Listen to your BARK!

Today was all about Freedom in every sense. Freedom to sleep in a little bit and get a slow start to the day (which is hard for me).Freedom to go anywhere for however long we wanted and come back whenever we wanted. Freedom to speak with anyone we came in contact with, and the Freedom to have our cake and eat it too.

We are staying at the T.O. Fuller State Park, the very first state park open to people of color east of the Mississippi back in 1938. For all the things we saw in our short jaunt into Memphis today, we feel safe here. It’s quiet, clean and the park rangers roll through every 30 minutes or so on patrol. Looking around the park, I can just imagine the the laughter and smiles back in 1938 for those that were looking for a safe place of recreation. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an invasion of Beechnut Spikes like this before…you can’t walk without tripping over them everywhere!

Freedom is not just some right that was handed down upon us…it was something that was fought for. Just about every “people” in the world has had to take up arms at some point in their history and fight for their Freedoms. The price of Freedom around the world is lives that can only be memorialized through the exercising of what they fought for. I’m going to spend more time exercising those rights that those before me defended, with honor and integrity.

Well..that’s about as political as I’m gonna get here. More about our day!

A brief drive downtown and we quickly realized that Memphis is in pretty deep economic crisis. Store after store, restaurant after restaurant closed, boarded up…trash EVERYWHERE and so many downed trees likely from the last storm that rolled through. Downtown had lots of closed walkways, and even some downed wires. We decided to take a little safer route (since we weren’t gonna get in anywhere to listen to live music or anything) and visited Bass Pro Shops (Dog Friendly Yeah!). Yeah, I know…there’s one everywhere…but in Memphis it’s in a PYRAMID!

It was a good exercise for Freedom with a TON of people and sounds around…he did soooo good! He needed some soft vibrations in his collar from time to time to get his focus back…but Dad was super proud of him. Two little girls came up and asked if they could pet him and he just sat there like a good boy and let them have at it. There were some BIG dogs on scene as well…Freedom didn’t seem to are about their size…but Dad was glad that their owner had a fat leash and firm grip because they were looking at Freedom like he was a slice of Prime Rib lol.

I was so proud of the pup I had to treat myself to some Freedom apparel so I could sport his name 🙂

We even saw this on our drive back!

Back to that Bass Pro Shop…it really was huge:

Ok ok ok…back to the blog already!

With everything that is going on in the world these days, let’s not take for granted the things we have, the people that surround us and all the Freedom’s we often take for granted. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the fight and forget that we are still (despite many things)…in a really really good place.

Tomorrow we head out towards Nashville as a half way point towards Pigeon Forge where we will meet up with Daren and Wendy again…and of course Freedoms buddy Dexter! Stay tuned!