Our evening consisted of watching Gone in 60 seconds at our motel that boasted a jacuzzi suite! It was probably just a bigger bath with bubble bath or something because there’s no way that motel had a jacuzzi anywhere! Another late night meant a later start but that didn’t matter as we were having a slightly easier day today.
First stop today was the William J Clinton Presidential Centre and Library.
The museum takes you through timelines of his reign as well as giving you insight into policies and laws he wanted implemented. He was a great believer in welfare reform and education and the first Bill he signed was the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 which meant large employers had to support unpaid time off for serious medical conditions or pregnancy. Below is his timeline from 1993 as well as his daily itineraries in the silver folders.
Clinton was elected for a second term in 1996 and held office until 2001. He faced impeachment in 1998 from the House of Representatives for perjury due to his liaisons with Monica Lewinsky. The matter was fully investigated and he was acquitted in 1999 by the Senate and continued his full term in office.
A letter written to Hilary Clinton from Mother Teresa and below is a letter Elton a John wrote to Bill Clinton.
Dotted all around the library are big blue box-file like boxes behind glass. There are 4356 of them. It turns out that they contain presidential records from the White House Office of Agency Liason. This is an agency which assists the people who have requested help from the President of First Lady in resolving a problem. In this museum it only holds 2-3% of the whole collection, which could be as many as 80 million pages!
The Clinton’s in this museum are depicted as a strong unit who are down to earth and who walked among the people of America. They had two dogs, loved their sports as well as family meals. Bill would often be found watching a game with the butlers! They also made the Easter egg roll a massive day for children on the White House lawn. They would display a menorah and play dreidel games with children as well as reading ‘Twas the night before christmas’ to children in the wing of the house. Many state dinners were held and parties to celebrate the new year! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naive enough to know that they weren’t without scandal, I mean there were several, however, there was so much warmth emanating from the cabinets from them that they truly just seemed like nice people who tried to connect with all different people all around the world.
Next stop was Hot Springs. The home town of the Clinton’s during his time as a Governor of Arkansas. A town that has natural hot springs throughout. That consisted of another trek…so much for an easier day…
We eventually hit a sign and couldn’t figure out if it was 2 miles or 0.2 miles along the trail. I saw the road so said to Nathan I’d meet him at the top as he took the shortcut. Then came the worst part….being overtaken by cars who must have been thinking ‘what on earth is she doing?’ It’s an incredibly humid hot day and she’s decided to trek up this massive hill/mountain along the zigzagging road. Yes yes I did decide that as it was clearly the more sensible option than to climb up the rest vertically.
As you could probably all imagine, considering he has longer legs than me and had walking boots on, (the only two factors that resulted in him beating me of course!!) Nathan emerged from the trees about half a mile ahead of me. I don’t actually know if I was power walking or dawdling to be fair so I’ll take a half mile as he was going forward not zigzagging 😇 I’m not making excuses honest!! 😂
Imagine our surprise when we stumble across a bloody car park!!!! We actually could have driven up to the mountain tower instead of trekking as we did!! With a time limit of one hour 18 minutes too! I mean the pressure was just immense 😂
We found the first viewpoint
….joking. We took the elevator 😂 you couldn’t climb it due to the weather. It was a shame the weather was so foggy as it meant the view was that little bit less impressive…
Nathan was nowhere to be seen. Last time I say race you to the bottom unless I’m already at the bottom 😔. I eventually round the corner back onto the grande promenade and look over the barrier. Damn, the car lights are on. Is it wrong I was hoping he might have taken a wrong turning for a tiny bit lost so I would win? Yeah you’re right. Probably. I then receive a message saying “made it.” I was two minutes out. He only beat me by 4 minutes 🥈!! My reply consisted of…
- Put the air con on full blast
- Ping the boot
- Put Memphis into the sat nav
My requests were met thankfully. Then began the 188 mile journey to our next destination, Memphis, Tennessee. When Nathan asked what’s on the agenda in Tennessee I say, Graceland the home of Elvis Presley, to which he quickly goes “hee hee” trying to emulate Michael Jackson. He very quickly realises he was wrong for the second time today….
On that note…
Until later….