Rolling Thunder...

I got lost in rural Tennessee. I had intended to shoot up through the state to the northwest but, unlikely as it sounds, I got mixed up on one of the back roads and ended up riding south for quite a while - long enough to get me just about to Alabama, in fact. Once I realized my mistake I stopped and got out the map and made a new course. Having driven so far south, however, it didn't make sense to try to get all the way back up to Reelfoot Lake, so I set my sights on Memphis and shot out directly west.

Not before taking a few pictures of Davey Crockett, however. Turns out the town in which I realized my detour, Lawrenceburg, is the birthplace of Davey Crockett and has a several memorials to him around town; a statue, a park, a school, etc. I took the opportunity to bathe in American heritage before heading out of town. Happily, there were no Davey Crockett impersonators around just then.



The road from Lawrenceburg to Savannah (TN) is marked as a scenic route on my map, and it's certainly a beautiful one. I saw a movie being filmed in a small shack along it (I even pulled over to inquire when I might see this film in my local cinema, but got the stink-eye from everyone on set, so I just sat and watched for a while. I didn't see anyone famous). It runs along the floor of a valley peppered with stately farm houses and barns, and it winds around just enough to keep it interesting but not enough to be dangerous. After Savannah, things kind of flattened out and got straighter, but I still came across the odd small town. I have to admit to being a bit surprised how vibrant many of these small town 'town centers' were. A lot of the town centers of rural towns in Georgia and Florida are vacant and lifeless, the real town activity having moved out toward the local Walmart or Sam's Club, but every town center I drove through in Tennessee was active and well in business. I was impressed. I developed a nebulous theory about small town Tennessee being a pretty decent place to live and that because of this young people were sticking around and taking an interest in these small places, thereby making them better, more vibrant places to live. I stopped in the small town center of Bolivar, Tennessee, to get a coffee and chatted up the barista about my theory, in fact, and though he gave me no concrete answers, he did give me a CD (his band) and told me that he would be moving to Nashville in a month. Kind of deflates my whole thing.



About thirty miles outside of Memphis I saw a giant raincloud in the distance. It was dark and ominous and lightening was whipping all through it, but it looked like the road might just skip it to the north, so I kept on. Shortly, the road took a southerly turn and I started to see fat raindrops splattering against my face shield. I pulled over into the fortuitous cover of a convenient gas station's diesel filling area. Lo and behold this gas station happened to be on the outskirts of a town I'd visited way back when I was 17 - Somerville, Tennessee. Funny coincidence that my detour took me through it. I sheltered under the gas station awning for about an hour before realizing that the rain wasn't going to let up, then put on the rain gear I'd so recently bought and headed out toward Memphis again. When I got there, I wimped out and got a hotel so I could dry my shoes.



The next morning the sky was clear and I saw on the news that it was 'Elvis Week' in Memphis. The news program showed the gates of Graceland thronging with the deranged faithful, but by the time I drove past they must have already opened the gates and allowed the fans to storm the castle. I took a few pictures of the graffiti that Elvis-lovers have left all over the wall around the house and moved on.

Memphis has some of the worst roads I've ever driven on and the neighborhoods swing wildly between pleasantly manicured and scarily delapitated. I got lost several times trying to leave the city, and though the way to Beale Street was ostensibly well marked, it took me four attempts to finally get there. Beale Street is a lot like Bourbon Street in New Orleans (which is to say, mostly for the tourists and of little real value) so my frustrating trip there was very short. Note to self - buy a GPS for your next trip.



I shot out of Memphis and across the Mighty Mississippi River on the I-40 in an effort to reach Alma, Arkansas as fast as I could. My old navy buddy, Kevin, lives there with his wife Kenda and their daughter Molly. I haven't seen Kevin in 14 years so I wanted to stop by and see how he's been doing. I figured I would take the 40 the entire way there, not only for purposes of speed, but also to contrast freeway travel against highway travel.

Turns out freeway travel sucks for anything other than speed. I did meet a couple of interesting people, however; one of whom, Hank, had just about completed his own cross country trip - and epic 7000-mile trip from Memphis to Washington State and back on his 1972 BMW motorcycle. We chatted for a while and he told me that he was a professional sound man and left Memphis every year during Elvis Week. We laughed about Elvis fans for a minute or two before getting back on the road and going in opposite directions.



So, I made Alma in record time, have met my buddy Kevin and his family and we've spent a relaxing evening smoking pipes and chatting about old times. Today we'll scoot up to Eureka Springs together and wander around in the Ozarks a bit. I was planning to ride up here on the bike, but it might make for a better road trip, and anyway Kevin can fill in the gaps in my local knowledge, which will be nice. I'll head out again tomorrow morning for a three day camping trip across Oklahoma and New Mexico before I stop over in Albuquerque to see another old friend. Wish me luck!