While yesterday consisted mostly of miles upon miles of getting further west, today we did a lot of sightseeing.

We were a little better at packing up from our second Homewood Suites, and got on the road fairly promptly.

Today’s breakfast wasn’t as amazing as yesterday’s, but it did the job and we didn’t have to cook or do dishes.

Our first order of business was to scrap the idea of visiting the mining museum I had penciled in as a maybe, but it was easy to dismiss.  If there is one thing we have learned so far, it is less is more.  We just are not as fast as we should be and we need to operate as such. 

We headed west about an hour to Grants, NM.  We traveled down a somewhat winding, desolate, desert road to an area with a few newer homes, two older log buildings, and a parking area.

We paid our entrance fee, looked around the shop, used the facilities and headed out onto the first trail.  We opted to visit the Ice Cave first, which proved to be an excellent choice.  This trail is shorter, and is downhill to the cave and uphill back to the starting point.

The climate and terrain are just so different from home.  The ground here was littered with lava stone from the defunct volcano.  The same lava stone I have paid $40 per cubic yard for my yard. 

The Ice Cave remains around 31 degrees Fahrenheit all year round. 

We headed back up to the host building and cooled off for a moment before heading up the old volcano.  This was a little more work, but it was good to know our trek at the end would be all downhill.

 

Back down the hill we bought a souvenir or two, and found our water bottles and headed back out to the main highway to continue on our way.

We drove just a short bit to the Continental Divide.

 

And then to Walmart for lunch provisions.

Everyone plugged in to some media while we headed north to the spot where four states come together. 

It was hot.  Like well over 100 degrees.  We had to queue in a line where they requested you take just three photos and move on.  Our math said we were welcome to take 27 photos at the most, but we didn’t come close. 

I had no idea how windy the desert was. 

We headed into Arizona and back south/southwest toward Williams.  I had done a lot of research on dining options between lunch and dinner.  The desert is, well, deserted.  And we have to navigate food allergies and find some places more willing to make accommodations than others.  I really hoped to get some decent regional food, too. 

I found Amigo Cafe on TripAdvisor and contacted them about food allergies.  They confirmed they could work with us, so we stopped for dinner in Kayenta.

MY food was AMAZING.  And the photo did not come out.  Those not eating Mexican had poor American food.  But in the end we were all fed and were able to continue on.

It would be two days until we realized AZ matched PST and not MST…  It caused a ton of confusion.  Truth is, I have no idea what time we left the restaurant.

We saw more rock formations than you can shake a stick at and marveled at God’s creativity.

We rolled into our Motel 6 in Williams too late to swim.  Our sparse accommodations were fine, if not bland, and we all fell asleep as our heads hit the pillows.

We woke by 6 A.M. and got ourselves mobilized.  It was our first morning of the re-pack/re-load process and it wasn’t pretty.  What was fabulous was the massive breakfast they offered.  Every palate was pleased as we ate and ate.  It was awesome.

We got started – later that we wanted – (this will become a repeating theme) – and headed from Fort Smith, AR to Albuquerque, NM.

It is essentially a straight line through Oklahoma, the Texas panhandle, and into New Mexico.  Sights thrilled us as we took in places we’d never been before.  But we didn’t stop, per se.

We played some games, read some books, watched some movies, and just kept moving.

We stopped at Walmart for more food at lunch time and enjoyed crispy fried chicken, potato salad, and cookies. 

West, west. west.  We just kept moving west.

We drove directly to Dickey’s BBQ pit in Albuquerque for dinner.  Dickey’s BBQ Pit is a chain we’d discovered on our last road trip to Oregon in 2015.  We were eager to eat there again.

As we approached the building, other would-be patrons warned us they were closed.  The manager popped his head out the door to explain they were closing because they were out of meat and most of their sides.

We tried to find something fast… and it wasn’t fast.  We asked our cell phones to help us find a Longhorn Steakhouse, but it said it was 13 miles away.  We could see an Outback Steakhouse from where we were, and with a little finagling, found or way to it.  In the end we spent WAY too much money and time for a so-so meal.  We barely got to the hotel in time for a quick swim for a few of us. 

Katriel fell asleep as we headed to the hotel.  She stayed asleep through bed changes and well into the morning.

After breakfast at Brother Junipers, we headed about 15 miles down the road to Graceland.  We all knew we were going.  We’d talked about it for months.  None of us were prepared for how fabulous it was. 

TCB stands for “Taking Care of Business” – one of Elvis’s mottos.

The admission prices are ridiculous, but we knew that going in.  Thankfully, the cashier reminded us we could have a AAA discount with a valid card.

As it was shortly after opening, the incoming crowd was steady.  We were instructed to head to a theater which showed a 7 minute movie on the life of Elvis Presley.  I got a little teary as Elvis always reminds me of my dad.  We exited the theater and followed the directions of the staff to an outdoor queue.

They then took a photo of us they offered to sell to us for $35 an hour or so later.  We queued for a bus over to the mansion.  Upon entering the bus we were all handed headphones and mini iPads for our upcoming tours. 

We boarded the bus for the mansion and again had to queue to enter the mansion.  It was at least 95F and we not only had to wait for the bus in front of us to get the front-step-spiel, but a bus of VIP package guests also got to enter before us.  We finally entered the mansion, and for the rest of the day we had no more waiting.

The iPad system is really cool.  It occasionally didn’t detect where we were on the property, but for the most part it was fabulous.  Major facts and cool tidbits were narrated by John Stamos.  You could spend as much time as you wanted in each room, and there were little extra links on the iPad that you could hit if you wanted to.  For example, when you were looking into a certain room, if you hit one of the camera icons, you might then see a photo of Elvis sitting on the couch in front of you playing his guitar.

Elvis designed this room on the first floor for his parents, including a walk-in closet for his beloved mother.

The narrator said Elvis would position himself for a grand entrance into the foyer when guests arrived. 

 

This TV, though… LOL

The stairs to the basement.

I want this rec room!  There are plenty of seats on these couches!

After we exited the mansion, we rode the bus back over to the main complex.  We then realized we had barely scratched the surface of what was there.  We spent the next few hours looking through his cars, clothing, and other memorabilia, including a section devoted to his military service.  We also enjoyed the wide variety of shopping experiences.  They sincerely enjoyed the shopping and Nigel had a very hard time deciding what to treat himself to. 

 

I smiled to myself as I took this photo next to the Johnny Cash outfit in the area of people who were influenced by or worked with Elvis.  Nigel had no idea where we’d be going later.

We thought about grabbing some ice cream, but decided instead to just get ourselves over to a Walmart for lunch food. 

We enjoyed our first car lunch:  sandwiches made at 75mph, with macaroni and potato salads, chips, and — cookies!

From there we lazily drove to Dyess, AR.  No one under 46 knew where we were going.

Our GPS indicated we would get there at 3:05 P.M. 
The website said the last tour left at 3:00 P.M.  I called them about 10 minutes out and explained we were coming from NY and were likely going to be 5 minutes late.  They joyfully offered to hold the tour for us!

Nigel saw the sign about five miles before we got there:
Johnny Cash Boyhood Home

This area boasts a rich history of swamp-land-turned-family farms. 

From Wikipedia:
Dyess Colony was established in Mississippi County, Arkansas in 1934 as part of the New Deal efforts of Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide economic relief to ameliorate suffering in the Great Depression. The experiment was the largest such community-building experiment established by the federal government during these years.

Basically – families who met the criteria and were willing to take on the arduous work of converting swamp land into farms were given a house, a chicken coop, and a small barn.

 The old theatre still stands

and the colony center administration building has been turned into a museum and meeting space.

They still have the original projector from the theatre house.

Can I tell you how much I love the fact that Nigel just happened to have on his Johnny Cash t-shirt?

After watching the movie that explained both the New Deal effort and how the restoration was completed (including oversight by Johnny Cash’s sisters) we looked around the museum before getting on the bus to head over to his house on Plot #266.  We were joined by one other couple.  The woman’s mother was raised in the house next door to J.R. Cash and she was eager to see what it may have looked like.

Our bus driver was the former mayor of Dyess.

We left Dyess around 4:30 P.M. and headed west to Fort Smith, Arkansas.  We had planned to grab dinner at a KFC buffet, but we wanted to swim.  A few miles out we called in pizzas, so after we got to our Homewood Suites, we unpacked the van, gobbled up pizza, and hit the pool and/or showers. 

By the time we hit the bed, most of us had been up well over 24-hours except for some nap time in the van the night before.

Let the good times roll. 

Poke along… 

although we’d planned for months and had our packing done, we could NOT seem to get out on time. Starting almost an hour late is never a fun way to start out, but we didn’t lament it.

I started out in the back row with the two little girls, and John drove with Tab shotgun. 

Around 9PM Stewart and I took the front row and John tried to sleep.  I say tried because nine people in a van is not the Waldorf Astoria.  PFT.  It’s not even Motel 6.  But he grabbed some sleep as did the others – Tab on the floor.  At 3AM I scooted back to the floor in the back and John took over with Nigel as his copilot.  It’s not easy, but it’s part of the adventure.  It’s fun to wake up in the morning and be states and states away.  At around 8AM we pulled into Brother Juniper’s in Memphis Tennessee.  I’d found the restaurant on TripAdvisor weeks earlier and a call from John encouraged us that we’d have a good chance of Stewart finding a delicious, safe meal.

My black bean burrito was one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever, ever had.  I’m going to rate it higher than cruise ship breakfasts, only because you rarely get Mexican breakfast options on a ship.

Johanna and Katriel shared a plate of Cinnamon Roll Pancakes.  I purposefully did not try it. 

Katriel got a little wiggly by the end of the meal and the waiter noticed her and started a conversation.  From about ten feet away, he lobbed a small butter packet to her.  She laughed with glee and picked it up and SHOT IT BACK.  Her toss had the perfect arch and caught every one of us by surprise.  HIS Baseball, here she comes!

With happy tummies, we piled back into the van and moved on to our first activity…