Elvis, Opryland and the world’s largest roach motel.

It’s definitely been a busy Sunday here at Howdygram headquarters. After a nice afternoon drive to Plano we came home to watch Tiger Woods win the AT&T Invitational, which turned out to be a genuine sweat festival at the Congressional Country Club in 100° heat.

Afterwards we enjoyed four consecutive hours of Olympic trials on NBC. Tonight’s activities included swimming, extremely fast women galloping around in bikinis, and men’s and women’s gymnastics. Sam and I love watching gymnastics, probably because we both always sucked at gymnastics big time in school. I also can’t gallop in a bikini. (I’ve never even OWNED one, for which all of you should be mighty grateful.) The London Olympics get underway on July 27. In addition to all the popular competitions — track and field, diving, archery, rowing, weightlifting and so on — we also get stuck with plenty of dumb crap like canoe sprinting, table tennis, trampoline, fencing, badminton, beach volleyball and water polo. Seriously.

And now for part two of our road trip retrospective! On June 21 we left Vicksburg heading north on the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile, two-lane scenic highway maintained by the National Park Service that features exceptional vistas, no billboards, no litter and 10,000 years of American history. There also are no stores or gas stations and most of the time you don’t even see another car. This is swell until you get a craving for Cheetos and can’t figure out where to buy them. At lunch time we stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi, for Mexican food at D’Casa and a peek at Elvis Presley’s birthplace, briefly careened into the northwest corner of Alabama because Sam promised it would be fun, and then headed back into Mississippi and on to Corinth for more Civil War history.

The roach motel pictured above is actually the Quality Inn on Route 72. We checked in and out in less than 15 minutes after discovering that our non-smoking room smelled like an ash tray and included a large number of cockroaches darting around in the bed and dresser drawers. After I stopped screaming we moved next door to a beautiful Hampton Inn behind the Exxon station.

The following day Sam and I visited a variety of inspirational sites such as the Corinth Contraband Camp, amazing exhibits and artwork at Corinth’s Civil War Interpretive Center and spent several hours at the Shiloh National Military Park across the state line in Tennessee.

The little town of Corinth was actually cuter than we expected, with a completely restored downtown area, gorgeous real estate and a number of interesting restaurants such as Bill’s with all-you-can-eat catfish and tasty cole slaw. Corinth is also home to a nice big Wal-Mart, where we had to beg the pharmacy for replacement insulin (see my earlier post) after we figured out that my new medicine cooler wasn’t working.

On June 23 we drove the last leg of the Natchez Trace Parkway northeast to Nashville, where we had reservations at the Hyatt Place in Hendersonville and tickets for the Grand Ole Opry ... which turned out to be a ROTTEN SCAM.

The Grand Ole Opry moved to a new venue about a year ago when it was bought out (and ruined) by the Gaylord entertainment conglomerate. The problem? THERE’S NOWHERE TO PARK! The Opry is on the same property as Opry Mills Mall, a massive shopping venue that also includes the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, the Gaylord Opryland Resort, the Opryland Event Center, a 20-screen cinema and two dozen restaurants. Seriously, how can these chiselers sell thousands of tickets to the Grand Ole Opry on a Saturday night and not provide anywhere to park? After driving around in circles for almost an hour Sam finally stopped in a fire lane, bolted into the box office and demanded our money back for two $45 tickets. Immediately thereafter we spent a large chunk of the aforementioned refund on a gourmet Chinese dinner at Fulin’s in Hendersonville. (For your possible interest, I found out later that the Opry isn’t actually a concert venue at all ... you just sit and watch a live two-hour radio program with commercials and the performers are a bunch of geezers who can’t get a gig anywhere else. Holy crap.)

The next day Sam and I visited Nashville’s Lane Motor Museum, where they’ve got dozens and dozens of amazing one-of-a-kind vehicles on display dating back to 1924. The 1928 Martin Aerodynamic pictured above looks like a Dr. Seuss invention.

Stay tuned for another road trip chapter tomorrow, okay? I need to go to bed now.