Our trip catch up...What's with the snow?

Here we are in Albuquerque in the snow! Back home in Maryland it's 70 degrees. Oh well. Soon we'll be in Mexico. Here's Our Journey so far after one week on the road.

Tuesday - Left Maryland in the afternoon and dry camped west of DC.

Wednesday - Dry camped in SW Virginia, and had a frozen dinner on my birthday.

Thursday - Dry camped again in Knoxville, TN

Friday - Memphis, TN. Stayed in a Happy Camper campground very near Graceland.
My Memphis experience:
We picked up I-40 at Knoxville and on Friday we parked for a full day in Memphis, where we worshipped at the Temple of Elvis. As we drove into Memphis I had Paul Simon’s Graceland playing through the I-Pod. In his words, “There’s something in me I just can’t explain that wants to go to Graceland.”

Yes, it is surrounded by tacky souvenir stuff, but Graceland itself is real in all its Elvis glory. I felt truly moved. Not what I expected. It took me right back to that screaming 12 year old girl seeing that wiggly, outrageously handsome young guy with a guitar on TV. My mother thought I had completely gone out of my mind. I think that is when my life began. If you have ever loved rock and roll, blues, or gospel, you should visit this place once in your life. It’s alive with Elvis energy. What kitch! What glorious tackiness! I could almost feel his presence. Of course, there are videos and recordings of his music all over. It was fabulous.

It turns out that January 8 is Elvis’s birthday. His grave was surrounded by floral arrangements and tributes sent by fans from all over. Apparantly, Graceland receives flowers every day of the year. They keep all of them until they fade.

At night we went to Beale Street to eat Memphis bar-be-que and listen to blues. We are not really late night people, and I’m sure that the heavy action starts after 10 pm. We had just changed time zones, so it didn’t work for us to stay really late. However, we listened to live blues and boogie (I love it) in the park and ate great ribs at Rum Boogie Café right on Beale Street. If you go there be sure and look at the collection of guitars from blues and rock and roll greats. This is a very authentic place.

Technology – I am struck as to how much we use technology on this tri, and how pleasant it makes the journey. When it works, there’s nothing like it. To illustrate. When one of us is driving, the other can read and send e-mail on our built-in GPS/PC. We connect it through Verizon and our internet enabled cell phone. My I-Pod lets us listen to our preselected favorite music as we cruise down the road. We connect it through speakers. When we tire of that, we can listen to our satellite radio without ever having to change the station due to loss of signal.

Of course we are gadget freaks and love to find better ways of doing things through gadgets. Of course, our incredible motor home allows us to have a traveling experience that we would be hard pressed to call camping. I call it our condo on wheels. Certainly it’s not for everyone, and I respect that. But I for one absolutely love it.

Saturday - Dry camped (translation: no campground. Wal-Mart parking lot) east of Oklahoma City

Sunday - Dry camped in Amarillo, TX. We ran out of propane in the middle of the night (the LP guage gave ua an incorrect reading). So we bundled up and rode down I-40 wrapped in blankets at 2 am. Of course no propane place was open at that hour. We stopped at a Denny's just to get warm. Finally, we pulled into a campground to connect up to electricity and to nap for a couple of hours. When we got up, we bought our propane and have been delightfully warm ever since.

We will be in Las Cruces, New Mexico on the 10th where we expect to meet up with our caravan before entering Mexico.