Takin' Care of Business...In a Flash!

Here we are, in the middle of nowhere Texas hill country, just the three of us. That’s right – we picked up a passenger! Our good friend Kate, who was in Peace Corps with us, came along for the ride to Boulder, Colorado. She’ll be sticking with us probably all the way through Vegas. The real Vegas, this time, with a Las in front of it instead of a Nash.

Anyway, let me catch you up on our adventures, because it’s been awhile since our last real post (I don’t count that bit about the deer legs in the back of the Texan pickups as a real post…do you?).

It was a long drive from the farm in Arkansas. We retraced our steps just one state south of where we’d headed west across Missouri, driving back east across Arkansas for the first five hours. And then…we arrived in Memphis. We toured Graceland, and that’s where we adopted Elvis Presley’s slogan, “Takin’ Care of Business…in a Flash!” Why? Because it’s hilarious. And stellar. And, it's what we've been doing: flashing through the continental United States, one by one, and takin' care of lots of business. Here's how Elvis signifies his ability to TCB on the wall of his TV room in the basement:

 Here are some pictures of Elvis’ first floor, since you’re obviously curious (everyone is):

 It’s basically like watching a time-warped episode of MTV Cribs. But they don’t let you upstairs. We got to see a lot of cool things, but our favorite by far was the pool room in the basement. Check it out:

I wasn’t actually allowed to lean that far over the table, which I found out when the alarm went off, but it’s winter, there aren’t too many tourists, and the guards could see I was harmless. So I got away with it. (Also, look at the ceiling!) Elvis (like Leiha) really likes carpeted walls, too:

Before we left Memphis, we stopped for lunch at Gus’s World Famous Hot & Spicy Fried Chicken. Please don’t ask me how that was. If I think of it now, I might be tempted to drive back to Memphis and never leave again.

I’m going to skip around a bit here, because I want to let Leiha write about New Orleans, which is where we went next. At least, I want to let her do justice to the NOLA nightlife, since she’s the one who enjoyed it. I went home at 2am…and anyone who’s ever heard of Bourbon Street knows that’s basically the definition of a party pooper.

Leiha’s high school friend Lyndsay (think awesome) flew down from Boston for a weekend in The Big Easy. We picked her up at the airport, and all three of us enjoyed the Southern hospitality of a family that represents just about two and a half centuries of New Orleans history. And that is a HUGE shoutout to Marielle and her parents. And the street named after their family.

Oh. And I have to tell you about the ghost tour. Carla, our tour guide, took us through the Lafayette Cemetery and New Orleans’ Garden District. She was a smash hit. Not only did she know all of the neighborhood ghost stories, but she also knew the neighbors. She knew them so well, in fact, that one of them joined our tour, and then let us have a look around his beautiful mansion. Which used to be a church and is now haunted by two priests – one good and one bad. In the moment, stories of housekeepers and cooks who had felt phantoms slap them across the face for using foul language seemed pretty intriguing, but now that my disbelief is no longer suspended, I’m more interested in the fact that Nicholas Cage, who once owned the house, replaced the gorgeous stained glass windows with plexiglass. Plexiglass? Really, Ghost Rider?

Enter…Texas. The Alamo, The San Antonio River Walk, Texas barbecue in Austin, and a long, long drive through the state and up the Texas panhandle, across the Oklahoma panhandle, and onto a Rocky Mountain High. More on THAT coming soon.