For starts, towns are named for hybrids. I spent hours searching for the one Chase Bank in Texarkana, and filled up on on gas in Arkidelphia. Signs outside of these towns advertised things like, "Arkidelphia. A good place to call home." I basically giggled my way through these stops.
I decided to spend the night in Memphis, as it was a halfway point. Earlier in the day I had reserved a hotel room, sight unseen, at the cheapest place I could find. After getting completely turned around on the Memphis freeway system and backtracking across the Mississippi River a couple times (by the way, Memphis has a unique version of the arch going on. Its a double arch, but not as low or distinctive as McDonalds', and not as nice as St. Louis's, but rather in the abstract shape of an M, well lit and visible even between road construction cones and overgrown shrubbery), I finally found my exit. Let's discuss this.
I have had several brilliant ideas in my life, and consider myself a general maker of wise decisions. Booking a hotel in South Memphis without reading customer reviews may not have been one of them. When I pulled into the "Colonial Inn" lot and had to drive through barbed wired liquor stores to get to the lobby, I began to get a funny feeling in my stomach. Hungry? Yes. Scared? Yes. Worried? Uh, yes. The nice Pakistani girl in the lobby unlocked the doors for me after verifying my id through the bullet-proof glass windows of the lobby, checked me in very briefly, and said through gritted teeth, "Enjoy your stay ma'am!" Ok.
I had to find food. Several days of parking my car in Austin had done my cooler in, and rations were running short. On my way out of the hotel parking lot I had to stop to turn right, and a rap at my window surprised me (a bit jumpy at this point). A young black man kept knocking on my window, and through the glass and over the roaring Chevy engine I could hear him saying, "Hey! Open up! Hey! Lady!"
Against my better judgment, I rolled down my passenger window, and kept my hand on the gear shift, and began to reach for my mace (yes, I'm strapped). What came out of his mouth then was what I least expected.
"You want some tamales? They's hot!"
"Tamales?"
"Yeah, girl, they's hot! Ohhhh, girl, wait, where you from?"
"California."
"You know yer a long way from home? But these tamales is hot! A dolla' a piece."
Ok, I was starving after a long day of driving, and I began to see him as an angel in disguise. Yes, I wanted tamales, hot or not, and it sounded better than wandering around Memphis all over again to find food. I gave him three dollars and waited, still in the parking lot of my hotel.
What I received doesn't actually count as tamales, but instead as good ol' comfort food. Greasy cornmeal rolled around shreds of beef (I think), with a bit of spice, and enough oil to soak through foil AND paper towels. No cornhusks to be found, but instead they were taquito-sized rolls in waxed paper. Oh well. I thanked him kindly and as he was asking for a telephone number, hit reverse and backed into my hotel parking space. Memphis tamales. Now I've had them.
I actually slept well, and decided to head north instead of east on Saturday. A girl is entitled to change her mind. So I backtracked through Arkansas, after a brief dip into Mississippi just to say I was there, and up north through Missouri.
I've developed this theory that one way to really know a city or state is to listen to its radio selections. This theory comes in handy when an anthropologist has listened to all of her own music at least twice through, is completely bored, and is ready for something else. In any case, Saturday turned out to be college football day in Arkansas, and I caught up and kept up on all of the SEC scores. Then I caught up on Repubican/Jesus talk radio, as there is an abundance of it in the south. I knew I needed coffee when I'd listed to countless country songs in a row and was even bobbing my head to the banjo beat....
Enough. Midway through Missouri I saw a sign for wine tasting. Ahem. Wine tasting, in Missouri, just off of I-55 North. Ok then. I turned off the radio and focused on the signage. This is how I ended up at Cave Winery in St. Geneveieve, Missouri, on a Saturday afternoon.
The wine was decent (who knew?), and moreover, the backdrop was absolutely gorgeous. Turns out Missouri in the fall was exactly what I had been looking for when I thought it would be lovely to travel in October. Turning leaves, red and gold, chilly air and friendly people. Decent wine, and $5 tastings. Missouri turned out to be the best distraction of the day, you heard it here first.
I eventually made it to my final stop for the night, Muscatine, Iowa. I'll be in the midwest for the next week or two. But in defense of south, although it's a strange place to spend time, "Southern Hospitality" is a real thing. Lovely, even, at times. Different, yet beautiful, and worth experiencing.
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