The Last Three Days
The last part of our trip was spent in Clarksdale, Mississippi. We spent Wednesday afternoon walking around Clarksdale, exploring the blues capital of the world. The majority of my afternoon was spent in two locations, the Delta Blues Museum and Ground Zero Blues Club. The museum was very interesting and provided more time to take in the all of the blues history that is abundant in the region. It was fun to see pictures of places like Po’ Monkey’s, knowing that we were there only two days before. I was also really excited to get some posters in the gift shop that I can use to decorate my new apartment with. After the museum we went to Ground Zero for lunch. This is a Blues club that is rather well known both for its blues, and for the fact that it is owned by Morgan Freeman, who is from Clarksdale. One of the things that makes this place unique is that people sign their names all over the place; on the walls, the tables, the mirrors, everywhere. It was fun to find a place to make my visit official by adding my name to the wall. We were only there for lunch, so we couldn’t take in the full experience with a band, but it was still fun to see the place.
After spending some time downtown, we got back on the bus and headed to our “hotel” for the night, the Shack Up Inn. I put hotel in quotations because the Shack Up Inn is unlike any other destination in the hospitality industry. I had explored the website prior to our arrival, so I was somewhat expecting what we saw when we first pulled up, but it was still a bit of a surprise. The Shack Up Inn consists of a row of shacks that have do not look like they belong in the year 2007. The shacks all have electricity, hot water, and air conditioning, but that’s about it. At first it was really fun to explore the shacks, see how they differed, and decide which ones were better or worse, but then it started to set in that we were actually staying there for a night. I’m obviously biased, but I’d say that my shack was the best one. It was bigger than some, and ours was the only one with a screened in porch. The experience was a lot of fun, and the class definitely made the best of it, but I wouldn’t really say it’s something I would like to do again.
Our stay at the Shack Up Inn was followed by two long days of driving home. We drove all day Thursday and spent the night in Knoxville, Tennessee. Unfortunately we did not get to see much of Tennessee because we left for Wake at 6:30 the next morning. The whole ride from Knoxville to Winston-Salem was spent sleeping on my part, so it went by pretty quickly. When we finally got back on campus it was pretty sad to realize that the trip was actually over. I had such a great time and learned and experienced so much that I really didn’t want it to end, but I know that I will keep this trip with me for a long, long time.