New Mexico & Arizona

September 23, 2011

After a very nice breakfast at the Quality Inn in Tucumcari, New Mexico, Lucy and I hit the road again.  It was so bright and sunny driving through New Mexico.  The only downside to the nice warm sunshine streaming through the windshield was that, even after a really good night's sleep, I had the overwhelming urge to take a cat nap.  It got even worse when Lucy zonked out in the passenger's seat.  I was just a little bit jealous that she got to take a nap.  But because I am SUCH a nice sister, I didn't wake her up.

We drove and drove and drove all the way through New Mexico and, personally, I found the desert scenery pretty cool.  It was just such a cool contrast to the scenery we were seeing only a few days before in states like North Carolina and Tennessee.  The United States really does have an impressive variety of ecosystems.

Eventually we crossed into the state of Arizona and stopped at the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park.  It was REALLY cool.  There are so many amazing things to see!  The craziest thing is that, from the I-40, you can't see ANY of it.  You could just drive right by and never know that any of that cool stuff is there.  Lucy and I had lots of fun driving from lookout point to lookout point taking hundreds and hundreds of pictures.  I will present a small sampling of those pictures to you now.

There were a surprising number of enormous and super creepy ravens in the park.  Some of them would just site and stare at you as you walked by.  It was like being in a Hitchcock movie. 

You may not be able to see it, but just behind that pile of rocks is an extremely long train.  It literally stretches from one side of the picture to the other.  We saw a ton of trains in New Mexico and Arizona.  We were a little sad that Dad wasn't there to see the trains.  We know how excited he gets about his trains.

All of those pebble-looking things all over the ground are in fact large chunks of petrified wood. 

And here he is.  My faithful steed.  "James" has also enjoyed this epic journey across the United States.

We left the park just as the sun was setting.  Back on the I-40 West, we headed for Flagstaff, Arizona.  We kept seeing deer crossing signs which made me a little wary.  I told Lucy to keep a sharp eye and scream if she saw anything.  Fortunately, we did not hit any deer on our way to Flagstaff.  

When we arrived at our destination we checked into a Days Inn near the interstate.  During the check-in process, I noticed a brochure for Grand Canyon tours and it got me thinking.  Now, I had sort of considered going to the Grand Canyon on our trip, but it was a tad out of the way (about an hour north of Flagstaff) and, after our rough patch in Arkansas, Lucy and I had just been in "Let's get home" mode. So I had scrapped the idea of a Grand Canyon detour.  But that brochure had a really cool picture of the Grand Canyon and I thought, "How can I just pass this by?"  So I booked two tickets for a tour the following day.  I got back out to the car and told Lucy.  She seemed slightly disgruntled that we weren't going to be home tomorrow like we had planned - but she agreed to humor me and go on the tour.

We took all our bags to the room and then walked to a nearby Arby's for dinner.  We split the Chicken Bacon and Swiss sandwich combo - because that's what sisters are for.  Sharing.

Arkansas to New Mexico

September 22, 2011

Lucy and I woke up in Alma, Arkansas.  We packed our bags and then I quickly looked up a few cities in Texas that we might stop in later that evening.  I figured we could make it to Amarillo, Texas in a comfortable amount of time, so I looked up addresses and phone numbers for a few hotels there.  After writing all the information down, I shut off my laptop and packed it away with the rest of our things.  Then I said "Ok, let's go get breakfast."  Lucy, who had not made a peep that entire morning suddenly said "Breakfast is over!"  I looked at the clock.  It was 9:06 AM.

Me: "I thought breakfast ended at nine-thirty."
Lucy:  "No.  It ended at nine."
Me:  "Are you sure?"
Lucy: "Yes."
Me:  "Then why didn't you say something ten minutes ago?!"

Lucy just sort of glared at me which led me to believe that the reason she just sat there watching me look up addresses in Texas which I could absolutely have done later, while our free breakfast hour ticked to a close, was because she was still just a little bit miffed about the previous evening.  I'm sorry, Lucy.   know I shouldn't have been so mean.  I still think you're crazy for not saying anything, though.  Seriously, why would you deprive yourself of a FREE breakfast?!  It seems like self-preservation and economical interests would have urged you to say something about breakfast.  To this day, I still don't quite understand it.  Crazy girl.  :)

So, with breakfast over, we decided to just pack up the car and go.  Well, when we got out to the car Lucy started heaving bags around and shoving things in the trunk and dropping other things on the ground.  I think that if she could have thrown my bag down into a deep, muddy ravine, she would have.  Ok, maybe not.  But clearly, she was not happy.  Before Lucy could finish taking out her fury on our poor, innocent luggage, I asked her to unhand all of the baggage and finished packing the trunk myself, during which the following exchange took place:

Me:  "Do you want me to drop you off at an airport?!"
Lucy:  "MAYBE!"

A moment of quiet

Lucy:  "I don't see why it's my fault that we missed breakfast!"
Me:  "Lucy, it's not your fault!  I'm not even mad about that! (Baffled, but not mad). RELAX!"

With all of our luggage in the car, I headed back in to the hotel lobby to check-out while Lucy stayed with the car.  As I was checking out, I noticed a few of the housekeeping staff eating in the breakfast area.  I didn't want to inconvenience anyone, but I thought, "Hey, I mean, if there is still food there, it wouldn't be too much trouble if I just like grabbed a bagel to go, right?"  So I asked the girl at the desk if I could quickly grab a bagel from the breakfast room.  She said sure.  So I hurried into the breakfast room to get a bagel and cream cheese for Lucy, hoping that perhaps this little gift would appease her and make up for missing breakfast and for everything else that had happened in the past 15 hours.

I got back to the car and said something apologetic like, "Here, I got a bagel for you...if you want it."  Lucy said no, she didn't want it.  I sort of wondered if she was going on a hunger strike to punish me, but then she kindly offered to put cream cheese on the bagel if I wanted to have it.  I said, I wasn't super hungry, but I might like to have half the bagel.  So while I drove to a nearby gas station, filled the car with gas and went to buy us our obligatory travel sodas, Lucy put cream cheese on half a bagel.  I thought maybe she would have the other half...but I think she just threw her half away.  Still, I think the offer alone had sort of mollified her.  When I got back in the car, she handed me my half of the bagel with cream cheese on it.  And that is why, to this day, the bagel is a symbolic peace offering, at least to Lucy and I.  "Here, I got a bagel for you" actually means "I'm sorry" and "Do you want cream cheese" means "I forgive you."

We drove ALL day that day.  Traffic wasn't too bad, and the weather gradually improved the farther west we got.  We raced through the rest of Arkansas, the entire state of Oklahoma, and into the panhandle of Texas.  We stopped for lunch in a little place called Shamrock, Texas where we took a short little detour on historic route 66 and snapped this picture:

After lunch we continued on toward Amarillo, Texas.  That's where I had figured we would stop for the night, but, when we got to Amarillo it was still kind of early and we were still feeling pretty good.  So we decided to push on through and see how much farther we could get that day.

We entered New Mexico and the speed limit went up by 10 mph.  That alone was enough to make me love New Mexico.  But of course, in addition to higher speed limits, New Mexico greeted us with bright blue, sunny skies.  Not a cloud to be seen anywhere.  It was magnificent.

As dusk approached, we started reading freeway signs for towns with some respectable lodging options.  We settled on a place called Tucumcari, New Mexico.  Since we weren't exactly sure how to pronounce Tucumcari, we took to calling it T-Town.  We checked into a Quality Inn right near the interstate and had dinner right there at the hotel.  It was pretty good!  I had enchiladas.  Did you have enchiladas also, Lucy?  I can't remember.  But I do remember that the glasses our sodas came in were ENORMOUS.  

After dinner, we wandered through the hotel grounds.  They had some fine playground equipment which we felt obliged to test.

Lucy on the blue horse swing. 

Me on the slide.  I just sat on it for appearances.  I didn't slide down.  

We were very excited to see that the hotel had a jacuzzi.  Lucy reminded me she had forgotten to bring a bathing suit, but quickly added that she was willing to wear her clothes in the jacuzzi.  So that is exactly what happened.  We sat and soaked in the hot tub for like twenty minutes, I in my bathing suit, Lucy in her clothes.  It was a nice end to a very long day of driving.

Arkansas

Let's just say that, through no fault of its own, Arkansas was the low point of our trip.  We'd been traveling for a few days, we didn't sleep AT ALL the night before, we'd been stressed/paranoid about our chances of surviving Memphis, and, finally, traffic was BAD.  So, perhaps understandably, Lucy and I got a little bit cranky.

First of all, the traffic.  Apparently every single vehicle in Tennessee and Arkansas suddenly merges into the I-40.  If you don't believe me, just check out google maps.  You will see that the 40 is joined by no less than six other freeways: the 79, 64, 61, 55, 63, 70.  It was quite a mouthful for our little GPS when she had to tell us that.  Needless to say, with all those roads converging, we were completely surrounded by semi-trucks.  Really, really slow semi-trucks.  It was excessively unpleasant.

Lucy and I hadn't really settled on a destination for that evening, so we decided we would just drive until we got tired, and then find a place with hotels to stop.  We ended up driving almost all the way through Arkansas!  We stopped in a little town near the border called Alma, Arkansas and booked a room at the Comfort Inn.  When I first tried booking the room, the girl at the desk said that she only had suites left and maybe I wouldn't want to pay for a suite since it was just my sister and I...maybe I wanted to check some of the other hotels in the town for a cheaper room.  In the most polite way possible I said something like "Give me that room!"  I was not about to get back in my car again that night, even if it did cost me an extra $20-$30 for a suite.

Lucy and I started lugging our bags up the stairs and to our room on the second floor.  After we dropped off the first set of bags I said something like "Ok, let's go get the rest."  Lucy said something like "I'll just wait here."  I said something like, "You'll do WHAT?"  With that I sort of huffed out of the door saying something like, "Fine, I'll do it MYSELF."  Lucy, who responds to guilt trips very well, begrudgingly got up and followed me out of the door rolling her eyes.  The evening was all sort of downhill after that.  There was more huffing, more eye rolling, there was even some sniping and sarcasm.  We are not proud of our actions - we knew we were being mean.  In fact, before I would say something I would often hear an internal something say "Don't do it.  Don't say that!"  But as exhausted as I was, my powers of self-discipline were weakened, and I said some snotty things.  Eventually I figured out that maybe it would just be better if I didn't say anything at all - that's a little lesson I learned from watching Bambi over and over as a child.  I figured by the next morning I would be well rested and at liberty to speak again without saying something terribly rude.

So there you go.  That was the rock-bottom of our trip.  We laugh about it now.  But at the time, there was no laughing.  At all.

Graceland!

September 21, 2011

On the morning of September 21, 2011, Lucy and I awoke in our hotel room in Memphis.  Well, I say awoke...but I don't think I ever actually went to sleep the night before.  As I mentioned previously, I kept having nightmares about my car getting stolen or vandalized or what have you.  Plus my pillow was really uncomfortable.  Lucy admitted that she had also been up most of the night, having the very same nightmares that I did.  Initially I had intended for us to stay at that hotel for two nights.  That way we could go to Graceland, go into downtown Memphis and walk around, maybe take a ride on a riverboat on the Mississippi and then come back to the hotel and crash.  But after our sleepless night I decided we should just go ahead and pack up, check-out and stay somewhere else that night.

So we packed our bags and strategically wedged them into the trunk of the car once again.  Then we headed to breakfast in the hotel lobby.  When we walked in to the breakfast area we noticed that we were probably the youngest people in there by about four decades.  There was only one exception - a boy who appeared to be about 13-years-old and slightly less than excited to be there with his older relatives.

It was actually a pretty great breakfast.  We made waffles.  And the whole time we were eating said waffles, we got to listen to Elvis music.  The hotel lobby was tuned in to the Elvis Radio on Sirius XM - it plays Elvis music live from Graceland 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It's like a dream come true.  We also learned something new while listening to Elvis Radio.  They aired an old interview with someone who witnessed Elvis leaping out of a limo in order to breakup a fight.  The story made us laugh and reminded us why Elvis is one of the coolest guys ever.  Apparently, Elvis was wearing his DEA jumpsuit over his concert costume when he shot out of the limo door.  Personally, I sort of wish he had just been in his concert costume, with his cape flowing behind him when he came to the rescue.  But regardless, it is still a pretty awesome story.  You can read the entire interview with Bruce Fey here:  Elvis Presley is my hero.

So while we sat at breakfast, Lucy and I began discussing whether or not we should drive to the Graceland parking lot.  We had planned to walk, but based on our walk the previous night, we started to wonder if maybe that wasn't such a great idea.  We looked at all the other people in the breakfast area and thought, "Well hey, they are old and frail, and we are young and frail!  Let's watch them and see what they do.  If they drive, then we should follow their lead.  But if they can handle walking to Graceland, I'm sure we can too."  We sat at breakfast long enough to see a few groups of people head out of the hotel and begin the walk to Graceland.  That was good enough for us.  Besides, there were a pretty decent number of tourists making their way toward Graceland by that point.  Safety in numbers!  So we finished our waffles and walked to Graceland in a clump of other tourists.  We were glad we decided not to drive since, as it turns out, the parking lot for Graceland was directly across the street from our hotel anyway.  If we had driven we would have saved ourselves about 20 feet of walking.  

Anyway, Lucy and I purchased our tickets for Graceland at the ticket office.  We took the little shuttle that goes from the ticket office across the street to Graceland.  We're not lazy, we just didn't have a choice.  You have to take the shuttle.  But the shuttle drops you off right at the front doorstep.  It's such a lovely house.  Although it seem like quite a modest home for an international superstar by today's standards.  Can you imagine Elvis showing off Graceland on MTV Cribs?

My favorite room was probably the living room, mostly because of the stained glass peacock windows.  The jungle room was totally cool of course.  There is carpet on the ceiling of the jungle room – for better acoustics when Elvis was recording, of course.  The entertainment room in the basement was hilarious.  I mean, I get the neon blue and yellow, and the sparkly pillows, and the lightning bolt on the wall…but why the giant ceramic money?  Was Elvis watching the shopping channel at 2AM or something?  Although, even as I joke about the odd monkey knick-knack, I wouldn’t be surprised if I walked into Z Gallerie this weekend and saw an exact replica of that monkey for sale.  I guess it’s not the weirdest decoration in the whole world, but it’s still pretty weird.  Just look at its crazy, googly, eyes for a few minutes.  You’ll see what I mean.

Lucy in the living room at Graceland - notice the cool peacock windows. 

Me in the dining room at Graceland. 

The kitchen at Graceland.

The Jungle Room. 

 The basement with the sparkly pillows and the crazy monkey.

Anyway, there was a gargantuan room with all of the awards Elvis ever won.  Some of his most flashy and fabulous costumes were on display in the same room.  The costumes with capes reminded Lucy and I of the story we had heard that morning about Elvis rushing to the rescue of a young citizen in Wisconsin, superhero style.  I think my favorite costume is probably the one with the hug Aztec sun/calendar on the front.  Or maybe my favorite is the one with the sparkly black eagle on the front.  I don’t know, it’s hard to tell.  They’re all pretty cool.  And look at the belts!  So huge!  Plus, every time I see one of those costume belts I think of the story I read about Elvis giving Jack Lord, of Hawaii 5-0 fame, one of his belts.  What a cool guy.

Anyway, following our tour of Graceland, Lucy and I hopped on the little shuttle bus to take us back to the ticket office which, as you can imagine, was surrounded by a zillion stores all selling Elvis paraphernalia.  Lucy said something like “Do you want to get Graceland pajamas?”  And I said “Of course I do!!!”  So we began wandering through the shops looking for Graceland pajamas.  It didn’t take us long to find some.  We were busy deciding whether or not to get matching pajamas or complimentary pajamas when I caught a glimpse of a price tag and said “Whoa, what did that say?”  SIXTY DOLLARS.  Granted, that did include pajama tops AND bottoms but still…sixty dollars???  Lucy and I decided maybe we didn’t want Graceland pajamas after all.  So I bought a 3 dollar magnet.  And some postcards.

With Graceland magnet and postcards in hand, Lucy and I walked back to our hotel, hopped in the car and headed for downtown Memphis.  We parked at the visitors center where, of course, there was a gargantuan statue of Elvis.  I sort of wanted to hug his leg but I am extremely relieved that I saw the sign saying “Do not touch, alarm will sound” in front of the statue before I acted on that impulse.

If you feel inclined to hug this Elvis statue - resist.

From the visitor’s center, Lucy and I walked to Beale Street.  It was a nice walk, through a very nice area.  Rather different than our walk through “sketchy gas station alley” the night before.  I insisted that we eat lunch at the Hard Rock Café on Beale Street.  I love the Hard Rock Café.  I love it for being predictably delicious and for playing cool music and music videos while I eat my food.  This Hard Rock experience did not disappoint.  Once again, the food was delicious and the walls were absolutely plastered with Elvis paraphernalia. 

Me and yet another Elvis belt at the Hard Rock Cafe in Memphis, Tennessee. 

 Just look at all those Elvis pictures!  Hard Rock Cafe in Memphis.

 The Elvis statue on Beale Street - no alarms on this one, but there is a fence.

If only Lucy had a guitar she could be exactly like Elvis.

Beale Street in Memphis.  Do not be dissuaded from visiting by this terrible photo - it really is a cool place. I understand that the street looks much more awesome at night with all the neon lights on.  Lucy and I decided we didn't want to stick around for another 8 hours to see if this was true - but based on a cursory search of google images, I believe the rumors are true.

On our walk from Beale Street back to the car, we stopped at the place that does Steamboat Cruises.  It was still two hours before the next cruise and it was super hot outside and, as we looked at the boats, I thought to myself, "You know that paddle wheel boat at Disneyland is just as pretty as these ones...maybe even prettier.  Maybe we'll just go on the fake but pretty steamboat at Disneyland instead of waiting for this one."  I wondered if I would be sad later that I hadn't gone on a steamship ride on the Mississippi River when I had the chance...then I thought, "Eh, I'll live."  

There they are - the steamships with paddle wheels. 

So, having decided we didn't need to wait around for a steamship cruise, Lucy and I turned our sights to the bridge over the Mississippi River.  I was actually pretty excited about crossing the Mississippi River.  I mean, I have flown over the Mississippi in an airplane a bunch of times (and admittedly it looks pretty cool from way up in the sky) but it seemed like it would be kind of exciting to cross the Mississippi up close and personal.  And it was.  It's such an enormous river.  Very big and very muddy, just as I had always imagined it.

Section of the I-40 bridge (a.k.a. the Hernando de Soto Bridge) over the Mississippi.

And so, after driving across the Interstate 40 Hernando de Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River, we entered the state of Arkansas.