Much has happened since leaving Bonnaroo for Denver. There’s been a long-distance get-together in Rogers, Arkansas with a nursery school buddy from Pittsburgh…

and a long-overdue reunion with family from Pittsburgh, who now reside in Overland Park, Kansas.

We’ve also kept a watchful eye on the weather–always tracking the extreme conditions that have been swirling around us, the likes of tornadoes, hail, flooding, land slides, and record-setting heat streaks–yet with each destination, we’ve mostly managed to dodge a bullet.

There was also a handful of visits to some iconic sites along the way, and some less familiar, but definitely photo worthy.

Our first stop took us to Parker’s Crossroads, halfway between Nashville and Memphis, and the site of a celebrated Civil War skirmish in West Tennessee.

It was the final battle for Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who managed to outfox the Union brigades of Col. Cyrus L. Dunham and Col. John W. Fuller by escaping with his regiment across the Tennessee River and avoiding certain defeat in the face of an enemy nearly twice the size with two times the artillery.

Leah and I took the walking tour past interpretive markers depicting critical moments in the battle, and observed that Parker’s Crossroads battlefield, while a testament to the 737 fallen soldiers,

should also be appreciated for its serenity and pastoral scenes.

Only 45 miles west of us was Tennessee Safari Park in Alamo,

where we looped around a drive-thru zoo for an hour with 4 buckets of animal nachos for hungry wildlife roaming freely throughout the fenced prairie. We were immediately greeted by an aggressive mob of ostriches and camels that descended upon our truck sensing a meal was imminent.

With the passenger window down, Leah tentatively extended the bucket beyond the door, only to have the bucket ripped from her hand by a dromedary with no manners and fewer eating skills.

Kibble went flying everywhere–inside and outside the truck. Even today, I’m still fishing out morsels between the seats. Lesson learned.

However, the lure of food was a perfect ploy for pet portraits…

Continuing west, we traveled to Little Rock, home to the Clinton Presidential Center, dedicated on November 18, 2004.

We parked the Airstream directly across the Arkansas River in North Little Rock by a decommissioned WW II tug and sub…

and cycled the long way around the riverwalk trail (some of it kinda sketchy),

past the Big Dam Bridge…

until we circled back 8 mi. to Clinton’s library–a hulking structure clad in glass screens that cantilevers over the Arkansas River as a symbol of “building a bridge to the 21st century.” And it was air conditioned!

The building that houses Clinton’s legacy is enormous enough to collect and archive 2 million photos, 80 million document pages, 21 million e-mails, and 79,000 artifacts from the Clinton years (1993-2001).

Appealing graphics break down the headlines and the issues of the time: year by year, month by month, surrounded by wings dedicated to domestic policy, diplomacy, economy, education, civil rights, and scandal. It’s all on display throughout the Main Hall, modeled after the Long Room of Trinity College in Dublin.

Exhibits feature Clinton’s campaigns;

Clinton’s security;

Clinton’s Oval Office;

State dinner receptions under Clinton:

and impressions of Clinton by character experts.

Our journey to Denver continues through Kansas…