I’m going to Graceland, in Memphis Tennessee, I’m going to Graceland
For reasons I cannot explain, some part of me wants to see Graceland

— Willie Nelson

The first time I drove into Memphis was in February 2019 during a thunderstorm. It was cold and dark and the rain was coming down so hard my windshield wipers couldn’t keep up.  I had a death grip on the steering wheel as 16-wheelers flashed by, blasting my car with a wall of water.

I pulled off the freeway once and parked on a side street just to calm my nerves, but I had two choices: Sleep in the car on some side street or get back the freeway and try to find my hotel. I chose the latter, and Siri guided me turn-by-turn through the downtown spaghetti junction to my hotel on the other side of the city.

I had planned to go to Graceland the next day, but I had had enough of Memphis and decided to head south instead, stopping in Tupelo, Mississippi to see Elvis’s birthplace. A lot better, if you really loved Elvis, than Graceland.

Four months later, on my Road Trip with Annie, I drove into Memphis on an overcast afternoon, exited the freeway six miles from downtown, and made my way down Winchester Road to The Guesthouse at Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard.

All Shook Up was playing when I parked the car and went inside to register. I mentally rolled my eyes as that song segued into Jailhouse Rock, but the thirteen-year-old inside me was swooning.  And kept swooning as Elvis’s music resounded inside and outside the hotel, day and night.