I’ve never thought of myself as an Elvis Presley fan, despite the fact that I love his silly songs, especially Jailhouse Rock and Teddy Bear. So why did I find myself drawn to Graceland, like a moth to a flame? Was it actually the subconscious lure of the Paul Simon song, not Elvis at all? “I’m goin’ to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee, I’m goin’ to Graceland…”

The truth is, I was drawn to Graceland because it’s the quintessential icon of American tourism. I wanted to revel in a real tourist Mecca, a gaudy shrine for pilgrims in Bermuda shorts. I prepared myself for something tacky and űber-commercial, where tourists would gladly part with their money. Although I, too, am an American tourist, I planned to have a stronger grip on my wallet than the rest of the poor fools.

We arrived in the evening and camped at an RV park on Teddy Bear Lane, behind the Heartbreak Hotel. In the morning, we broke camp and queued up for tickets by 9. The first tour available to us, since we had no reservations, was two hours later, and Barry was seriously bummed.

Not me, however. I’d spied the row of gift shops, and I knew there were hours of entertainment to be found on their shelves.

A casual circuit of the first shop took me past pink vinyl rhinestone-encrusted purses, Elvis refrigerator magnets, etched wineglasses, and flip-flops (heavily discounted, evidently more flop than flip). I was headed for the postcards, and what I found was a delight. In addition to pictures of the interior and exterior of the house, there was a whole series of postcards with Elvis’ favorite recipes. Each card had a recipe for fried peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches, meatloaf, or barbecue sauce, alongside a photo of the slim, attractive young Elvis. The later fat Elvis would have been more honest, but less likely to be hung upon anyone’s refrigerator.

In a second shop, we saw more rhinestones, on copies of Elvis’ elaborate costumes. They run thousands of dollars, but I’m sure there are plenty of impersonators who buy them as a business expense. There were also musical teddy bears, clocks with pendulums of Elvis’ swinging hips, beach towels with life-sized pictures, and framed photographs. I looked everywhere, but I didn’t see any portraits painted on black velvet.

When we finally emerged into daylight, I’d been fairly restrained: Only seven postcards and a bumper sticker emerged with me.

In front of the shops, we joined the throng of ticket holders. Uniformed employees distributed audio devices and then ushered us onto buses for the very short ride across the street and up the driveway.

We disembarked in front of the front door, fumbling with our headsets. The house was nothing special, just a simple Southern brick structure with tidy landscaping and a couple of stone lions on either side of the door. As we entered, in a group of about 20, I took a deep breath, expecting to be thrown into some sort of fun house experience. I was surprised by the formal elegance of the front rooms.

Then came the kitchen, where the decor was frozen in the 1970’s. The crazy kitchen carpet and outdated fixtures reminded me of my parents’ kitchen during that era. The audio guide featured a clip of Lisa-Marie Presley, reminiscing about how the kitchen always had someone in it, 24 hours a day. I poked Barry and whispered, “Somebody had to be frying Elvis’ peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches!”

Just around the corner, the funhouse aspect began. The stairs to the basement were completely mirrored, so that you could enjoy infinite reflections of yourself. At the bottom, we found what today would be called the “media room.” More mirrors on the ceiling, a wet bar, a hi-fi and a few records, and three TVs, small by today’s standards. Elvis was ahead of his time in one thing — he wanted to watch “all three networks” at the same time. Poor guy, he didn’t live long enough for cable TV and wireless remote controls.

The busy patterns of the pool table room assaulted my eyes, and it was a relief to move up the stairs to the jungle room, with green shag carpet on the ceiling. And then we were through the house, and the audio guide was telling us about the backyard. Not even a peek at Elvis’ bedroom.

It wasn’t over. There was still the office, then all the exhibits. We followed Elvis’ career from beginning to end, including promotional posters, many gold records, a few Grammies (all in the Gospel category), movie memorabilia, and a section about his musical comeback in the 70’s. I found one display interesting — 40 checks, each for $1000, written on the same day to 40 different charitable causes.

Finally, emerging from the dim racquetball court-turned-museum, we were shepherded to Elvis’ grave. The mood was somber, but that didn’t prevent all the tourists, including us, from taking pictures of the sacred tombstone. We did, however, refrain from phooning.

When Elvis died, his father didn’t intend to enshrine his son on the property. He had him buried in a regular cemetary, near his mother. But a few months later, they both were reinterred. I’m guessing that grief-crazed fans were making a nuisance of themselves at the cemetary; at the house, the graves could be properly watched over.

Two days later, we’d put Graceland behind us, or so we thought. We drove to Asheville, North Carolina, where our gracious, lively, and fun friend Julie lives. She works for the Biltmore, the largest private residence in the United States.

Barry and I were especially grateful for complimentary tickets to the Biltmore. It’s twice as expensive as Graceland. It’s also about a hundred times bigger, and the furnishings are about a hundred years older. Despite the ludicrous differences, though, we couldn’t stop making comparisons between the two estates.

Elvis bought Graceland when he was 22 and single. George Vanderbilt began the Biltmore when he was in his 20s, too, and single. Both have a pair of stone lions on either side of the front door. Both have a hotel and many gift shops, and both employ a lot of people. Both have a pool table — the Biltmore has two — and both have a swimming pool. Both are full of tourists, gawking at the lives of the rich and famous.

Both are owned by descendants, too. In the Biltmore, there is a large painting of the family members who currently own it, three or four generations of conventional-looking folks with their poodle. There is no such painting of Lisa-Marie’s family at Graceland, and the thought of her husband looking conventional makes me want to giggle.

Strolling the gardens and woods at the Biltmore, we found everything in bloom. The rolling hills were covered in a freshly-leafed shade of spring green, and the property was so vast that we walked for a couple of hours. We passed the camera back and forth, trying to capture the feel of the world-class landscape architecture, with features on a scale with Central Park. Then we turned our attention to the giant house.

I especially liked the vast dining hall and the library, which felt European and Medieval. We shuffled through elegant bedroom after bedroom, admiring paintings by famous artists. Then we made our way past the servant’s quarters, commercial-sized kitchens and laundry rooms, swimming pool and bowling alley.

But something felt off-kilter. Inside the house, away from the grounds, I was disturbed by the commercialism. There seemed to be a sugarcoated “buy, buy, buy” message, as if simply purchasing a ticket wasn’t enough to support this private historical edifice. Maybe I was feeling guilty because we hadn’t purchased our tickets. I did my obligatory gift shop circuit — home furnishings, sweatshirts, dip mixes, wine, and chocolates — but only purchased a handful of postcards.

How could it be that at Graceland, I’d expected űber-commercial, and then been treated as a guest? At the Biltmore, I expected to feel like a guest, and instead I found űber-commercial. Was I a victim of my own expectations?

Graceland isn’t a big, grand place. There’s a tongue-in-cheek feeling, a sense of humor about this lucky guy’s house that became a tourist Mecca. It’s a fun house, not just a funhouse. The Biltmore is the legacy of another lucky guy, someone who inherited so much money he didn’t know what to do with it. But the operation is so vast, it requires a superhuman amount of effort to maintain. There’s a hint of the blue blood legacy.

Given my choice, I’d rather inherit Graceland.

I was at the wheel on the east side of Oklahoma, and Barry was studying a map of Arkansas, our next state. As usual, I was in hurry-hurry mode, and he was not. “Hot Springs looks interesting,” he said. I wondered whether they were out of the way, and more importantly, if they were bathing-suit-optional hot springs.

As luck would have it, our next stop was lunch at the Pig Out Palace, notable for their 32-oz beverage glasses, frighteningly large portions, and wi-fi. I finally satisfied my craving for chicken fried steak. Afterwards, I sat in the oversized booth feeling bloated while Barry satisfied his craving for email.

To our surprise, there was a message from Barbara, mentioning that if we stopped in Hot Springs, Arkansas, we should let her know. I tried to call her, but got her voicemail. So I called her husband, Jim.

“Barbara says there’s someone we should look up in Hot Springs — is it someone we’ve heard about?” I asked. Jim chuckled. “Her sister,” he replied, “and my brother. They’re married, you know. To each other.”

We had indeed heard good things about Della and Alex over the years we’d known Jim and Barbara, so we got in touch, and they invited us to their house on very short notice. The route Della recommended took us on ribbon-like Route 7, through the lush spring green of the Ouachita National Forest. It was just as beautiful as the California coast, and the only other vehicles were three motorcycles out to enjoy the curves.

One of my favorite travel writers, Peter Jenkins, once mentioned an acronym he had in his diary: T.A.A. It stood for “Totally Amazed by Alabama.” I had a different T.A.A.: Totally Amazed by Arkansas.

Della and Alex made us feel right at home, and we felt like family, maybe because we know so many of their family members! The four of us sat in the living room, talking, for quite a while. Our connection to them is through their siblings, but I was enjoying getting to know how they are different from those siblings.

Still, we’d arrived fairly late, and at about 10:30, Della turned to Alex. “Well, Mr. Cole, I think it’s time for us to go to bed,” she said. Alex nodded and started to get up.

Barry and I burst out laughing. “What’s so funny?” they asked.

The line, the delivery, and the response were something we’d heard dozens of times aboard Complexity. We’d be moored somewhere in Alaska or British Columbia, relaxing after dinner and talking for hours. But Jim and Barbara are super-early birds, and we are the opposite. So Barbara would turn to her husband at about 10:30, and she’d say a line we grew to know well: “Well, Mr. Cole, I think it’s time for us to go to bed.”

The following day, we slept late by Cole standards — past 7. Alex had long since gone to work, but Della had the day free to give us what she called the “nickel tour” of Hot Springs. Just up the road from their house are mines where mucky mud yields sparkling quartz crystals. We visited one of the operations and took photos of ourselves with enormous furniture-sized crystals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then she took us into the town of Hot Springs, where more surprises awaited us. This was no mere soaking pool, but blocks of elegant brick bathhouses where people had come for centuries to “take the waters,” now turned into a national park. The building we visited was full of original — and creepy — equipment. There were steam boxes where only the person’s head would stick out, rows of cubicles with claw-footed tubs, and elaborately complicated showers. One room had all kinds of iron torture equipment, predecessors to modern physical therapy devices. The massage rooms contained scary-looking electrical widgets, not relaxing at all.

On our way back, Della drove us by the off-road vehicle park their son-in-law manages. I had never seen such a thing — there were roads so steep, it was hard to imagine any vehicle negotiating them, even a special-purpose one. I was also surprised by the fact that the property was beautifully wooded; I’d expected a place exclusively for people to play with cars to be much more barren.

Our stop in Hot Springs was too brief, but we said farewell and traveled to Little Rock that afternoon, pitching our tent in Burns Park.

Della told us to check out the Big Dam Bridge, a soaring half-mile bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the Arkansas river. It was a beautiful piece of engineering, providing an excellent vantage point for watching barges locking up and down the river. But what intrigued me more was the social engineering aspect — in a state with a reputation for poor nutrition and obesity, here was something you could only enjoy if you got out and burned calories. On this hot weekday evening, the bridge was a busy, popular place. I saw super-fit spandex-clad cyclists, parents with toddlers, people walking after work in their office clothes, novice rollerbladers, and a very sweaty woman jogging in jeans.

Distant thunder and lightning made me wonder if we should have stayed with Alex and Della; instead, we drove back to our tent. A little while later, we struck up a conversation with Robin, camping in her car across from us. She had such an amazing story — not mine to tell, I’m afraid — that we dug into the van for wine glasses and that special bottle of Tom’s Pear-a-dice wine, and the three of us settled around the picnic table and talked into the night.

About a week before we’d left Seattle, Barry and I received a couple of going-away presents with far-reaching effects. They’re simply purple rubber bracelets, inscribed with “A Complaint Free World.org.” The way they work is this: You put one on your wrist. If you complain or criticize or gossip, you have to take it off and move it to the other wrist. The goal is to change behavior, which is supposed to take 21 days. The longest we’d gone without changing ours was about four days. We called them “cheap marriage therapy.”

Fairly early in the evening, we’d mentioned the bracelets to Robin. But she’d just left a bizarre relationship, and she needed to do some serious venting — complaining, criticizing, and gossiping, along with eye-rolling, grousing, and grumping. Still, she had a great attitude. And when she pantomimed taking off a bracelet and moving it to the other wrist, we all cracked up — especially since she did it many times.

It was very late when we finally crawled into our tent for the night, and there were thunderstorms and torrential downpours that woke us several times, but I didn’t mind. After meeting Robin, I figured we’d been there in the park for a reason. Robin, if you’re out there, please write!

Our last day in Arkansas was overcast, and the river, bridges, and downtown buildings made me think I was in Portland, Oregon. We spent the morning at the Clinton Presidential Library, which was interesting but surreal. I’ve been to other presidential libraries, but those were for dead presidents. Imagine having a museum — and a gift shop — devoted to you while you were still alive. What would you say about yourself?

The “spin” on Bill Clinton’s years in the White House left my head “spinning.” The strangest thing was reliving those years right now, when Hillary is fighting so hard for the Democratic nomination. I was looking hard for clues to Hillary, but the exhibits hardly mention her at all. There are ball gowns and a few biographical items, and a video she narrated about redecorating the White House.

I dragged Barry into the gift shop and then browsed the entire store, curious. There were politically-correct handicrafts, ecologically-sensitive kitsch, and left-wing books, along with cult-of-Bill refrigerator magnets and buttons. Next to the door was a life-sized image of Bill Clinton, sans Hillary. As usual, I picked up a couple of postcards, but Barry quickly scanned the merchandise and found a key item lacking. “That’s funny,” he said. “I don’t see any cigars.”

And with that, we left Totally Amazing Arkansas and headed for Tennessee…and Graceland.

Author’s note: We’re currently in Beaufort, NC, but there are several stories of our adventures in places west of here that haven’t been published yet. At the risk of confusing y’all, I’m just sticking them out there as I get ‘em done. –Meps

When we crossed from Texas into Oklahoma, it was as though Mother Nature made the border herself. The dusty ranch landscape suddenly became green farmland. There were classic white farmhouses, each framed by trees planted by some settler’s wife. No longer West, but Midwest.

At Red Rock Canyon State Park, we arrived just after dark to find the ranger getting ready to go home. His weathered features and earnest slow speech made me think of a movie caricature of an Okie. I wondered how many generations of his family had lived in Oklahoma.

Often, my eyes trick me when I arrive in a new place after dark. All I could see were farm fields, so I asked the ranger, “How big is the park?”

He scratched his head and gave me a slow, earnest answer. “Well, it’s not that big. You’ll drive down this road here, and don’t worry about the folks at the bottom of the hill; I told ‘em to leave. There are tent sites on both sides of the road, and there’s a good one across from the bathhouse — number 24 or 25, I think? No, maybe it’s 34…”

He went on in elaborate detail about which sites were best for a tent. It sounded like the whole park was just campsites, and it also sounded like we’d be there all night listening to descriptions of them. Finally, I had to ask, “What is there to do in the park?”

“Well, er, there are a lot of campsites. It’s mostly for relaxing, I guess.”

I was intrigued by this Oklahoma concept of a state park just for relaxing, and that’s exactly what we did there. We pitched our tent and spent two nights and one whole slow-paced day. We read books, did some writing, took long showers, and sorted pictures in a rustic picnic shelter. I could imagine the shelter on a hot summer weekend, reserved for a family reunion or church picnic. There would be a sign written on a paper plate, and multiple generations would be sharing hamburgers and potato salad and cake. Relaxing.

In the evening of the second day, another ranger came by to collect our money. He wore the same uniform, but he didn’t look like his great-great-grandparents came from Oklahoma. As he told me, they didn’t.

Back in the 1970’s, Dave was one of thousands of people applying for park jobs in California, where he’d grown up. He heard that in Oklahoma, they had more park jobs than they could fill. “The only qualification for the job back then was an 8th grade education,” he laughed.

So he moved to Oklahoma, going the opposite way of the masses. He’s raised his family in Oklahoma, and his idea of a vacation is visiting family in Arkansas or Illinois, or putting on a fireworks show for friends. I could imagine him attending a family reunion or church picnic.

Dave never actually said that he was the head ranger for the park, but we got that impression from his comments on the operation of the park. His job has a whole range of challenges — from drafting the park’s budget to hiring a company to pick up the garbage to overseeing teenagers working at the swimming pool. But as the buck-stops-here guy, he also has to occasionally remove a wasp nest from a restroom or drive around to collect camping fees from people like us.

These days, I bet it takes more than an 8th grade education to get hired as an Oklahoma park ranger. It sounds like a fun job, except for those wasp nests. But could Barry and I live in Oklahoma?

Well, yes, it turns out. There is navigable water on the east side of the state. All we’d have to do is sail up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, and then we’d probably be the first liveaboard sailboaters in Oklahoma. Flutterby’s shallow draft would come in handy, and best of all, it would be a lot cheaper than moorage on the Atlantic or Pacific.

Just kidding! …wanted to see if anyone was actually reading this (grin).