From Santa Fe, I just took the fastest route to Savannah, Georgia. As I previously learned, it is not a good idea to spend all day driving all the time. So, I planned mid-day stops. In Albuquerque, TX, I stopped for a movie (The Game Plan, starring the artist formerly known as The Rock and some cute-as-a-button little child actress). That night I stayed in a hotel not far over the border into Oklahoma, and was ignoring the commercials on TV, when my attention was caught by crew shells (it’s the weirdest thing – I always look up for those cell phone commercials, darn it). It was an advertisement for the Head of the Oklahoma. As my jaw dropped at the realization that even Oklahoma City gets to row (there is a river, after all), I paid rapt attention for a mention of dates. I was sure it was probably next week or next month when it would do me no good, but wonder of wonders, it was going on that weekend. Thus, my stop for the next day, a Saturday, was in Oklahoma City for a regatta! I got to see a terrific crab, a pair going completely off the racecourse for no apparent reason, and a single flip! It was all very exciting and nostalgic for me.
Since my route took me right through Memphis, I decided to make one of my stops Graceland. I made sure I was listening to Al Green’s “Graceland” as I drove up, which made me very happy. The ticket for a basic tour was rather expensive, despite a modest AAA discount, but I figured it would be worth it to tour a national landmark like Graceland. As I got in line for the tour bus, I noticed some people had little players and headphones. I figured they were some extra cost item you could purchase, though I hadn’t seen where. Once we got to the mansion, though, everybody else was listening to their headphones. Still, I thought if they were part of the tour, surely I would have been given one. I don’t know what happened there, but it was rather eerily quiet walking through the whole house, crowded with people all listening to something I couldn’t hear. Oh well, I’ll just say the silence allowed me to better commune with Elvis’s ghost in his living room? The manse was a mixture of preserved rooms and rooms converted to house memorabilia and other We Heart Elvis items. The only song they played out loud so that I could hear was Johnny B Good, which really disappointed me. Out of all Elvis’s songs, they had to show us a cover?
