road trip day one: Tennessee and Arkansas
22 June 2008
(Topping the list of things I never thought I’d say:) I’m in Arkansas. I don’t have a real grasp on my feelings for this state yet since it was nighttime when we drove in, but the hotel we’re checking out of shortly was out of nonsmoking rooms last night, which I guess is a good sign for the fine people of or visiting Arkansas, that they recognize that smoking might be bad for you. It was something of a bad sign for us, though, since we were too tired to drive across the street to another ho/motel and just gave up and collapsed in this one, which didn’t smell like smoke, exactly, but like the efforts that you make to conceal smoke. I”m trying to decide if the smell is as though someone had cut up a piece of trident and mixed that in with their tobacco before rolling their own cigarettes, or if they just rolled up one of those rear window pine tree car air fresheners and smoked that. Either way.
Yesterday we flew into Memphis and did Graceland. I loved Graceland– it was everything that I wanted to be, all ridiculous and nostalgic and beautiful, but it was also a little sad. About 20 minutes in, I turned to my mom and told her that I felt like I was in a tomb, which is an overstatement but not by a ton. I thought Graceland would be Elvis-themed Disneyland, but it’s not– it feels kind of haunted, even with the 14 giftshops and people completely unaffiliated with the attraction dressed up in full Elvis regalia and the private jets. It just made it that much more interesting, though. Inside Graceland Mansion they have an audio tour that you follow using headphones (”Like the Met!” I said, recalling one of the many times my dad forced his children to go to an art museum to make them more cultured and all we did was play with the headphones and run in and out of the doorways that had clickers on them in order to mess up the headcount of people that had visited the exhibit), and then the rest of the exhibits you run around by yourself. My favorite? The jumpsuit collection.
This is about 1/30th of the collection. As soon as we walked in my mom went “God, I am so happy that jumpsuits went out of style.” I didn’t press for details but I feel like there’s probably a story there. Luckily we have about a billion miles to cover so I’ll wait until we’re in Reno before digging into that one. (Did I mention that we got a hybrid? Thank GOD. The rental place was all set to hands us a Corolla and, by doing so, a thousand dollar gas bill for this trip, when the guy looked towards the car we were supposed to get and went “Oh wait, we did get a hybrid back in! You can just take that.” Which was the most magical thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Driving the Prius, however, has been something of a challenge for Cristin, who ranked very high in the Worst Driver superlative category her senior year of high school. It’s not driving it, actually, that’s the issue, driving it is a ton of fun, specifically the display option that tells you how many miles you’re getting to the gallon at that exact moment in time {on the highway last night we ranged from 45 to 99. NINETY NINE miles per gallon, kids. Starting and stopping the prius, however, has been quite the sight to behold with me behind the wheel. It starts with a button. It’s basically a power wheels).
Some things they don’t allow anywhere in Graceland: Video, which means I have no video clips for you from day 1 at all, apologies; Flash photography, which means all of my pictures look a little bit weird. Even this one, which we had Some Dude take of us while we were waiting for our tour to begin:
After he took this picture, he looked at the little viewfinder and nodded in a self-satisfactory way, as if this is actually a good picture. I kind of expected this to happen, though– during Cousin Erin’s Ghosthunters phase when she was obsessed with the paranormal, we spent a lot of time talking about how ghosts are always showing up in pictures or changing photos so certain things don’t appear (I just re-read this sentence and love how matter of fact I’m being about it. Of course ghosts mess up pictures, and of course that explains why all your graceland pictures look weird) and every time one of the tour guides explained that we couldn’t use flash photograph because it damages the artifacts I started thinking about that amish urban legend that they think photos steal part of your soul or whatever. And isn’t that what we were doing? Stealing part of Elvis’ soul?
(Okay, sorry. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and I drove 200 miles through Arkansas last night. I’m a little loopy).
My other constant thought was that Lisa Marie never had a chance. There’s no way you could come out normal after a childhood like this (during the plane tour they mention that Elvis once flew his daughter to Colorado when he realized she had never seen snow, and they returned after a 20 minute stay) and the fact that she’s as functional as she is astounds me. She should be Britney Spears times a thousand for how she grew up and the fact that she lost her dad and then had to mourn alongside the entire world.
Last note on the mansion picture– get used to the outfit I have on, since all I packed are variations of black shirt/ tan shorts. I specifically bought shorts for this trip after realizing that I hadn’t owned any since high school and, okay, they’re pretty comfortable. Particularly if you’re going to sit in a car for 8 hours a day.
Elvis’ rec room. Yeah.
Post-Graceland we went to get dinner at a place with an address described as “behind 52 south second, down the alley and to the left” on its own website. Needless to say, the food was unreal. The only reason I am not dancing on tables about the food in this picture is because I am more tired than I have ever been in my life at this point, having woken up at 6 in new jersey and spent most of the day flying or touring Elvisland:
For those of you who are more detail oriented, behold:
I would bathe in this meal if it were possible.
Today we head for Oklahoma City (Stay classy, Arkansas!) and the Cowboy Hall of Fame.
4 Responses to “road trip day one: Tennessee and Arkansas”
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I visited Graceland back in 1998 when it was in STYLE. Just kidding, it wasn’t in style even in the 70s.
You look tired, get some rest. And let’s hope your arteries will forgive that BBQ abomination you crammed into it.
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Figured I would save the Elvis “trivia” until after you visited Graceland:
- Elvis owned a pet chimpanzee named scatter that enjoyed terrorizing female guests by looking up their skirts.
- When Elvis died, fourteen drugs were found in his system, ten in significant quantity.
- He once filled a swimming pool with lightbulbs and began shooting them out with a pistol because he was bored.
- Late in life, in an attempt to lose weight, he ate only peaches.
Hope you have a wonderful trip! Just remember to pace yourself and be safe.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Yay, updates! Hope you’re having a great time, take lots of pictures, and don’t forget to pack snacks.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 am
Interesting thoughts on flash photograph of the artifacts. By doing so, I think we do steal, to some extent, both phisically and spiritually. We try to record the artifacts in a different format and somewhere else. Not in our mind, as it shall be.