0000 Miles To Graceland
[Written on 2/12 at 8:45 PM Central. --ed.]
(US Route 59, south of Texarkana)
...Or so I was this afternoon when I got into Memphis. The Graceland mansion itself is closed on Tuesdays, though, and it was raining, so instead of keying Elvis' address into my Garmin I put in Interstate Bar-B-Que's and had a chopped pork shoulder sandwich and some baked beans. Better by far than the trail mix or PB-and-honey sandwich components squirreled away in the recesses of my car.
The rain was heavy across Tennessee but it gave way for the most part to merely cloudy skies as of eastern Arkansas. The landscape shifted too, from rolling farmland to flat and somewhat swampy to just sort of mildly hilly, with Nashville and Memphis and Little Rock along the way. (Since I've stuck to highways that skirt the downtown areas the cities are observable just as more industrial-looking highways with denser truck traffic and more heavily worn pavement, plus the highrises a few miles away in the fog.) I'm overnighting in Jefferson, Texas, maybe 45 minutes down US 59 from Texarkana and, by my (Garmin's) estimation, about four hours away from Austin. No in-room Internet but, hey, the breakfast that comes with the room will have sausage gravy.
I think I remember some writer, somewhere, pithily noting Americans' tendency now to measure distance in terms of driving time. They added some sort of brief but astute cultural analysis to it. I remember no specifics but I wish I did, since I completely find myself measuring distance in time. That may be because the interstates, except when they change noticeably in elevation as a concession to one Appalachian ridge or another, more or less cut straight through the landscape, less of it than over top of it.
I should also try to talk about the audiobooks I've been listening to, though I may wait a week to prove to myself that I've retained any more memory of them than I have of the engine noise. For now I'll merely note that I can't find any non-arbitrary pattern in how Richard Dawkins and his wife Lalla Ward alternate reading duties in the recording of The God Delusion, which confuses me as a listener more than I would have thought.
(US Route 59, south of Texarkana)...Or so I was this afternoon when I got into Memphis. The Graceland mansion itself is closed on Tuesdays, though, and it was raining, so instead of keying Elvis' address into my Garmin I put in Interstate Bar-B-Que's and had a chopped pork shoulder sandwich and some baked beans. Better by far than the trail mix or PB-and-honey sandwich components squirreled away in the recesses of my car.
The rain was heavy across Tennessee but it gave way for the most part to merely cloudy skies as of eastern Arkansas. The landscape shifted too, from rolling farmland to flat and somewhat swampy to just sort of mildly hilly, with Nashville and Memphis and Little Rock along the way. (Since I've stuck to highways that skirt the downtown areas the cities are observable just as more industrial-looking highways with denser truck traffic and more heavily worn pavement, plus the highrises a few miles away in the fog.) I'm overnighting in Jefferson, Texas, maybe 45 minutes down US 59 from Texarkana and, by my (Garmin's) estimation, about four hours away from Austin. No in-room Internet but, hey, the breakfast that comes with the room will have sausage gravy.
I think I remember some writer, somewhere, pithily noting Americans' tendency now to measure distance in terms of driving time. They added some sort of brief but astute cultural analysis to it. I remember no specifics but I wish I did, since I completely find myself measuring distance in time. That may be because the interstates, except when they change noticeably in elevation as a concession to one Appalachian ridge or another, more or less cut straight through the landscape, less of it than over top of it.
I should also try to talk about the audiobooks I've been listening to, though I may wait a week to prove to myself that I've retained any more memory of them than I have of the engine noise. For now I'll merely note that I can't find any non-arbitrary pattern in how Richard Dawkins and his wife Lalla Ward alternate reading duties in the recording of The God Delusion, which confuses me as a listener more than I would have thought.
6 Comments:
I wonder if any cultural critics have noted how the Garmin, as well, has changed the meaning of driving across the country?
As far as one's relationship to the space one is passing through I don't think the Garmin has changed anything too much -- the highways themselves probably took care of most of that. For personalities like mine, though, there does seem to be something new about being able to blindly follow directions all the way to (hopefully) the intended destination. The Garmin probably could have directed me to the gates of Hell itself and I wouldn't have noticed until the end.
So long as it promptly alerts you of any time there is a shorter route to hell available, that seems fine.
[frat-boyish Garmin voice] "Aw dude, strip club! Take a left here."
I understand that it was probably a bit beyond your means to pay homage to Elvis by filling up a pool at Graceland with light bulbs and firing a shotgun at them. But you could have eaten a deep fried peanut butter and pickle sandwich at least.
Well, it was between that and the BBQ pork sandwich, as far as sampling the local cuisine went. I feel like I chose wisely.
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