Sloggin our way through ARkansas. So cold in Tennessee along with snowflakes, so, knowing those No-Snow drivers there we thought it best to take off for points west until things warm up in the hills. Besides, we were pooped from two days spent digging through the archives at the wunderbar Gordon Browning Genealogical Museum in Mckenzie (while staying at the luxe Hampton Inn Paris (Tennessee, that is). And yes there is a 65 foot model of the Eiffel Tower right there in the town park where we stopped to take a quick photo. Wave at the camera, T!

The GB museum is so much fun. Jere Cox is a running fountain of information about early settlers and the movements of folks west after the REvolutionary War. The Cumberland Trail, the southern trail through south carolina, the flow down the Natchez Trace, which I think my people took into Yalobusha county. He's a total blast to listen to, knows everything about everything from back then, and then some. We are very fond of him and plan to go back and fill in some blanks there after a trip south to warm weather, a little r and r at Ojo, maybe a trip to Mehico to visit a pal. That last part, a maybe. Genealogical work can fry your brain.

If you do find yourself in Paris, TN be sure and stop in on the sweet town square at Jack's Java and flowers ont he corner and say hey to Ronnie Robbins who is just one helluva nice guy and bought us the only good cup of real coffee (he has the only espresso machine for 50 miles or more), lattes no less. REally nice fella. The local teenage 'characters' hang out in his place, the ones with pierced ears and stuff.

Not much else happening there. Not bad food at the Fresh Market on Rt 79 for suppa. But man, America really is one depressing place, just the sameness, sameness, asphalt paved walmarts, lowe's, and dollar stores galore. Just no creativity anywhere. The monotony of corporate life choices. Driving across Arkansas today was a struggle, so very been there done that at my age. But T seems to enjoy the driving, driving flat expanses. We head into Oklahoma tomorrow, then the TX panhandle and on to New Mexico, where I really want to be.

Tired tonight. Keith Olberman is going on about his dad's illness and health insurance. People here and there try to drag you into political conversations with snide comments, but I don't go there cause I feel sad for how gullible people are. The number of churches and porn superstores is a little alarming, continues to be anyway. It'll let up in NM some. I'm lookin foward to that.And the to hot springs... ahhh......

TYhe GB museum in Mckenzie has two ginormous Nazi flags taken off the headquarters in Berlin at the end of WW2 and, get this, Mr. Browning also brought back a cigar he snatched off Hermann Goering's desk. That freaked us out... I love the GB museum and the dedicated folks who sit there every day filling in the blanks of the past for people like me.