Dallas to Portland

Got a bite at the Corner Bakery down in the West End, returned the rented family truckster and we caught the light rail to DFW for our 4pm flight home. Some final stats for our trip...
Days on the road: 58
Total miles driven: 6,500+ (1 driver :-) )
States: 24
Hotels: 23
Baseball Stadiums: 9
State Capitals: 6
College Campuses: 7

Favorite Pizza: John's (NY theater district)
Favorite BBQ: Oklahoma Joe's (Kansas City)
Least Favorite BBQ and Worst Dining Experience: Blues City Café (Memphis)
Favorite Ballpark Experience: Kansas City (free tix and field passes for BP help)
Craziest Ballpark Related Experience: Shuttle ride from downtown Milwaukee to Miller Park
Favorite Road Sign: "Bong Recreation Area" (Just south of Milwaukee)
Favorite State Capitol: Pennsylvania
Favorite College Campus: Notre Dame (it's immaculate)
Favorite Hotel Receptionist: Ariel at the Four Points in NY
Places that Didn't Suck Nearly as Much as We Expected: Milwaukee, Cleveland, Alabama Gulf Coast
Places Where We Wish We Had More Time: San Antonio, Austin, New Orleans, Myrtle Beach, Nashville
Most Fragrant Cities: Memphis (smells like BBQ everywhere), New Orleans (smells like yuck in the French Quarter)

Little Rock to Dallas

Quick bite at the hotel Starbucks before checking out. We have most of our stuff packed up for our flight home tomorrow but a little more work to do tonight. We stopped by Little Rock Union Station, the state capitol, and Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site before hitting the road. We had only planned on stopping at the high school for 15ish minutes but the kids (especially Will) were totally into completing the Jr Ranger pamphlets. After an hour, we finally hit the road for a five hour ride to Dallas. We arrived in Dallas around 6:30 and stopped first at the Original Sonny Bryan's BBQ on Inwood Rd. Food was good but not the best we've had. Finally, checked into the hotel (Crowne Plaza Dallas - Market Center) about 7:30pm.

Streetcar Tour and Clinton Presidential Library

Breakfast places in Little Rock are seemingly few and far between. Even fewer are open on Sunday....so we went straight for lunch at the Big Whiskey. Next stop was a ride on the Central Arkansas Transportation (CAT) streetcar. Streetcar was a sweet deal...$1 for adults and 50 cents for kids and the streetcar operator provides a tour as he goes. Little Rock is probably the smallest "big city" I've ever seen. The downtown area is tiny and there's almost no one to be found (maybe due to the heat?). It is very clean and has a nice waterfront area so it's not a bad place to visit. We took the streetcar across the Arkansas River, by the USS Razorback submarine, around a small portion of North Little Rock, back across the river and finally to the Clinton Park and Library. We had a great tour guide through the library. Highlights included the full scale Cabinet Room (notice who is seated at the head of the table) and Oval Office models, gifts received from dignitaries and private citizens, as well as getting to look up Clinton's itinerary for the day he was in Portland to give the commencement address for Christy's graduation from Portland State.

Memphis to Little Rock

Up and checked out of the hotel by 11:30 after our strange evening in the dark. We had breakfast at the Arcade Diner which touts itself as the oldest diner in Memphis. Breakfast was pretty good. Next stop was the National Civil Rights Museum just a block away. The museum is built into the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was assassinated in 1964. They preserved his room as well, the room next door where his advisors stayed, the facade of the hotel, and a few cars that were parked outside at the time of the assassination. The museum has a ton of material and could easily take up an entire day. With kids in tow, we consumed as much as we could in 2 hours...which was still considerable. The end of the main museum takes you by the upstairs location where Dr. King was shot as well as by room 306 where he was staying. All in all a very powerful museum. After the museum, we moved to the Memphis Trolley and Railroad Museum which we just happened to stumble across this morning. As any desperate parent would, we used the railroad museum as a bargaining chip for good behavior in the Civil Rights Museum....and when they behaved, we had to pay up. Last 2 Memphis stops were Central BBQ and The Cheesecake Corner which were also just a few blocks away....and both were excellent. We hit the road for Little Rock at 5 and arrived at our hotel (Downtown Marriott) @ 7ish. Have a nice view of the Arkansas River and the Minor League baseball stadium across the river. We took a brief walk down Clinton Ave to see the neighborhood. They have a nice waterfront park with a permanent stage and a farmers market on Tues and Sat. It's early but, so far, Little Rock looks like a candidate for our final "Places that Don't Suck as Much as We Thought" list. 

Peabody Ducks, Graceland, and Beale St

The Peabody Hotel is famous for its ducks. Every day at 11am they march 5 ducks from their rooftop home down the elevator down a red carpet and into the fountain in the middle of the lobby. They have done this since the 1930's and the ducks have been featured on the Tonight Show (Johnny Carson), Oprah, Sesame Street, etc over the years. Its pretty funny....they make a big (tongue in cheek) production of the duck march and the lobby is packed for both the 11am march down to the fountain and the 5pm march back to the rooftop "palace". After the morning duck "show" we had breakfast at the Bon-Ton Cafe which was good. Then we headed to Graceland. It was Elvis week so we skipped the 2 hour wait to ride the shuttle to the mansion and the 1.5 hour mansion tour. We walked as much of the Graceland area as we could without an official tour including the entrance to the mansion grounds, his airplanes (the Lisa Marie and the Hound Dog), several of the Elvis shops and an Elvis impersonator performance at the Graceland Crossing area. We headed back to the hotel around 3:30. Christy and I got a nap while the kids watched a little TV. We caught the 5pm duck march on our way to a swim in the hotel pool. Headed up to the rooftop for a drink around 6:30 before going to Blues City Café for BBQ dinner. Dinner was not good - the service was terrible and the food was below average. We survived dinner and took a walk down Beale St which is somewhere between Broadway (Nashville) and Bourbon St. Just before heading back to the hotel at 8:30, we had a blackout in downtown Memphis including all of Beale St and our hotel. We went back to the hotel and laid low in the lobby with most of the other guests. We end up meeting a nice couple from Louisiana (Beth and husband) and a couple girls from San Francisco and had a good time talking and gaming with them. We finally climbed up the stairs to our 7th floor room and went to bed around 11:30. The power was finally restored around 2am. I know because the lights in our room popped on and the AC started flowing. The stadium below is the home of the Memphis Redbirds (AAA affiliate of the St Louis Cardinals). Stadium looked like one of the nicest minor league parks I've seen.... unfortunately they were not in town during our visit.