After filling our bellies with shrimp gumbo, red beans and rice, and a catfish sandwich respectively we had done little rock proud and took off for Memphis, "put on my blue suede shoes and we boarded the mini van, touch down in the land of the delta blues, in the middle of the pouring rain....now we're walking in Memphis..." home of Graceland and country music we had followed I-40 all the way from the Mojave desert to Elvis land. We thought we were just in for a treat of southern style Ethiopian food, which, with greens, beets, sweet potatoes, we felt even closer to home. But, Ethiopian wasn't the only treat on our oversized plates. The van started shaking so violently as rolled down Poplar st. we knew it couldn't just be Memphis's many pot holes, we remembered 2 years earlier, how we cruised off the highway in Dallas innocently looking for the Botanical Gardens and ended up coasting into the Dodge Dealership only to buy a new CV joint for our cracked axle. It felt like that, so we were worried, we also hoped we'd make it to the garage with all 4 wheels ON the van. We pulled in the parking lot and i look at the passenger wheel --- it is peeling apart,m flapping really, wire mesh all frayed and looking gnarly. MMMM. We're lucky in many way, but today it was because we made it to a tire shop without a blow out and that a tire was all we needed for now. All our relations.

We dipped south, through Tupelo, Mississippi ("Sean I'd say the best ones came form Tupelo, Mississippi," that's from the same album that song "I would walk 5,000 miles and I would walk 5,000 more just to be the man who walked a thousand miles to fall down at your door," was on, i cant remember who they are now, but they sang about Tupelo to my delight and continued musical performance.) Onto Alabama and on the track to Hotlanta, GA (where the girls wear them daisy dukes).