Saturday, August 4
Hot
Springs certainly is hot. So far, everyplace we have been has been hot and
muggy. It makes me really appreciate California. But, we have seen some great
things, so far like the Arkansas Alligator Farm. It had lots of gators
and a petting zoo, though luckily not in the same place. We got to feed
young deer (image 2)and a little goat. They
also had a couple of llamas and some ostriches (or maybe they were emus).
Also featured at the farm was an oddity that Ripley's Believe it or Not has
been trying to acquire - a merman (left). An actual skeleton/fossil of a merman,
it was found off the coast of China. Very creepy. The farm was a lot of fun
and I got a miniature merman for my mantle.
Andy wanted to see a tiny town, which was right down the street. The owner made a miniature of a combination of towns that he knew. It had buttons for visitors to push to make figures move and famous people-in-miniature doing goofy things. Andy loved it. Consequently, he has decided that he wants to start a new project: research and write about tiny towns all over the country (kill me now). So the family gets to look forward to lots more adventures with a tiny town theme.
After our kitschy roadside attractions, we found the painting of Clinton going to the high school right on the back of the one downtown that declares Hot Springs as Clinton's hometown. We were able to snap a shot of each along with his home in town. We really enjoyed Hot Springs and vowed to come back if we ever come to Arkansas again. Then, it was off to Memphis, TN and GRACELAND!
This
is what I have been waiting for and it was worth the wait. We got the "Platinum
Tour" which let us see the mansion and three
other small museums including the car museum (Elvis had a lot of cars) and
one with more personal mementos. We decided to skip the airplanes although
they looked very interesting. In the mansion we saw all of Elvis' outrageous
decorations and furniture like in the Jungle Room.
The whole thing was really neat and very educational. I never knew a whole
lot about the "King," so I learned a lot. For the real Elvis enthusiasts
this was a fitting pilgrimage. For me, it was more an exploration of the most
famous and popular roadside tourist trap in the world. It was lots of goofy
fun. Andy bought a $70 Elvis Hawaiian shirt. We bought lots of trinkets, saw
his outrageous mansion, heard stories about the King and saw his gravesite.
We all really enjoyed it.
When we were done, we took a trip into town to the famous Beale Street. That was Andy's great idea. They had it blocked off to traffic and there were street performers like kids doing acrobatics and blues bands filling the street with music. We had some awesome BBQ ribs at the Rum Boogie Cafe (pictured below), which had a very cute blues duo. Two yuppies with spiky hair, glasses and Birkenstocks. They made good blues music with their guitar and harmonica, but I couldn't help but think that they must be picked on by the other blues men on the street. "Tell us about your blues, boy. How hard it was to pay your college loan?" A very colorful evening in Memphis. After dinner, we took off for Nashville. We got in late - around 1:00 am - and took the first motel room we could find with no air conditioning and got some sleep. The best day of the trip so far.
