Happy 4th of July!

After our tour of Graceland, we headed downtown. The first place we went to was the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum is at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. It was a very informative and powerful exhibit. I was not allowed to take pictures inside, but I did get some outside. In the museum, there was an old city bus that you could sit on. It was just like the one that Rosa Parks sat in and refused to get up from. We were able to stand in the exact hotel room overlooking the balcony where MLK was killed. Then we went under a tunnel and into a building across the street. We stood in the room where they believe James Earl Ray looked through a window and aimed for King. When we were in the gift shop, we actually got to meet the man who created the museum! He just published a book about MLK, so we bought it and he signed it..."To Two Traveling Teachers!"






After several hours in the museum, we were hungry. We headed back to Beale Street and ate lunch at B.B King's Blues Club. We had some of the traditional local fare...a sausage and cheese plate, fried pickles, hot wings, and ribs. Here's mom chowing down on some ribs. She claims they were the best she had ever had. Of course, she is basically a vegetarian so I'm not sure if she's the best judge of good ribs!


After lunch, it was time for a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory! Unfortunately, since it was the 4th of July, we did not get to see the factory workers making the guitars, but we still got a tour of the facility and learned how the guitars are made. Here we are getting ready. Even without the workers, we still had to wear these wonderful safety goggles!

Here are some photos from the factory. They make about 35 guitars a day. Workers have to be specially trained.










It was certainly a full day, but it wasn't over yet! We walked around on Beale Street for a while checking out the shops, listening to the music, watching people do flips in the street, and eating some pizza. Finally it was time to walk down to the park where we were going to watch the fireworks. We sat on the banks of the Mississippi River with tons of people and anxiously waited. I had someone take our picture; however, he kept having trouble using my camera so the best shot he got I was laughing and my eyes were basically closed, but oh well! The fireworks display was unbelievable! The last picture shows the sea of people that we were walking in the middle of when we left. I could not believe how many people were there!





After another amazing day of sightseeing, we went back to our hotel room and fell asleep pretty quickly. The next morning it was time to head to the next state, Arkansas, with stops in Little Rock and Hot Springs.