From Clarksville, I tooled along US-79 southwest through some little towns. One was named Paris. I was in The Land Between The Lakes for a while, too. It was really beautiful, there. One of the few things I remember from any history class was how that one President had boondoggles that ended up creating these these land features; the Land Between The Lakes was there only because of a government that actually artificially created jobs for its people.
At one point in the park, I wicked the bike up to about a hundred. I was coming down this huge hill and could see well in front of me. There was a car that I had been rabbiting, and I nearly caught it when a trooper's car, lights ablaze, popped out of the woods and chased the car ahead of me. I was scared to death; I thought the copper was going to block the road and insist that I was going way too fast after I was dying in the road from hitting him.
I took it easy for the rest of US-79, trhough all of these little towns. IT was a great road, in and out of little villages and along farms and the rolly-poly countryside. Past Brownsville, I neded up deciding to get onto I-40 for a ways. The road, though, was under construction and much of the pavement was grooved out. It was just terrible; the bike was wavering and wiggling all over the place. While passing a truck, I convinced myself that the back tyre was flat and I was stiff with panic. I rolled off the throttle and edged over to the side of the road. Of course, the tyre was hard as a rock and it's just that the crappy pavement gave me a very odd sensation.
There was a Days Inn right across the street from Graceland, and I checked in there. A 7-Eleven was on the other corner, and a film processing place next door. I bought some beers and cleaned up, and then I called my brother to let him know that I might swing by the beach. From the window of my room, I could see the wall of where the Graceland complex ended. There was a drive-thru burger joint. This was just so American that I could hardly contain myself.
I walked across the street to Graceland. The wall around the mansion property is stone masonry. Apparently, they let people write anything they want on the outside wall. There were some funny ones, so I popped a few picutres of them. After taking pictures of the wall, and in every room of the mansion, I noticed that my camera was stopped down two stops. Nothing in the mansion will come out; I only had 100-speed film, and two stops will kill it. I doubt the processing shop will be able to push the rolls two whole stops and have them come out looking good.
Getting to Memphis surprised me. Somehow, I figured the city would be about twenty miles further, so I had no idea of how to get to Graceland once I was within the city, or even where I should leave the highway. Plus, I was almost out of gas. I hate to go into a city low on gas, even in my car, because I'm not sure where I'll end up. With the bike, the problem is even worse because it doesn't always start on the first try after I switch to the reserve tank. Sitting on a big red sport bike with a screeching starter just stinks.
I tried to walk up to the building through the gate and these two security guards nearly attacked me. It turned out that I had to go to The Graceland Complex, across the street, and buy a ticket and ride a bus into the complex. Of course, there were no signs that said anything of the sort.
So I went into the busy complex and bought some tickets. I had to wait in line, and it seemed like I was going to get the second or third-to-last tour bus that day.
Anyway, the mansion was a lot smaller than I expected. The decor was innovative, but very ecclectic. I found out that Elvis was a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, which redeemed him in my eyes. The people going on the tour were the finniest: mostly European tourists and fat (fat!) American couples. Some girl my age got on the bus and sat next to me. Of course, the best looking girl sat next to me and I was wearing a short and a shirt that had been on a motorcycle for four days. I didn't say anything. Confidence is like water--you can piss it away anytime you want to.
Elvis played raquetball on the day he died. At the end of the tour, we stood in the court and there was a wall of at least sixty platium records and CDs from RCA in there. It was about sixty feet high and thirty or forty feet wide. He was a pretty impressive artist, even though I don't like his work. I never realized how many movies he made. They had the jumpsuits he wore on stage, sometimes. None of the were anywhere near as big as I remember Elvis being when I saw him on television before he died. Near the end, he was downright fat. The jumpsuits were svelte.
When we went back across the street in the bus, I decided to go see his car museum. That did impress me. Old-ass Corvettes and Caddies, almost all of them. They were all in mint shape, too. You couldn't even see that they had been restored, and they didn't look stale. It was nice.
The giftshop was just amazing: it was full of overpriced little trinkets, but it was just as full of people snapping them up as fast as they could. You could buy kits of Elvis CDs for a couple of hundred bucks.
Last updated on April 7, 1997.