{"id":34,"date":"2010-08-30T10:27:16","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T10:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html"},"modified":"2010-08-30T10:27:16","modified_gmt":"2010-08-30T10:27:16","slug":"a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html","title":{"rendered":"A mystery in the Arkansas mud&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Returned home from a road trip to West Memphis, Arkansas recently. We were there to work on landmark #54 in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hamptonlandmarks.com\/landmarkdetails.aspx?landmarkid=2383\">Hampton Hotel Save-A-Landmark program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the ten years the program has been rolling along, we&#8217;ve visited many interesting places and met some incredible people. This trip though provided a first for me and the team &#8211; an odd mystery in the fertile Arkansas delta where the Riverside International Speedway is located.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We were there to make the classic 1949 dirt track look like new &#8211; but we stumbled into something along the way &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aolnews.com\/weird-news\/article\/riverside-international-speedway-has-dirty-secret\/19594156\">here&#8217;s a piece I wrote for AOL News<\/a> about it. Thoughts?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>In the meantime, remember to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hamptonlandmarks.com\/\">visit our site<\/a> whenever planning a road trip or if you&#8217;d like to learn more about the work we&#8217;re doing to save landmarks (and how you can get involved).&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We&#8217;ll be in D.C. next month for a big Save-A-Landmark event I&#8217;ll be writing about shortly &#8211; stay tuned and safe travels.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Returned home from a road trip to West Memphis, Arkansas recently. We were there to work on landmark #54 in the Hampton Hotel Save-A-Landmark program. In the ten years the program has been rolling along, we&#8217;ve visited many interesting places and met some incredible people. This trip though provided a first for me and the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A mystery in the Arkansas mud... - The Pop Culture Road Trip<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A mystery in the Arkansas mud... - The Pop Culture Road Trip\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Returned home from a road trip to West Memphis, Arkansas recently. We were there to work on landmark #54 in the Hampton Hotel Save-A-Landmark program. In the ten years the program has been rolling along, we&#8217;ve visited many interesting places and met some incredible people. This trip though provided a first for me and the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Pop Culture Road Trip\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-30T10:27:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Epting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A mystery in the Arkansas mud... - The Pop Culture Road Trip","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A mystery in the Arkansas mud... - The Pop Culture Road Trip","og_description":"Returned home from a road trip to West Memphis, Arkansas recently. We were there to work on landmark #54 in the Hampton Hotel Save-A-Landmark program. In the ten years the program has been rolling along, we&#8217;ve visited many interesting places and met some incredible people. This trip though provided a first for me and the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html","og_site_name":"The Pop Culture Road Trip","article_published_time":"2010-08-30T10:27:16+00:00","author":"Chris Epting","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html","name":"A mystery in the Arkansas mud... - The Pop Culture Road Trip","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-30T10:27:16+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-30T10:27:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/#\/schema\/person\/90e02a67ea704d6f277e5c57264de6c7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/2010\/08\/a-mystery-in-the-arkansas-mud.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A mystery in the Arkansas mud&#8230;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/","name":"The Pop Culture Road Trip","description":"Chris Epting&#039;s uplifting and nostalgic stories from America&#039;s entertainment landscape","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/#\/schema\/person\/90e02a67ea704d6f277e5c57264de6c7","name":"Chris Epting","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ecf\/ecfc2e5ddaa5892930733367b5ce59bbx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/ecf\/ecfc2e5ddaa5892930733367b5ce59bbx96.jpg","caption":"Chris Epting"},"description":"A pop culture history aficionado, Chris has a lifelong penchant for documenting the exact sites where things both great and small occurred. As an author, Epting has found that unearthing and chronicling \"\"hidden\"\" locations offers him a challenge. What began as an inquisitive hobby soon developed into the writing and photographing of 18 books based on his discoveries, including \"\"James Dean Died Here\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6The Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks,\"\" \"\"Elvis Presley Passed Here, Even More Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks,\"\" \"\"Roadside Baseball,\"\" and \"\"The Ruby Slippers, Madonna's Bra, and Einstein's Brain: The Locations of America's Pop Culture.\"\" As an extension of his efforts to chronicle the unique, Epting joined Hampton Hotels for a sixth exciting year as national spokesperson and consultant for the Hidden Landmarks program in support of the brand's national \"\"Explore the Highway with Hampton Save-A-Landmark\u00c3\u201d\"\" campaign (the program recently won the President's award). Chris is a frequent featured guest on numerous radio and television programs such as National Public Radio's \"\"All Things Considered,\"\" \"\"The Savvy Traveler,\"\" \"\"Access Hollywood\"\" and FOX TV's the \"\"Best Damn Sports Show Period,\"\" plus radio and TV programs around the world. He has contributed articles for such publications as the \"\"Los Angeles Times,\"\" \"\"Westways,\"\" \"\"Travel + Leisure\"\" and \"\"Preservation\"\" magazine, and hosts the weekly syndicated radio show, \"\"The Pop Culture Road Trip.\"\" Chris's latest book, \"\"Hello It's Me\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Dispatches from a Pop Culture Junkie\"\" will be released in July, 2010. Chris lives in Huntington Beach, CA with his wife and their two children.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/author\/cepting"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/popcultureroadtrip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}