Well this morning we awoke to the two Draper boys feeling below average. With a visit to Graceland first on the cards, it meant that just Grandpa John and I were up to the tour whilst the other two waited it out in the car. First shock though was that we were charged $10 just to park in the car park, but I suppose as they pump out Elvis music all day you have to pay the price.
My first view of Graceland from the outside is that it was no where near as big as I expected, but we had to pay $28 each to find that out. They start you off with an audio tour very much like the one at Alcatraz, except I dropped mine before we even started.
The tour itself is one of those things that you have to do once in your life, even if you are not a big Elvis fan, I think you'll find John's pictures in the roadtrip pictures section whereas mine are on facebook. It was a shame that we didn't have time to go and tour the car collection and the aircraft, but we knew that the boys were in the car waiting. However, not wanting to be left out, just as we were leaving John dropped his audio tour set, making sure we'd both broken one each. Worse still, John purchased a CD of music from Elvis' early days which we had to listen to in the car, but fortunately I was driving and we set the balance to the back so I couldn't really hear it, I am more a fan of his suff from the later years.
Next on our list was our next state, Arkansas and a location I'd wanted to visit for almost 12 years. It dated back to when I used to work night shifts in a call centre and on those long and dark nights when the calls were failing to come in we resorted to looking through the Western Union directory for the strangest location for cash pick ups, our mind was made up that the ultimate was a branch of Piggly Wiggly (a supermarket chain) in the town of Bald Knob Arkansas. Since then I've always wanted to see this place for myself. A bit of research prior to the trip showed that the Piggly Wiggly had since closed and that Sexton Foods was the Western Union outlet, but Bald Knob still intrigued so we added it to our list.
Well when we got there, it was like any other hick town we'd encountered, but we had to stop and take a photo of the town sign all the same.
The house we stopped out side of had a broken old leather sofa outside on the front porch of the trailer and a broken down shack in the garden, we were half someone with a shotgun to come out and tell us to get off their land. We got our shot and headed into town. It was very disappointing, there was very little to distinguish this place from any other, but as it was lunch time we decided to find an authentic diner and have lunch. Well it looked like an authentic diner from the outside, but when a Chinese lady greeted us on entry we were a little taken aback. We decided to stop and John and Ivan braved the buffet, which I guess adds to our list of near death experiences on our trip making 4 thus far. I guess I can say I was disappointed with Bald Knob, in fact you can say it didn't measure up to expectations.
After leaving Bald Knob far behind we headed as far across Arkansas as possible passing by Little Rock and skirting through the Ozarks before ending up 330 miles and one extra state later in Fayetteville still in Arkansas.
As Rag was still feeling under the weather he decided not to risk another Hooters meal, so he got supplies in the local supermarket and I dropped John and Ivan at Art's bar. Let's see what time they get back tonight and what intelligence they have for our future adventures.
Oh I guess you can't add eating a McFlurry whilst driving at 85 mph in the outside lane of the interstate as a near death experience, but trust me it got tricky at times, however I'm sure I'll make up for it later in the trip.
