From HH -> A-Town -> Bingo, Alabama -> Memphis

---

HH -> A-Town -> Bingo, Alabama -> Memphis

Today we drove about 650 miles or so. Ten hours in the car. We stopped once for gas when we crossed into the central time zone! The most impressive part about that is the cell phones switched automatically upon the Central Time Zone sign. This is officially the farthest west Pete has ever been.

We started the day in SC and had to back track a little bit back into Georgia to take I-16 to Atlanta before getting on I-75 and then 78 and then 240 and then 40. Luckily for pretty much the rest of the way out west we will be on I-40. One entertaining thing is watching large bugs land on the windshield. If you don’t have to chip bugs off the front of the car when you get gas, then you haven’t driven far enough. Pete estimated that 6 billion bugs have hit the windshield and that the ones that hit directly in front your face, enable you see their last expressions.

Georgia was pretty cool, we drove through Atlanta and saw the skyline and the Braves stadium.

Alabama was very hilly. You go up, then you go down, you go up, then you go down. Neither of us expected it to be that way. We drove right by Talladega but didn’t stop since we were trying to make it to the hotel at a respectable time. Once we got on I-78, which was more like route 1 mixed together with a highway, we encountered roughly 27 bingo halls, most with one across the street from another. Most of them were advertising the Bingo with a large inflatable gorilla or a wacky inflatable tube man in the front of the building or parking lot. Some of them had bouncers out front. It was the weirdest thing.

Mississippi, didn’t really see to much of it since it was dark when we got there but the highway wasn’t to bad. At least we can cross it off as another state driven through.

We made it to the hotel around 10 PM central time…

- Pete

We arrived at Days Inn Graceland, and it lives up to all the good reviews you will ever read. This will probably be the best accommodation in the trip (not including Casa de Meghan Hunter). I think we are paying $45 a night, linens are clean, nothing is damaged, staff is friendly and they try to make it as safe as possible. Elvis music plays at the guitar shaped pool, very cool even if it is empty (!). There is Elvis artwork in every room and covers the lobby. And, AND…there is an Elvis channel that plays 24 hours. There is tourist information and free wireless internet in the room, which is something I’ve never seen successfully done in any club or multiple starred hotel I’ve stayed at. It is looking to be fairly rainy during our stay in Memphis but we are looking forward to the Peabody Hotel Ducks, seeing the Mississippi River Boats, Beale Street, ribs, Gibson Guitar Factory and on Sunday morning…..GRACELAND.

-Culver

PS: Pete's vacation beard is now taking over his face.

---