Who needs sleep? Let’s take a trip

Published 9:17 pm Wednesday, July 19, 2017

I was born in Northeast Mississippi and lived in a couple of places there until my family moved to the East Central part of the state. Then it was off to the Pine Belt to go to college.

After living in the Hattiesburg area for a decade, we moved to New Orleans for a few years.

After that, it was back to Mississippi to the Southwest area (not too far from here), then to the central Crossroads section of Louisiana, then back to East Central Mississippi, then the opposite end of Crossroads Louisiana, then back to Southwest Mississippi where we are today.

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I’ve lived in 11 towns/cities, and some more than once. That doesn’t count the different apartments or houses within cities that I moved into or out of during those years.

I don’t really enjoy moving, but I don’t mind new places. I consider myself pretty adaptable, and think I could live pretty much anywhere. I’d just have to get used to it.

I’ve visited a good portion of the U.S., too, but there’s a lot I haven’t seen. I like to think about places I haven’t yet been, and I hope to visit several countries before my time on Earth is done. The only other country I’ve been to so far is Canada.

But I also love to visit familiar places that are important to me for some reason or another.

This past weekend, my wife and I took our three daughters and drove to the northeast corner of the state to visit Corinth, where I spent my childhood. We had slugburgers (look ’em up), saw the house I grew up in — it sure has gotten smaller — and where my old school used to be, visited landmarks of the Civil War and the town’s history, and spent some time at the Battery Robinett Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center.

We took a self-guided tour of Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo and drove across to Memphis to take photos of Graceland and add our names to the brick wall across the front of the property. We also ate some really good burgers and wings at a dive off Elvis Presley Boulevard.

We did it all in one day — 20 hours. More than half of that was spent driving (11 hours). Well, that doesn’t count the driving within Tupelo, Corinth and Memphis.

We came home with a collection of postcards, guitar picks and fridge magnets, plus a stack of extra slugburgers.

We were hot and tired, sweaty and tired, rained on and tired and just plain tired.

But I loved it.

I got to spend 20 straight hours with my wife and kids doing stuff spur of the moment. And listening to the girls sing three-part harmony of Disney movie songs in the back seat for hours honestly never got old.

I may have lost sleep, but I gained some great memories, and we’re already planning the next trip.

News editor Brett Campbell can be reached at brett.campbell@dailyleader.com or 601-265-5307.