Ramada Inn Convention Center Tupelo

Hello all! 

I think it finally set in that I was leaving tomorrow when I saw the jets on the runway.  My family decided to beat the traffic and head up to Memphis tonight for an early flight tomorrow.  We went to an Italian restaurant tonight, thanks dad!  
Anna Kate and I leave at 9:30 ish tomorrow for ATL, and then we will meet up with everyone in ATL to Tokyo.  My bags are packed, and I am ready to go on a long flight!  Im so excited!

 Yorushiku (Best Regards),  
 Casey

... I had brought it along. Lakes, reservoirs and streams in this part of the country are very different from the west coast area. Here, the banks are frequently grass covered right down to the water level, and stream beds are flat and sandy or dirt rather than rocky and tumbling, so the streams look like irrigation ditches or canals, not wild streams. I know the big rivers are treacherous and over flow their banks on a regular basis, but it's hard to ...

... store patron. I would have thought that since I purchased a relatively new version it would have updated maps. Yeah, no. So I was supposed to follow 78W. I passed the sign for it but the lady never said to turn. I gave it a few miles to right itself, to no avail. So I turned around, because I sure as hell will trust a sign before I fully trust technology ;) (still a ludite at heart). Welp ...

Today we were told we were going to ride 70 miles. We have very specific maps and "turn sheets" so it seems we can rely on these things,but nooooo..... We rode and extra 12 miles which is very difficult on a bike at 86 degree weather. We had problems with the Hotel we booked. Somehow we were all confused because there are 3 buildings. the building we were to register at was in the very ...

The bugs are attracted to my computer screen. I sit with legs akimbo in my tent. AT&T even reaches here, a remote Mississippi sate campground outside of Tupelo. Temperature was near 100 today. Still now over 85 as sweat drips down my nose. Today was a ride through the Alabama and Mississippi back country. Not a freeway ridden. I didn't realize how big timber was as an industry in these parts. Met some good folks along the road ...

... we have happened across - both in terms of landscaping and hospitality, though it was 11 out of 10 for convenience on Elvis Presley Blvd, we journeyed to one that was the complete opposite and it was just a few miles to the humble home where Elvis was born. Standing in this tiny two roomed, wooden building, in the actual room where he was born in 1935, it wasn't hard to see what a struggle it must have been for ...

The Courtyard was sold out so we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn. It was nice. If you have to go to Tupelo, I recommend it. If you going to be there on a Sunday, BYOB. Cause you can't buy it in town. Dining options are nonexistent. One place ...

... our train came.... but it was one of the funniest and most surreal things I have seen..... and I have see some stuff........ One of the nicest hotels I have been in the Peabody in Memphis has a "duck parade" every day, where their ducks are give a staircase to get out of the fountain in the lobby and are ushered down a red carpet to the lifts and are brought up to the penthouse, with a fan fair...... that is all I will say !!??????

... with downhome love, despite the 30's hard-time years. How does it happen, who is born to fame and who is not? I'm driving back, pine trees over rolling Alabama hills, as far as I can see, almost Mississippi now, yes, here's the sign, another state, another speed that I can go, 65 to 70. Faster now, my zoom zoom car! Tupelo is thirty-five more miles. I have to stop and see it for myself. The two-room house, I mean, the front-porch swing. There's the sign, in green, a ...

... I jump out quick in all the rain. Sis pulls out her plastic hood, ties up her hair. I order Outback chicken, mushroom topped. We talk about our travels, places we have been. She's been to Europe, China, cruised the world and split the difference through the Panama Canal. Next time I'm going round the bottom of the Cape, she says. Her husband never goes, he'd rather be at home, and keep things going here. Their business, radio. I know she's famous, on her own, I saw ...