Day 30: Memphis, Tennessee

So this is the penultimate day of the FourWeeksInAmerica adventure. I woke and indulged in a little snooze until close to when breakfast would stop being served downstairs. I was in Memphis, Tennessee. I find as I get further along the route that I keep having to remind myself where I am and honestly, without the blog, I think I’d be lost in terms of knowing where I’ve been. I’m sure when I get back to Ireland I’m going to spend some time re-reading all of this again just to revisit the whole trip in my head again. Anyway, today was day three of the wind down and as I tucked into my mediocre breakfast of frosties (or some generic copy of the grrrreat original) I decided I’d take it easy today. Of course no trip to Memphis is really complete without the obligatory drive-by of Graceland, the former home of the former Elvis. I’ve never really been an Elvis fan to be honest, or that whole rock-a-billy music scene either. Of course we all know who Elvis is and the glamorisation of him and his music in movies does evoke some emotion in me, but if I’m really honest, it’s the impersonators that kind of get me annoyed about the whole Elvis thing. So after packing up for the 30th day in a row – and I must admit I’m getting quite good at it at this stage – I drove into Memphis along by the river to where Graceland is.

I’ve got to call a spade a spade here though, this part of Memphis is a complete dump. Even if you remove the tacky and rather off-putting Elvis crap around the place, the area itself is not a desirable location. Maybe I should go back a little and explain some more about where I spent my night. Hotels.com, the app I’ve been using pretty solidly since I arrived (I’ve also used HotelTonight but have been burned twice by it so I’m sticking to the low to mid-range chains) and I must really address a failing of theirs – they seem to have a very loose affinity with distance. The hotel booked for Memphis was located in the city of Germantown, about 10 miles or more from downtown Memphis. Germantown though is a bit of an enigma. It’s like Sedona, or to a lesser degree, Boulder in Colorado. It’s very clean, very neat and tidy, lots of high-end cars and predominately stone or brick constructed homes – very little wood buildings. Lots of vegetation and lots of trees too. But what you immediately notice, especially at night, are the signage policies in force here. According to some Googling, they’re among the most restrictive signage ordinances of any city in the United States. At night, each and every sign appears as a low-impact white sign with white backlighting. It’s actually quite pretty at first, but then it becomes quite difficult to determine one business from another – which I’m assuming was part of the intent. Fuel stations too adopt the same low-key façade – employing brick and low-to-the-ground displays making them quite difficult to actually spot. All this gives you a very strong impression of a city with fairly over-powering strength. This is so typical of what I like to term ‘Republican Hotspots’. It’s ironic that a political party so hell bent on removing regulation (or more correctly, regulation in the right areas) and allowing the ‘free market’ to rule with a much diminished government, tend to live in the most restricted and regulated areas. If you were to take the publicly-espoused Republican ideals and apply them to a place like Germantown, you’d end up with something more akin to Las Vegas than the perfectly manicured restrictive city in East Memphis. And just in case you think I’m sparking a generalisation here, I saw more than enough ‘Romney/Ryan’ yard signs and bumper stickers to seal my opinion shut. And the Memphis Apple Store is located in Germantown – if you know anything about Apple and how they locate their stores, you know why it’s here.

So you can imagine then, going to Graceland after languishing in a pristine TJ Maxx, Rite Aid, Apple Store and the first Starbucks where the guy taking my order deserved to have his lights punched out for being a total douche, was a bit of a downer. But to be honest, a lot of American cities are like that – and the same goes for Ireland – the city centre is pretty clean and polished, and that’s surrounded by a ring of more dilapidated areas which then is surrounded by the suburbs and nicer areas. I call this the urban-bullseye. Cork has it, Galway has it, Dublin has it. And pretty much every city I’ve been to, with the exception of Sedona and Boulder, have it too. Anyway, back on track, Graceland is an expensive day out for the fans, with the establishment removing $10 from your person just to park your car (or more likely if you’re visiting this place, your RV or truck). I quickly turned away, took a photo of the front gates and the walls with the millions of signatures, and drove into downtown. If you remember the lyrics from the Mark Cohn song “Walking in Memphis”, you’ll remember the lines “… saw the ghost of Elvis, on Union Avenue, followed him up, to the gates of Graceland …” and so it was only fitting having passed the gates of Graceland to walk on Union Avenue (really getting into this now). I must say that since I left Toronto, I’ve noticed the cities are pretty barren of people. Memphis too, on a Saturday morning/afternoon was empty. I can’t figure this out except to say I’m thinking it’s about a move toward the suburban malls and away from the downtown areas at non-business hours. What’s left in the wake of this however is a quiet city with little to entice tourism. Outside of the Graceland appeal and possibly the zoo, I figured there was little in Memphis to attract tourists.

After a stroll around the downtown area, I decided to hit the road toward Nashville and on to Louisville Kentucky to get on the northern roads through Indianapolis and back into Chicago and hopefully up to Wisconsin if I have time tomorrow (or if you’re good at math, today, given I’m writing this in past tense mostly!). After an hour or so I was feeling peckish after my hearty meal earlier of frosties and cinnamon roll, and pulled into a Cracker Barrel which I’ve admired from the freeways many times. Cracker Barrel is a chain of restaurants that attempt to trade on a USP of ‘home-cooking’. In actual fact this seems to resonate with customers, but the truth is it’s just another chain. After my steak, cornbread, corn, mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese meal (yeah I know) I decided to try a dessert of fruit cobbler and that filled the void. Back on the road I got lazy and to be honest, I started to wonder if I’d ever get to Nashville. I was spacing for a good bit of the trip and this is indicative of weekend driving because there’s nothing on the radio – CNN and MSNBC are doing lighter stories and the rest is just country music. Eventually though, I did make it to Nashville and as I wound my way around the outer routes, I noticed the traffic increasing pretty dramatically – given this was a Saturday evening I was perplexed. Taking a slip road down to the city however was a mistake – I ended up sitting in a line of traffic for almost an hour. Some people beside me asked me (fancy!) what the deal was and I couldn’t figure it out – the ball park looked empty but there were still tonnes of cars and lots of police officers directing traffic. I decided to bail on Nashville and keep going to Louisville. Ordinarily I’d have stuck it out and spent the night there, but with the drive to Chicago on my mind and the deadline of Monday morning, I could ill-afford to waste time. Bringing the ‘Avenger’ to the trough for more fuel once more, I got out of the city quickly and back on the Interstates. By now, dusk was settling and as I battled for the next few hours against boredom and a lack of 4G coverage (meaning a search for free wifi to book a hotel was in order) I started the approach to Louisville just as a very good Llewellyn King programme started on the radio. I’ll talk in more detail about this and other things in a later blog analysing the trip, but suffice it is to say, it gave me food for thought.Pulling into the hotel after a longer-than-anticipated day, I was glad to wash off the long drive and started to focus on the road ahead. Tomorrow is the last day of this trip, and I’m sorry it’s gone by so quickly.