"We're going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee."
We first went to the town and saw the famous Bale Street where the Blues was born. I bought Mum an Elvis Presley Blvd road sign - then onto Elvis!
You get an audio cassette tour of the house which wasn't as big and tacky as I was expecting. You really felt that his life and death was tragic and he was a nice bloke. We had the usual photos and souvenir shopping. We also had to stop to fix a headlight - yet another string to our bow!
Stopped for the night in Little Rock, Arkansas. We were going to eat out for once - something Southern - but nothing was open in the whole state Capital! Downtown location for bed.
Monday 15th December
"Oklahoma where the <something> goes blowing down the plains!" Oklahoma City - touched with grief 2.5 years in the aftermath of the bombing. We both felt very moved and left our names. Spent the night at the festival of lights and saw the largest Christmas tree in the US.
Tuesday 16th December
Attempting to drive across Texas in one day, they say you can't do it! We stopped just inside the border for gas. The most expensive gas we've ever bought. They noticed our tyres were a bit worn, in fact practically bald in places. 2 new tyres - $216 US. They also said that there was snow coming this weekend, a fact that worked us up more than the tyres. We discussed the roads with 2 different tourist offices and have decided to go to Albuquerque instead of Santa Fe. We stopped at a free zoo in Amarillo and saw; Spider Monkeys, Bison, Mountain Lions, Coyote, Bears amongst others. We found a Dairy Queen to sleep at and went to bed really early like 8pm. We were rudely awaken by a policeman at 9:45pm, he said we couldn't stay there - so yet again we drove the van with curtains up, just around the corner.
Wednesday 17th December
Got up extremely early 4:30am Mountain Time and left for Albuquerque. We stopped for a proper wash at a rest stop but there was no hot water so it was a quick splash. We reached Albuquerque at a really nice time. It was 9am and really quiet. We walked around the old town which was full of sandstone buildings and a church which looked like it belonged in Bethlehem. We bought each others Christmas presents; 2 beaded bracelets and I bought Aaron a cactus bookmark. We then left, after some very (!) helpful advice from Hinge and Bracket at the tourist office, for Four Corners.
We stopped to fill up on propane as we were going to be in the back of beyond and much to our surprise we found out we were full. We hadn't been using any for heating so cooking doesn't really use much up. We stopped at Farmington and went and saw the Aztec Ruins. Although they weren't Aztec, they were built by the Anasazi Indians in the Aztec style. The actual ruins weren't that impressive but the renovated Kiva was quite fascinating. It was all built around the 11th Century when we were fighting with the French and quite civilised, I can't get over that. We then went to Four Corners: The only place in the US common to 4 states - Utah, Colarado, New Mexico and Arizona. Unfortunately it was shut, so we trespassed!
We jumped over the gate and wandered down the road. It was getting quite dark and mountain lion paranoia was taking over. We reached the point - a disc in the ground and took a photo of our feet and then practically ran back to Calvin. We drove the few miles back to Tec Nos Pos - a town within the Navajo Indian Reservation and camped outside their general store. Claire called Bruce to get directions to the ranch and then we went to bed.
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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