Arkansas

After leaving Memphis, we crossed the Mississippi River into Arkansas. We did not have the best welcome to this state. First, we stayed in a terrible motel in West Memphis...after realizing that there were no other towns with motels for miles. When we started driving the next morning, we saw something that had become unfamiliar to us--traffic. AAAHH!!!!
But we made it to Little Rock!





In Little Rock, there was a farmers market with all kinds of interesting things, a nice organic cafe where we got lunch, and of course...

Bill Clinton.

Between Little Rock and the Ozarks was a horrible stretch of highway through which Broetchen slept (lucky her.) It was cloudy, depressingly ugly, oppressively humid, and trafficky. Just truck after slow truck clogging the fast lane.
And finally, we made it here...

The Ozarks!
Which brought us to Altus (as all the brochures feel the need to point out, the place where The Simple Life took place). Altus is the heart of Arkansas wine country...I didn't even know there was Arkansas wine country.
But if there's booze, it's the place for us! This picture is from Wiederkehr, considered the best winery of the area.

Bye bye Arkansas! Next stop: Oklahoma - where we'll pick up the historic Route 66!

GRACELAND

THE KING

It is reaaally hot and humid. But it’s time to pay the KING our respects: we’re heading to MEMPHIS! And this means = GRACELAND, here we come!

We kept in mind that the “Let’s Go USA”-book warns us about being overwhelmed by the crowds and that it would take a whole day seeing Graceland.

Well, they were wrong. The bus shuttle which took us right to the gates wasn’t crowed at all. Lucky us! This way we got great pictures J

Some rooms were really cool, others (like the yellow-blue one with a tacky ape made of china) might have been decorated while being on drugs?!

But anyway, it was great! We heard maaany Elvis songs, saw his final graveyard and got a whole bunch of souvenirs J (see our dashboard, well, yeah, you warned us about hitchhikers, but who can resist the KING??)

the place we had to stay...

We wanted to get even farther away from Nashville but we ran out of gas and as there was no 24-our-gas-station we had to stay in the creepiest hotel so far: a daily-in next to an “only-for-adults”-shop and many truckers ;) quite an experience

mmh... looks quite nice in the daylight ;)

America's Drive In

By the time at arriving at Nashville we got a snackbite, so we tried out: “Sonic – America’s Drive In” and I as a German have to tell you: THIS is a different experience of a drive-in. Of course you don’t leave your car at all but you also park in front of the “restaurant” which is just a tiny kitchen with enough space for three people to work in and for the lady getting your order. America. Oh well, great onion rings, delicious burgers and a chocolate milkshake – road food par excellence.

Nashville

See, we have already seen another Hamburg (Mary's hometown), we just had to stop in Sparta ;)

After that Mother Road called us and we made it to Nashville. We got there in the middle of the night, still, it looks like a nice place.

From now on we call it the Nashville-tourism: a short stop, fine. ;)