The road is getting very pretty! Illinois landscape had heretofore been some of the flattest, pancake-est, streching-for-miles, boringest piece of country I’ve ever seen. I guess I’ve never been far south enough to understand why they’re called “flatlanders.” Duh. It may not compare with the desert, but since I’ve never been west of Iowa, this region can claim the title for now. Lush, curvy, green, tree-covered hills have emerged. The sky is clear and clean. The road and the day are pleasant again.

As we drive, the Pulp Fiction soundtrack becomes our own. We sing “Son of a Preacher Man" five times before I let the tape go on. By that point, not only am I on pitch but I can also hear a modulation and am glad that my voice lessons weren’t a complete waste of time and money.

At Neoga we add ten dollars more to the gas tank. Somehow I had gotten the term “jury rigged” stuck in my head... I seem to remember hearing it “jerry-rigged” in the past and am comfused. Was it simply an Iowa pronounciation or was it the modern corruption of a past slander against the Germans?? I had to know. The strangest — and therefore the most burning — questions occur on the road where there’s no reference library. Grrr. Posing as an English major as I pay for the supplies, I ask the lady at the dusty little filling station how she had heard/used the phrase. She blushed and was a little evasive. I pressed — “when I grew up,” she said, “we used an expression that’s not polite anymore. The folks used to say ‘nigger rigged’ but nowadays of course you can’t say that anymore...” she trailed off. I had my answer.

By now the old road is back — flat flat flat. But here, the flatness has a different sort of feel — a foreignness to it — it’s not the same Midwest flat but something different. A southern accent has crept into the stretching land. It’s dustier, browner, hotter, sultrier, and somehow, even flatter. We’re blaring the Stones on the stereo.

I feel like I’m driving into a beer commercial.

Nearly there and we pull into West Memphis for gas. The first sign we see has a corporate, smiling face that reassures us that it’s the Filling Station for Friendly Service. Each successive sign reminds us that there are 24 hour surveillance cameras trained on us, that driveaways and shoplifters will be prosecuted, that the bee-hived, blue-eyeshadowed clerk has less than $100 at all times and a really big ugly gun that she’s gonna shoot you with. The bathrooms are disgusting. We leave hastily, glad to be out of there alive.

Memphis! Birthplace of rock & roll! This is sooo exciting. We stay off the highway after crossing the Mississippi and drive city streets for a while. We are seeing the ass-end of Memphis and are proud of our non-tourist ways. The windows are down and we holler loudly along (again and again) to "Crawfish" off of the King Creole soundtrack.

After checking into the Comfort Inn East we pause while plotting our next step. It’s 4:15 and we must move: the first sight to see is not Graceland but the legendary Peabody Ducks.

The Peabody is a grandly elegant old hotel in downtown Memphis. The main tourist draw to it is the facts that ducks live there — in a penthouse apartment. Each morning, the ducks descend from their aerie (by elevator) and are escorted down a red carpet to a fountain in the lobby. Every evening they are escorted back. Tourists are lined five-deep on each side of the carpet for both parades, and the gift shop is chock-full of ducky merchandise. We are five minutes late and have to return in the morning.

Down the block we find the Memphis Blues Museum in the back of an unassuming music shop. Goldmine! The many exhibit cases in the small museum are laden with information and artifacts from Memphis’ music history. Of course, Elvis is represented but it is more interesting to find out about the other musicians. Many are lesser known now, but were big in the past or well known locally. I am glad to learn. There are many people here that I had never thought about listening to, let alone enjoying Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash? I am shocked, shocked! at my ignorance. My "to buy" record list is multiplying.