Tonight and last night we were treated to a lightshow! Tennessee has fireflies! It's magical to watch the little pinpricks of light dance in the darkness like flittering fairies. I hate bugs but I would let a firefly land on me just to watch it flash on and off. They're fascinating to me.

Today and yesterday we drove several miles in the Tennessee rural countryside. One thing that struck us is the trees of different hues of green stretching into the distance, some light, some dark, many varieties. There isn't as much water here in Tennessee as in Florida but there's more than in California. One thing missing from the water (that we keep watching for....got used to it in Florida, I guess) is the alligators. We do miss seeing those sinisters shapes in the waterways next to the road. Someday we'll go back to see them again in Florida.

Yesterday we went to the Mounds. No, not as in a candybar factory but the Pinson Mounds. We first starting hearing about and going to see Mounds in Florida. They are earthen mounds created by native peoples going back some 2000 years ago. Here in southwest Tennessee the Pinson Mounds were first discovered by a surveying crew in 1820 and named after one of the surveyors (Joel Pinson) but it wasn't until the 1950s that the state purchased the property to preserve as a park. The theory is that the native peoples constructed the mounds by carrying thousands of baskets of dirt to an area and piling it up. What a lot of work! Pinson Mounds is an archaelogical complex that consists of at least 17 earthen mounds that encompass more than 400 acres in the 1200 acre park. At the time of construction the mounds were clear to the top and most likely built for religious or to mark the solstices. Ed, Dude and I spent nearly 3 hours hiking around this park looking at the mounds and trying to think like natives. We still couldn't figure out why they would go to so much trouble just to create a high spot! Well now, maybe I do understand as I've been hankering for some real mountains lately. During our walk we spotted what we thought was bear scat (poop) and saw what we thought were bear prints on the riverbank.....but no bear! (shoulda used Dude as bear bait, eh?) On the way back "home" we drove the Rockabilly Hwy in Chester Co., TN.

Today we traveled through Moscow on the way to Memphis (TN, that is!). Yep, we wanted to see Ol' Man River again....this time from the Memphis riverbanks. Ol' Man River is the great Mississippi (boy, I've loved spelling that ever since elementary school!) River. First thing we did was to purchase an all day trolley pass. It cost us all of $3.25 each.....what a bargain! We hopped on at the north station and rode to the Riverfront to then purchase our next tickets. We wanted to cruise the river and so bought ourselves a ride on a riverboat. That sailing wouldn't be until 2:30pm so we went in search of a little sustenance and found The Little Teashop. Without knowing it, we had found the best restaurant in Memphis and we will agree with it. Ed had the soup/sandwich combo and thought the split pea soup the best he'd ever tasted. I had an avacodo (their spelling) salad with chicken and had never tasted such a delightful salad before. It was healthy too! During our river sailing we learned lots of facts about Memphis and the Mississippi of which I only remember a few. Herman de Soto was the first white man (so the history books say) to discover this area of the Mississippi in 1541. The Chickasaw were the natives on the land at the time. The Mississippi is the 4th largest river in the world and trades places with the Missouri occasionally. The 1st largest is the Nile (longest), 2nd largest is the Amazon (widest) and the Congo is the 3rd. Memphis was once the cotton capital of the world and cotton was called "white gold". Memphis had the 1st self serve grocery which was named the Piggly Wiggly and it still exists today. Interesting story about Mark Twain which was the pen name of a man named Samuel Clemons. In olden days, when a ship captain wanted to know the depth of water that he was sailing in, he had a crew member throw a rope over that was marked with a knot every foot, when it reached 12 ft, he would call out "mark twain!". Samuel Clemons liked this name and so adopted it as his pen name.

Tomorrow we head west again and next time will be parking it in Oklahoma. We're leaving the south behind and there are many things that we will miss as we head for home. For my part, I will miss the soft drawl of their voices and the all-inclusive Southern phrase "y'all" as in "y'all come back now!".