Not everything goes as you first plan. Sometimes it's because things go wrong, but sometimes it's because you don't really know what you want to do until it's time to do it. Case in point: we left Bowling Green, Kentucky this morning with no intention but to arrive in Little Rock, Arkansas, in time to add the William Jefferson Blythe Clinton Library and Museum to our list of Presidential musea for 2009. Somewhere on Interstate 44 in Tennessee we crossed the Tennessee River and saw a sign that claimed "Freshwater Pearl Museum." Who could resist? Do you want to check out the Freshwater Pearl Museum? I asked my bride. What the hell? she answered. Or maybe it was she said, he said. Anyway, we got off the highway and drove about ten miles through country we thought maybe no one had driven before, until we came to the place itself: 
Our first thought was, "what the hell is this...and where the hell is the museum?" But we went inside and the lady there told us to come on in and she would turn on a film for us. It turned out to be an old segment from CBS' Sunday Morning show about pearls, and particularly about pearls raised in the Tennessee River, which it turns out constitutes a pretty fair portion of the ones sold in the United States. Although it looked a lot like a marina office and bait shop at first glance, it turned out to be an interesting visit, and a pretty nice place to buy a pearl trinket or two. The two we bought look pretty nice hanging from my bride's ears. I would recommend this little byway to anyone driving the 490 miles across Tennessee.
(MF comment: the earrings are really pretty pink pearls - I didn't have too hard a time deciding I needed them.)
Of course, we had to stop for lunch. Being fancy world travelers, we enjoyed our usual repast:
Low fat peanut butter and sugar-free marmalade on Weight Watchers bread sandwiches, with water and trail mix, at a rest area on Route 44, named as shown on the following sign, next to the fat kid:
The King wins...
When we were about 15 miles outside of Memphis, Jan said, "Well, we could go to Graceland instead of the Clinton Museum." Guess how long it took me to say "Okay!" He had commented earlier that he had no interest in Graceland, so I was surprised to have him say that. Anyway, on the spur of the moment we took a little detour to the land of Elvis:
Our thoughts of Graceland are many and varied, like our thoughts of Elvis himself. It's smaller than I would have guessed, sort of a rich person's house, but not a mega-rich person's house. Much of it has been altered to allow for tourists, with gold and platinum records all over the place, and Lexan display cases with his outfits and memorabilia, but some of it, like the jungle room, dining room, kitchen and living room are pretty much left untouched. The tackiest place is the cemetery, where his and his parents and grandmom's and twin brother's graves are displayed with plastic flowers and flea market leftovers sent from fans and fawners (of a dead guy!) the world over.
We're glad we came, gladder we left. Overall we came away with the thought that the young and talented singer was a decent man overwhelmed by the costs of fame, not unlike Marilyn Monroe. The people who come to Graceland and cry at his loss thirty-two years ago, or worse, claim he must still be living somewhere--they're just nuts.
The President loses...
There are just so many hours in the day. Tomorrow is Sunday, and it turns out that Bill Clinton's library and museum don't open until one o'clock in the afternoon. We have more than four hundred miles to drive to Oklahoma City, and waiting until late afternoon to start is out of the question. Sorry, Mr. Clinton.
We've been talking a lot about the names of communities in the various states we've visited this trip. Pipe Stem, West Virginia is a good one, as are Dog Walk and Paint Lick, Kentucky and Bucksnort, Tennessee. None of those can compete with Peckerwood Lake, Arkansas, which we passed this afternoon. My personal favorite over these past years on the road is Gap, Pennsylvania, which is not only easy on the tongue but precisely descriptive of the place.
It's a long way to Oklahoma City tomorrow, so we'll close our post and come back tomorrow.
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