We missed the “Welcome to Arkansas” sign because, if you’re coming from Memphis, it’s in the middle of the Mississippi River bridge, which is impossible to pull-over on. They are also doing construction the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River, which stops traffic almost as soon as you come off the bridge. This is lame.

We’ve missed updating in Memphis entirely, because we had absolutely no internets (nor did we have time to stop at a coffee shop and steal some). So here’s what we’ve been up to:

We left Chattanooga in the morning on Saturday. We stopped a couple times on the way to Nashville to buy a camera cord (I have two, and packed both in the boxes that get shipped instead of driven.), some shoes for mom, and a towel. Then, we hit Nashville. We just drove around the city, checking things out – saw the Ryman Auditorium of Opryland fame and Broadway Avenue. We also drove down Church Street. Surprisingly, Church Street actually has lots of churches on it. Unfortunatley, we didn’t stay too long… Memphis was calling us. In a twangy country voice.

We stopped outside of Memphis at the visitor’s center to decide where to camp and get some tips on handling the city. The desk guy gave us this advice, in a southern accent with a hint of a lisp: “Well, T.O Fuller State Park is much closer to Graceland, but it’s not really in the best part of town and its kinda smoggy, since, you know, its so close to downtown. But Meeman-Shelby is really nice and woodsy, but its much farther north. It’ll take you about 25 minutes to get to Graceland.” Then, he proceeded to give us the most vague directions ever. I don’t know if I’m the only one that this happens to, but if someone tells me to do something specific (Kate’s bbq restaurant) or directions on how to go somewhere, unless I write it down that very second, I cannot, absolutely cannot remember what they said. Its like my brain just shuts off and says “Oh, what you’re saying is totally unimportant even though its exactly what I just asked you or need to know to get out of here.” Stupid brain.

Something that has been plaguing mom and me – we’re both directionally challenged. So each of us trying to play navigator to the other doesn’t exactly work out perfectly… I think we average about 2-3 turn-arounds per time we try to get somewhere.

The perfect example of this is yesterday: After we got advice on where to stay from the Memphis Visitor’s Center and directions on how to get there, our attempt at directions started: We had to go north on 51, and we went south. Every time I said “I think we should go right, because that’s the way it looks on the map,” and we went right – only to find out, oh, 10 or so minutes later that we had gone the opposite way we were supposed to. That happened at least 3 times just last night on the way to the campground. Then, we went into Memphis to eat dinner, and of course, more of the same.

But, we successfully have made it through both North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, and mom’s first night of camping (which was free because we got there after the ranger station closed, and left before it opened), driving in downtown Nashville and Memphis, walking on Beale St at night (which I imagine is something like Burbon St in New Orleans – neon, bars, music and lots of drunks.), and GRACELAND!!!!!

Graceland will have to be another post entirely – I’ll add an album in the gallery to check out.