Oklahoma City, OK to Memphis, TN

It was nice to hit the road with my sister. It felt like a furnace as we left OKC:

We sought out a Starbucks and had a quick bite of oatmeal with some beverages (iced latte for me!) to go. Oskar even got a little fresh air before we hit the road:

Did I mention it was hot? There was a constant haze everywhere as the humidity just hung in the air. I can only imagine the heat for my 6 month pregnant sister:

Am I dreaming or did I drive all the way to Europe?

Am I still dreaming? Or does this bike really exist?

As we left Oklahoma, and made our way through Arkansas, we first saw billboards for a Swiss restaurant and then a Swiss family winery. I sure could have gone for some fondue. And wine. But I guess the bigger question is if there is a Swiss enclave in Arkansas? There was a big Tyson Chicken plant off the I-40 as well as a Bosch plant. It was in Arkansas where I saw bumper stickers like "I Miss W" and "I was anti-Obama before it was cool to be anti-Obama". Also, "Jesus Saves" billboards made way for Adult SuperCenters and Gift Shops:

(Whenever I passed the Adult "Gift Shops", I just thought of
a desperate shopper on December 24,
breathing a sigh of relief,
thank goodness that Adult Gift Shop on the I-40 is open late tonight)

As we neared the Arkansas/Tennessee border, my sister and I briefly pondered powering through to Nashville for another 3 hours. But I thought it would be nice to hit a town before 10pm and have a nice dinner and hopefully a good night's sleep. So we decided to stick to landing in Memphis (this is the famous pyramid in Memphis) after logging in 500 miles:

We decided to go to a nice dinner in the shopping center behind the hotel. My sister and I were both surprised by this store--we had never seen "The Diabetes Store" before:

We enjoyed a great dinner at Amerigo's, which apparently is a franchise, but the owners like to add a "localvore" flavor to the food served there. We enjoyed a great dinner of arugula salad with grilled apples, Chilean Sea Bass, pasta with roasted vegetables, and a gigantic slice of key lime pie. And I indulged in a glass of Ghost River hefeweizen.

When we returned to the hotel, I kept trying our card key into our room with little luck. I kept sticking the the card key in and shaking the door handle harder and harder. After the third time, I realized that I was trying to get into the wrong room. I blame the heat melting my brain and that frankly, all the rooms look alike.

Because did I mention it was hot in Memphis?! This is at nearly 10pm and the humidity was insane:

Well, if the occupants of room 312 felt harassed by this fellow hotel guest, I would say that karmic justice prevailed when I opened our mini-fridge to put our drinks in there overnight and found leftover Chinese food and two nearly-finished bottles of Alize by the previous guest. Nope, did not look in the food containers. Or polish off the Alize.

We zoned out to the TV blaring--I think it was some NFL preview game between the Tennessee Titans and the newly Pete Carroll-headed Seattle Seahawks. Or was I dreaming that too?