The city of Tupelo, Mississippi certainly has a favorite son (no, it’s not me). The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley was born here and Tupelo is taking full advantage of that fact. There are guitar cut-outs located around the city that signify locations where Elvis played or that were important to his life. There is one in front of Tupelo hardware where “E” bought his first guitar. If you’re an Elvis fan you probably already know more about Tupelo than I can cover here. If you’re not an Elvis fan, this is still a fun place to explore.

Every day of this blog starts with breakfast. Today we visited “D’Cracked Egg”. With the amount of food that was delivered to me, the place could become known as D’Broken Chair. If I had eaten everything presented, I would have most certainly exceeded the capacity of the chair at our table. Food was good and very plentiful. The service was good. The only issue was that nobody could figure out how to turn off the alarm on the coffee maker. It “beeped” for the entire 45 minutes we were there. (The “beeping” coffee maker is just to the left of the Pepsi dispenser. I would have pulled the plug.)

Our server showed us pictures of her boyfriends custom motorcycles. It was time for Mason and I to hit the road.

Down the street from D’Cracked Egg is the birthplace of the King. It’s a small place (he wasn’t born as the King). I suspect it looks better today than when the Presley’s lived there. They were all but penniless. We chose not to pay the $10 fee to “tour” the house. It’s also $10 to tour the museum that’s on the grounds and $10 to tour the chapel that Elvis built on the property. At least parking was free as is visiting the gift shop. There is one other building worth mentioning on the site, the church that the Presley family attended has been moved from it’s original location. (There is an outhouse and I fully expected a sign that said “see where Elvis did his real business — $10”. The outhouse is not authentic.) Did I mention that there is no entry fee for the gift shop which sells all things Elvis.

We had enough Elvis and were sufficiently “all shook up”. We did manage to cross paths with another motorcyclist – Mark who rode all the way from Dallas to visit the King’s birth place and outhouse. This is Mark’s ride. Mark had already scurried off looking for some Blue Suede Shoes.

Our goal today was to travel some miles on the famous Natchez Trace Parkway. It is a smooth ribbon of concrete that does not allow any commercial vehicles. The road just meanders 444 miles through parts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. If you are in a hurry don’t try to ride or drive the Trace – speed limit of 50 mph is enforced. To get gas, food, or maybe even take a potty break, you have to leave the trace via one of the limited cross roads. I have ridden on the Trace in years past but wanted to renew my impression. It really is easy to navigate. I set the bike’s cruise control to 50 and really never need to take it off of cruise.

We managed to pull off at Collingwood, Tennessee for a break. We parked at the Visitor’s Center and walked a little just to stretch our legs. When we managed to walk back to the bikes, I thought I at least should enter the visitor’s center since we had used their parking lot. Mason was almost forced to sign us in on the visitor’s log book. The docent was an ex-Navy guy. He seemed like he wanted to talk and I asked how he was doing. He proceeded to tell me about losing his second wife, moving back to Collingwood from Seattle, and his time in the Navy. I thanked him for his service and appreciated when someone he knew came in the door. Maybe I’ll be a docent some day. I’ll try not to overwhelm people with my life’s story.

After the peace and quiet of the easy cruising on the Parkway, it was kind of a culture shock to roll in to Columbia, Tennessee at rush hour. We parked at the Holiday Inn and unloaded the bikes. There wasn’t much within walking distance of our hotel other than Waffle House. That wouldn’t be my first choice for dinner but I was finished with riding for the day after 168 miles.