my 50th state tomorrow – Alabama. Until then….