Entry 178 - Big Trip Log Part 2: Nashville to Little Rock

Big Trip Log Part 2: Nashville to Little Rock

Day 3 - May 5th: Nashville, Tennessee to Little Rock, Arkansas

Official: 348 Miles

First Stop. Memphis, Tennessee. Well, Graceland was a bust. Easy enough to find, it being on Elvis Presley Boulevard as it is, but alas, discouraged by the hordes of polyester-clad housefraus and bums around the area, I gave up and drove around Memphis for an hour or so looking for some sort of interesting thing to do. Didn’t find anything, and Dog was looking at his watch a lot (apparently he’s not an Elvis fan), so we bought a few post cards, I ate a gyro from a Crab Juice vendor and hit the road again. I made a mental note to come back soon with a reservation and a pocketful of dreams – perhaps when I make it out to See Andy Williams in Branson.

Second Stop. Traffic jam leaving Memphis on I-40, the result of what was obviously a fatal accident between an RV and a tractor-trailer. See? Old people can’t be trusted behind the wheel of a Caddy, much less a linoleum box atop a Cummins diesel. Crossed the ‘Ssippi into Arkansas, and was immediately struck by the utter lack of federal highway monies actually spent on highways. Willis (he is my truck) was bouncing up and down like a cholo wagon on… well, Cinco de Mayo.

Third Stop. While traveling through the ultra-mundane farmland of east Arkansas, I noticed off to my left one of those yellow cropdusting planes, and after I saw the acrobatic moves this guy was pulling, I had to stop at a nearby gas station and try to take some pictures. This guy had great big stones. He ws pulling immelman after immelman, and a few times I wondered if he ws gonna make it out of the dive. Oh, and about the gas stations on I-40: lots of them have the ultra-tall programmable signs – you know, the ones that advertise their diesel and unleaded rates? Well apparently all of them chinced out a decade ago and opted for signs that only had the ability to display a 1 before the decimal (duh), so the sign appears to offer gas at $.65 a gallon. Dumb rednecks.

Fourth Stop. Bryant, Arkansas. Made my way through Little Rock proper around dusk, figuring I can now beat rush hour in the morning. This is by far the smallest hotel I’ve ever been in; I think there are no more than 20 rooms, and it is crammed behind a Little Caesar’s (still in business, who knew) and a Wendy’s. Checking in, I didn’t have the heart to even ask if there was Wifi in the joint, but much to my surprise, they actually have 2 WAPs here. I can reasonably assume I’m the only one in the hotel using the bandwidth, so I’m sucking it up in every way I know how. Oh, and on the way into the Taco Bell parking lot to get dinner, I managed to enter the single-lane drive-thru exit and had to back up onto a busy road, all the time feeling the scoffing glares of the lokels. Funny, I suppose. Or it will be, in distant retrospect.

One thing else before I sign off and take Dog out to “do his dirty, dirty business” – in need of a cold six pack after today’s travels, I nipped into the “Foster’s Pak’n’Sav” across the road from the hotel. Nice people, of course, but one thing struck me like a ton of bricks: Somehow I was standing on the film set of Raising Arizona – you know, the scene where he’s being chased through the store by a pack of barking dogs, and the butcher opens up from the Courtesy Booth with a double-barreled shotgun? That had to be fillmed in Bryant, Arkansas.
Travelled: 357 Miles
iPod: Bob Marley (Uprising, Babylon by Bus), Cake, Beatles, Jamiroquai, Ibrahim Ferrer, Johnny Cash (One Piece at a Time), Grateful Dead (Reckoning, Blues for Allah)

Tomorrow it’s on to Dallas and the waiting embrace of my brother’s Keg-o-rator. Oh, and my family, yada yada.