Museums, museums, museums.....

Today was Museum day and Samantha did a fine job getting us from one to the other. She didn't get fired once today!

We started the day with the National Civil Rights Museum which was an interesting, moving place.

The museum is build onto the original Lorraine Motel which is where Martin Luther King was killed in 1968. The wreath is in front of the balcony and his room where he was when shot. The cars belonged to him and his entourage. The museum is very well done and we spent 2 hours there which is a long time for us - we tend to move through museums quicker than that. 

I know you probably can't read this but is the bill of sale for a slave which was a 10 month old baby. I  have read about slave owners selling children and breaking up a family but I had not head of  babies being sold by themselves. The docent said sometimes slave owners would buy toddlers or very small children so he could raise them the way he wanted them. Hard to imagine!

This is the actual bus that Rosa Parks was on and the bronze statue of her is where she was sitting when she was arrested for not sitting in the back of the bus. 

Next stop was the Blues Hall of Fame. It only opened in May 2015. 

We went through this one in record time.... The museum is well done with exhibits divided into different types of blues music including "country blues" - whatever that is.. There was even a harmonica section.... I realized that I like the music but don't know many of the performers. 

Last museum of the day was the Cotton Museum which was very interesting and informative. 

The museum is located in the original Cotton Exchange. It was similar to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange that sells stocks but this one sold cotton all over the world from different plantations in the south. 

The white stuff is cotton seeds with some of the fiber still on it.  The brown is the seed after all the fiber is pulled off it. It takes about 200 days of frost-free days after the seed is planted until it is ready to be picked. 

A typical cotton bale is 55" tall x 33" thick and 21" wide. It is enough cotton to make 1,256 pillow cases (100% cotton) or 1,217 men's t-shirts or 313,600 $100 dollar bills.  I did not know that a $1.00 bill is 75% cotton!

The Tucson Trio is on the road again tomorrow heading for Nashville.