Memphis, TN to Tulsa, OK
We really wanted to see Graceland, but read that the full tour took at least 2 hours. With a long driving day ahead of us we didn’t feel we could dedicate that much time to it. Luckily, we also read that if you get there before the museum opens you can see the graves and see the mansion. I woke up a little late but with what I believed was enough time to get there before the park opened. Mike was being pushy so we quickly packed up, and drove over to Graceland.
The trip advisor reviews will tell you that Graceland is on a stretch of a pretty commercial drag with vacant strip malls and closed businesses and it really just sneaks up on you. You could drive past the house without ever really noticing it.
Before I tell you the next part, I’d like to state for the record that I’m still relatively sick. I no longer have the flu, but I’m still recovering and seem to be developing a sinus infection. Overall it’s not really impacting the trip except that I’m feeling pretty fatigued and a little foggy-headed.
We arrived to the park at 8:37 and I was told that the graves and mansion viewing are only free/open from 7:30 - 8:30am. Mike already knew this. Mike already told me this. All morning I thought the graves were open for free from 8:30-9am. I blame my illness!
So we missed that part, but we drove up to “the wall” in front of the mansion, signed it (inside that heart), and got to peek at the house from the street. We considered going for the full tour, but with Merlin in the car it still didn’t seem like it would work out. Instead we headed over the great Arkansas River with our sights set for Tulsa, Oklahoma.
On the drive to Oklahoma we stopped at a dog park in Little Rock, Arkansas where Merl played on some little rocks. We ran into some heavy rain which persisted for the last two hours or so of the drive.
We got to another adorable AirBnB cottage behind our hosts’ house in a nice area of Tusla on the Arkansas River. It was still drizzly so we relaxed a little before deciding to grab some food and go bowling near downtown.
Whenever we have stayed at AirBnBs we’ve kept Merlin in his travel “house” with a Nest camera set up to make sure he’s not barking the entire time we’re gone. Moments after getting in the Uber to go to dinner I spotted Merlin on the camera busting out of his house!
The fabric screening ripped and out he climbed. So we kept an eye on him while we had dinner and drinks but decided not to go bowling.
Before we left, our uber driver kindly snapped a photo of us in this awesome square of Christmas lights. Luckily when we got home it looked like Merlin just been playing with his toys and being good while we were out!
