darlene perez loves ELVIS

, originally uploaded by pr9000.

... and who doesn't, really?

Amina and I were in Memphis earlier this week, my first visit since I was in my early teens. We made the pilgrimage to Graceland, but not to do the tour -- there is no way I'm spending (at least) $30 to walk through the mansion. I was hoping to get one of those iconic shots of the gates closed (note: Elvis not included), but we were there about an hour too early, and I wasn't about to hang around outside the many gift shops sponsored by the Presley estate ... so I did my best to get some shots of the wall, and then we hightailed it downtown to Rendesvous for the best dry ribs I've ever had.

So Memphis was nice -- at least the parts I saw were nice. We stayed in Germantown and only made excursions to tourist-approved areas, so it was pleasant enough. I've heard horror stories about the "other" Memphis, and oddly enough I was reading The Blind Side, which is more a story about an excruciatingly poor African American teen boy than it is about football. It's so good I've convinced Amina to read it, and she's enjoying it as much as I did.

And now it's a week later, and I'm sitting on my front porch, freezing my toes off. Fall is wonderful here in Tennessee; I'll take the chilly mornings over the bluster that is October in Minnesota, though the leaves here haven't really started changing yet. Oh, the sacrifices I make to live in a warmer clime ... :)