Day 13
Sat 7th July Memphis Tennessee/Arkansas/Mississippi border
Rose early for a 9am pontoon boat ride on the lake. A gentle trip looking at heron and kites. Sunbathing and relaxing swim at the open air olympic size pool where little frogs come to die and butterflies suck your toes.
Off to Memphis to look for Elvis. George took us through the seedy side of town and deposited us at a dodgy intersection by the Elvis Presley Boulevard Laundry.
We drove down past miles of semi dereliction before Graceland suddenly appeared on the right, with Lisa Marie’s Boeing 707 in the yard. and a queue of the faithful. We pulled up by the multiply graffittied wall on the other side of the road to get a better look and realised that the actual house was behind that wall so we added our names and climbed up our ladder to take some pictures of the famous gaff and Elvis driving a bus. Quite a small house from what I could see.
George took us home the same colourful route just in time for the afternoon monsoon thunderstorm. Found a dodgy laundrette next to a dodgy Fillipino/USA restaurant with glum meshbacks blankly watching Emeril on the food channel. Learned that just because your wife is Fillipino doesnt mean she can cook.
Disappointing signal. Huge row and another visit to Walmart. Tooth annoying.
Into Memphis from the wrong end of Elvis Presley Boulevard. So grungy and awful that hugh just had to return the same way. Graceland sad and overblown. The actual house behind graffittied walls and surrounded by trees. Lisa Marie, the jet, sits over the road in the Graceland centre and is defiled by gawpers every minute. We went on a pontoon boat trip in the park, a drowned valley holding only rainwater and then tried out their huge pool. Tiny frogs everywhere. In pool dead. Leaping under tyres all along road - impossible to avoid.