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After spending all night driving... this is what we saw at daybreak after breakfast! |
For me, this began on Friday at 5pm, right after I finished work for the day. I drove down to Washington to meet up with my 2 friends with whom I am taking this trip. We then zoomed out of DC on I-66 West and headed down I-81 through western Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Because this all happened at night, there really were no photos to take, and aside from a tractor-trailer wreck on I-40 West that held us up for 3 hours, nothing interesting at all happened. I had wanted to stop in Johnson City, TN to visit a friend, but it was very late at night when we got there.
We spent most of last night driving through a snowstorm on I-81. I guess its not unreasonable to think it would actually snow in the mountains in winter, but come on... we're trying to get away from the freezing cold weather!
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After spending all night driving... this is what we saw at daybreak after breakfast! |
If we didn't know any better, we could easily say the above picture was taken in some of the places listed below!
I never really associated the South with snow or freezing cold weather. I guess I am now further enlightened as to how far down the Plague of Snow really travels. We then traveled further west on I-40, passing through Nashville.
This was a shot of the Nashville Skyline that I took as we headed into town. |
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As I-40 goes through Memphis, we thought it might be fun to stop by Graceland. Even though we're not big Elvis fans, I guess it couldn't hurt to pay homage to the King...
Once we were in Memphis, we took I-240 West down to I-55 South, which would take us to Graceland. To put it mildly... we were underwhelmed. The place looked absolutely awful! The neighborhood where it was located was no gem either. Judging by the bars on the windows of the buildings and the bulletproof glass in the cashier's booth at the gas station, it was very easy to guess that this part of town wasn't a very safe place to be. Somehow I can't imagine that Elvis, if he were still with us, would allow his former home to become such a gawdy tourist trap.
The really sad part of Graceland must be those die-hard Elvis fans from all over the world who work hard and save for a trip to this place. What a letdown. If you're from Maryland, Graceland can be summed up in two words: P.G. County.
The view of the jaded tourist... |
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As we fled Graceland, we headed back up I-240 back to I-40 into Arkansas and then onto Dallas via I-30 West. Here are some shots of the Memphis Pyramid as we passed it.
The Memphis Pyramid |
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Dallas is quite pretty by night. After pigging out at a local restaurant with a Texas-sized dish of 4 different meats, we ended up sleeping at a local hotel. To give you an idea as to how much food this was, even I could not go back for seconds.