The plan was to go to Graceland this morning, cross the border to Arkansas by noon and have two solid hours at the Bill Clinton Presidential Library. That’s not going to happen. Not today, at least. We walked to our hotel from Sun Studio yesterday and asked the front desk:

Me: “Do we need reservations for dinner at Rendezvous tonight?”

Front Desk: “Normally you would…”

[At this point, I thought the clerk might say, “But since you’re staying at the hotel right next to the restaurant, it won’t be a problem,” or something of that nature.]

Front Desk: “…But it’s closed on Mondays.”

The entire reason that we took the slightly-longer southern route to Los Angeles was because my new roommates raved about Rendezvous’ ribs on their way out to L.A. in February. Six months later, we were finally at the door of this much-talked-about restaurant and discovered that it wouldn’t open until 4:30 PM Tuesday when we had originally planned to be out of the city by noon. Sorry, Bill Clinton, but we have to reschedule today because we didn’t have ribs last night.

Well, we did have ribs last night, but it was at the Blues City Café and it didn’t live up to the hype of “Memphis ribs.” Afterwards, we walked around the neon-lit shops of Beale Street, bought Blue Moons from one of the many beer patios that line this pedestrian-only street and listened to live music at a blues club. The bright lights and loud music couldn’t cure our own ribs blues. So, we decided to push back going to the Clinton Library until tomorrow, Wednesday morning, and spend almost all of Tuesday in Memphis before checking into our Little Rock hotel as late as possible.

Tuesday morning was entirely about Elvis. We pre-booked Graceland’s 9:15 AM tour for the AAA discounted price of $29.70 (normally $33). This oddly priced Platinum Tour ticket, at just $4 more than the Mansion-only Tour, included five extra exhibits.

We started off with the conventional audio-guided tour of the mansion, which looks untouched with dated shag carpets and 60s TVs that are far from high-definition. From the pool table in the basement to the swimming pool outside, everything is in pristine condition and explains why they don’t allow flash photography. There’s so much cultural history here that even if you don’t like Elvis’ music or despise celebrity, the fact that so much memorabilia of just one person is amassed in a single location is still an admirable accomplishment. I just don’t know what we passed more: gold records or gold suits.

The Platinum Tour ticket allowed us to walk through Elvis’ two custom airplanes, check out his extensive automobile collection, get a glimpse of his parallel career in 31 movies, learn about his brief military service and see all of the fan memorabilia, from the cool to the cheesy. For an extra $4, all of these extras were worth it and amounted to two hours of additional insight into the life of The King.

During the course of the tour, I learned that meatloaf was Elvis’ favorite meal. With meatloaf on the brain, that’s exactly what I ordered for lunch from the Chrome Grill. This on-sight café put it on a bun for me to make a sandwich, and with veggies and mashed potatoes, it was a delicious combination. The only thing that could be better is tonight’s planned dinner at Rendezvous.

Before Rendezvous opens, we have several hours to burn in downtown Memphis. The original plan called for visiting the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The actual museum is closed on Tuesdays, but we still walked a good 25 minutes each way to observe the historical outside of the motel.

During yesterday’s riverboat ride, we spotted a man kayaking the Mississippi River. With more than two hours to before heading to Rendezvous, we decided to travel to Mud Island, which is really a peninsula that juts out into the Mississippi. While we had hoped to kayak the river too, having kayaked before in Pennsylvania, the rental office was closed because there was a storm advisory. Even though the skies have been clear since we arrived in Memphis, the advisory has been in effect for the past two days; apparently that kayaking man from yesterday used his own. Not deterred, we still managed to navigate America’s longest river… on two kiddy paddleboats. One shaped like a white swan and the other a green dragon.

We were the only two people on the shallow river inlet, and after twenty minutes of peddling the boats furiously and attempting to steer them in the correct direction, I realized why that was. The intense Memphis sun was beating down on us so hard that our sunscreen began to run into our eyes along with the immense sweat. It cost us $2 to ride these kiddy boats and we probably spent more on bottled waters in the adjacent shop after we abandoned ship. In the end, I think a weather advisory was warranted, but for the powerful heat, rather than the absent storms.