Atlanta, Georgia to Memphis, Tennessee

July 22

We started out this morning from Atlanta with a carload of our own stuff, drinks & snacks supplied by Melissa's parents and even guide books and road maps to direct a small army J. I got my first real glimpse of Americana when we passed a shiny red firetruck with lots gorgeous firefighters on board.

I really didn't expect to see so many American clichés on my first day but they/many were present as the day went by: porches with rockers, swing chairs and stars & stripes flags; bumper stickers proclaiming "Proud Parent of a Soldier", roadside churches with big billboards announcing "God loves you whether you like it or not"; deer running across the interstate highway, and it taking longer with each stop for the locals to drawl y'all at me.

It didn't take long for us to leave northern Georgia and cross into Tennessee. Tennessee is really beautiful – the farming land reminds me of Uruguay. Despite passing very close to the town of Lynchberg, we decided not to stop at the Jack Daniel's distillery – they don't give out samples during the tour of the distillery because it's located in a dry county! One of the other landmarks we passed was the David Crockett state park.

On the food front, today has been a chicken day. At lunch we went to Cracker Barrel and had chicken & dumplings. The chicken was good but the dumplings were tasteless, glutinous, gelatinous – yuck. Tonight we had Gus's famous fried chicken – I will never be able to eat fried chicken again, it was so good I have been ruined for life J.

July 23

This morning we couldn't find anywhere to eat except McDonalds – if we're not careful this roadtrip could turn into another version of "Supersize Me". Then we headed to Graceland! Graceland is AWESOME. Totally worth USD34 for the platinum tour. Ok, there's a lot of merchandising but you see the mansion, the cars, the airplanes and a couple of other random exhibits on Elvis' clothes, his comeback tour & his movies.

After 3 hours in Graceland, we headed to Interstate BBQ for a taste of Tennessee BBQ – really really good, mildly (& surprisingly) spicy. After BBQ we hit the I-40 west towards Arkansas.