Tennessee

We had our very first job in our very own trailer at the end of September in Memphis, and have been traveling around the western part of the state ever since, which means we've been Tennesseans for just under a month. And...we like it here! Our schedule says we'll be keep meandering between Memphis and Nashville at least through the end of November, and we're glad for more time to explore.

Yesterday we'd planned to visit Graceland and the National Civil Rights Museum, but we both seem to be fighting off the creeping crud, so decided to lie low instead. We're keeping quiet again today, so I will use the time to plunk myself down with vitamin C and share some pictures.

I mentioned a few posts ago that it's been a neat experience to see fields and fields of new-to-us things growing everywhere, and in Tennessee that means cotton. This might be our favorite field yet :)

We have a friend who grew up in Memphis and told us that picking cotton by hand is tricky business. Now we've seen for ourselves what she meant; yikes!

The Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge is an area of swampy bottomland covering thousands of acres, and we spent an early morning there while staying in Brownsville. We were so taken with the perfect reflections on the water; I told Jan Michael it made up for the absence of alligators :)

We enjoyed it so much that later in the evening we went back to a different area of the refuge for more peace & quiet and oohing & ahhing. 

The West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center was across the parking lot from our motel - we could see it from our window, even - and somehow we didn't figure this out until the afternoon before we were set to leave Brownsville. It was closed for the day by the time we made our way over, so all we managed was a quick look at the outside of Tina Turner's old elementary school building, which now houses a collection of her memorabilia. The center also houses museums about the Hatchie River, cotton production and the music of west Tennessee; we'd like to visit all of it if we're ever in the area again. (Bonus: it's free!)