My mom and I just got back from a week of road-tripping through the south, driving through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, I want to visit all 50 states, but I’m getting to a point where a) most of the states I need are in the east, b) they’re somewhat next to each other, and c) they’re not places I would have a need to go to other than planning a very specific vacation there. The solution? A road trip, obviously. Last year my mom and I went to Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware, which were easy to cross off in one fell swoop. This year we stepped it up a notch and covered over 1,200 miles of these four (much larger) states!

Road Trip Route

We flew into Little Rock, Arkansas, and rented a car at the airport to start our trip. We stayed there two nights and made a four-hour day trip to Crater of Diamonds State Park. Next was a six and a half-hour drive through Oxford and Tupelo, Mississippi, to Birmingham, Alabama. We stayed in Birmingham two nights (with a day trip to Montgomery) before driving another six hours to our final destination, Savannah, Georgia. We stayed in Savannah two nights and flew home from there. I have to admit, when I started planning the trip a couple of months ago, it didn’t seem like that much driving on paper. A 6-hour drive in a day is pretty easy, in my opinion! But after putting it all together, we realized it actually was quite a lot of driving for the amount of time we were there… While I felt like I was better able to get a sense of the states by driving through them, it did feel like we spent half of the vacation in the car.

Arkansas

What I learned in my research about Arkansas is that it’s very outdoorsy—lots of hikes, national and state parks, camping areas, etc. I knew we would visit Little Rock, since it’s the capital and has historical landmarks, but I had a difficult time deciding where else to go, with so many of the “must-sees” being spread across the state. (The Thorncrown Chapel in the northeast corner seemed particularly cool.) I think what I realized is that I would like to go back to Arkansas someday to experience more of the beautiful nature—it’s only a 12-hour drive from Denver, so I’m already considering how I can convince my brother and sister-in-law to do a camping road trip with me…

Little Rock, Arkansas

After flying in and checking into our hotel, we went straight to Little Rock Central High School to learn about the Little Rock 9 and the desegregation event that happened there in 1957. There was a small visitor’s center that was really well done and a monument next to the school. The school is still active so we weren’t able to go inside, but we did witness the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps lowering the American flag for the day.

Afterwards we visited the free Old State House Museum, which is the oldest surviving capital building west of the Mississippi. It was a lot of very specific Arkansas history, so we didn’t spend that much time reading—but I really enjoyed wandering through the old building. Our favorite exhibit was one on governors’ wives’ inaugural ball dresses.

The next day we visited the Esse Purse Museum, which is one of only three purse museums in the world. It was incredible and a must-see!! There is a display of purses and associated accessories for each decade from 1900 to 1990. Not only did we learn about purses and how they changed over time depending on world events, but it was really a lesson in women’s history. For example, the crossbody purse was invented during WWII for utilitarian reasons. When the war ended, crossbodies were considered an ugly reminder of wartime—and women were expected to return to the home, where the colorful and feminine era of housewife fashion and handbags blossomed. Even though the museum was small, we spent an hour and a half there and of course left with a souvenir (worn in this blog post). You can see more of the museum in this Reel I made.

We swung by Julius Breckling Riverfront Park to see “La Petit Roche,” the little rock for which the city was named. Afterwards we drove to Big Dam Bridge, which is the longest pedestrian bridge in North America. We only ended up walking halfway across it since it was getting dark, but the views of the Arkansas River were beautiful. It was busy with locals on evening runs and bike rides.

We stayed at the Capital Hotel, which was built in 1872 and has a famously large elevator—supposedly because President Grant used it to take his horse up to his suite in 1880. The hotel was beautiful and our room was really nice, with a particularly comfy bed. Notable meals we had in Little Rock were shrimp and grits and fried catfish, which we were told is the thing to eat in Arkansas! I liked the catfish fine but did think it was a bit… fishy.

My overall impression of Little Rock was that it felt very sleepy in the downtown area. I’m not sure if it’s because we there during the week, but what I read made it sound like there was a hopping downtown—I guess we didn’t really find the right spots!

Crater of Diamonds State Park

A two-hour drive from Little Rock is the tiny town of Murfreesboro, known for Crater of Diamonds State Park—the only place in North America where you can mine for diamonds and keep anything you find! My mom and I visited and spent a couple of hours dry and wet sifting in the plowed field, trying our luck. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any diamonds… only pieces of jasper, which is a semi-precious stone. It was a really fun experience though and I would love to go back sometime. The two-hour one-way drive left us with limited time at the park, so I wish I had planned our time differently. We easily could have spent half a day there or longer rather than the few hours we had. I also would have done more research beforehand about how to find diamonds—like if there are certain things to look for, certain places to dig, specific depths in the dirt to be targeting, etc.

Mississippi

My mom and I knew we would drive through Mississippi rather than staying the night, but we weren’t sure where to stop that would be worthwhile and not too far off the beaten path. We decided on Oxford and Tupelo. Rather than driving through Memphis, we took backroads to get to Oxford—which according to Maps only took a few minutes longer, but we both swear it was a much more time-consuming route. The drive was very remote, with few buildings aside from churches, but I was surprised by how green Mississippi is. We drove by several cotton fields, which I had never seen before, and drove through multiple dark, woodsy areas. I’m not sure what I expected Mississippi to look like, but it definitely wasn’t dense green forest.

Oxford, Mississippi

Like the state in general, Oxford was very different than I expected. I heard from one of my coworkers that it was a cute little college town—home to Ole Miss; Rowan Oak, the former home of William Faulkner; and Neilson’s Department Store, supposedly the oldest store in the south. It wasn’t quite as quaint and open as I was picturing, with the bulk of the downtown historic district being in a single square with narrow roads, surrounded by tall, dark trees. In fact, the square was so tucked into what felt like a forest that I was surprised when Maps said we had arrived.

We found free parking and only spent about an hour exploring. We walked through Neilson’s, which had some really unique and Southern-style clothing (extremely expensive, though). We quickly poked into a couple of other boutiques in the area, full of beautiful clothing that was way out of our price range. I couldn’t help but think of those videos that break down southern girls’ outrageously expensive sorority outfits for rush week. We also grabbed a casual lunch at a BBQ spot and quickly drove past Ole Miss and Rowan Oak on our way out of town. There wasn’t as much shopping as I thought there would be, so it was a quick stop.

Tupelo, Mississippi

I was originally more excited for Oxford than Tupelo but I ended up liking Tupelo a lot more! If I could do it over I probably would have skipped Oxford entirely and gotten lunch in Tupelo instead. We visited the Elvis Presley Birthplace and saw the house where he was born and the church he grew up attending. Even though we didn’t pay to get inside, there was still plenty to see and read on the grounds and in the gift store. Afterwards we made a quick drive into downtown Tupelo to see a variety of fun Elvis murals and statues. We couldn’t stay long but the main street seemed super cute, and lots of people were out and about.

Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama

We stayed in Birmingham at a very strange (but cool) six-room hotel that was on the 7^th floor of a 20-story historic building downtown. The John Hand skyscraper was built in 1912 and used to be a bank. As guests at the hotel, we were given access to the exclusive John Hand Club on the top two stories of the building. We went the first night we stayed in Birmingham, and it turned out to be the highlight of the trip. The club/bar was mostly empty so it was just my mom and me hanging out with the incredible bartender all night. He was so interesting and fun to talk to, and we ended up staying past closing time!

The only other activities we did in Birmingham were walking past and reading about some of the Civil Rights Movement locations right by our hotel, including the 16^th Street Baptist Church and Kelly Igram Park. When I was doing research for the trip and trying to decide if we should stay in Birmingham or Montgomery, most articles that I read said Birmingham was a better place to stay. However, in hindsight, I think it would have made more sense to stay in Montgomery because that was the location of the main thing I wanted to see in Alabama—the Legacy Sites.

Montgomery, Alabama

I learned about the Legacy Sites in one of my criminology classes and knew I wanted to go if I ever found myself in Alabama. We first toured the Legacy Museum, which details the history of slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration in the United States. It was an extremely heavy and powerful museum with first-person accounts and interactive exhibits. We then wandered through the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park and finished our visit at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (pictured above). Each column represents a county with at least one known lynching, and the names of the victims are listed on the columns. I highly recommend visiting the Legacy Sites if you’re ever in Montgomery to learn about and confront the many forms of racism in America.

After the Legacy Sites we did a quick drive by some of the civil rights landmarks in Montgomery, including where Rosa Parks boarded the bus and the church where Martin Luther King, Jr. used to preach.

Georgia

The last state of our trip was Georgia. We drove through Atlanta, which had terrible traffic, and made a detour to a small town an hour outside Savannah to visit some of my mom’s cousins. We weren’t sure how much damage we would see from Hurricane Helene but there were lots of downed trees on the sides of the highways, and we could see a clear path next to my mom’s cousin’s house where she believed a tornado tore through. It was eerie and heartbreaking to see the wreckage and beautiful old trees torn from the ground.

Savannah, Georgia

We packed a lot into our one full day in Savannah, starting with a stop at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist followed by a stroll through the beautiful and iconic Forsyth Park. We explored the outside and gift store of the famous Mercer House, which was the site of the murder that inspired the book and movie Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. We also did a little window shopping along Whitaker Street, which had lots of very chic and fun stores (but too expensive). And, of course, we had to stop by Chippewa Square to see where Forrest Gump waited for the bus (even though the bench he sat on was fake and only placed there for the movie).

We then went down to River Street, which was very touristy, but we enjoyed taking a break on the free ferry across the Savannah River. In the evening we did this walking ghost tour, and our tour guide Dan was great. I love that he grounded all the ghost stories in history, so even if you didn’t believe in the supernatural it was still a fascinating lesson in the history of Savannah.

Before heading to the airport on the last day we spent about an hour and a half exploring Bonaventure Cemetery. It was beautiful and there were so many notable things to see, including the famous songwriter Johnny Mercer’s grave and a grave bell (used to alert people if someone was buried alive). I just loved the eerie Spanish Moss everywhere!

Overall, Savannah was just as beautiful and haunted feeling as I imagined, and I really enjoyed walking through all the green squares and seeing the gorgeous old buildings. However, it wasn’t quite as charming and quaint as I thought it would be. It was packed with tourists and I was shocked to find that most restaurants required reservations days in advanced because it was so busy. I think it was parents’ weekend for the Savannah College of Art and Design so I’m not sure if that had to do with it. But the city was generally just way more crowded than I expected.

Overall it was a really great road trip with my mom, and nearly every place we visited was different than I expected in one way or another. That puts me at 37 states!! A road trip through the north east might have to be next…

If you made it this far in the blog post, you deserve a medal. Thank you for reading!

 

Miles of smiles,
Grace