And now we're home again

Since the last post, we went to Birmingham and Memphis. In Birmingham is the 16th Street Baptist church that was bombed and four girls died (and Spike Lee made a film about it). Across the street is the park where children were attacked by the police with water guns and dogs. There is also a museum on the park. It's probably the best museum we went to. It showed black life, both positive and negative, in Birmingham from the earliest days of Birmingham. It was a new museum that used lots of different media. After we were finished there, I felt like I wanted to go through again right then. Of course we didn't, because there are limits to how many hours we, especially the children, can spend in museums.


Next we went on to Memphis. We had BBQ. This means that Matt got ribs and the rest of us ate something else. We were low on food, so Calvin had a banana, apple, and water for dinner. We guessed that ours was the only table cutting up an apple in the restaurant that night.


Our last museum was the one built around the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was shot. The end of the Civil Rights trail.

Importantly, this museum addressed Dr. King's work in Chicago at the end of his life. It presented a different picture than we'd seen in earlier places where they focused on other efforts. Needless to say, it was very sad.

After a picnic by the river, the kids and Matt went to the Stax Records Museum.


After that, we drove by Graceland to have a peek and headed home. We planned to stay another night, but we were ready to come home. So, we did. Despite having a false start and needing a rental car, we're glad we went. We always have a good time on trips and learn a lot. We certainly learned a lot on this trip- about the Civil Rights Movement, the South, ourselves, and our lives.