Tupelo, Mississippi

We left Memphis in a bit of a haste, not really wanting to spend the time finding a place to have breakfast and knowing that we were expected in Atlanta later in the evening.** Tupelo was the perfect lunch destination, about 100 miles from Memphis and big enough to have a decent place to stop. The town itself it pretty small, and a mixture of cute/quaint and gross/chainy. Basically, as soon as you step off of Main St., it looks like most other smallish towns, with not much of note. Wide, flat streets lined with brick buildings and empty parking lots. Not many people walking or cars on the road.

We settled on Harvey’s for lunch, not really knowing what to expect, especially because from the outside it looked like a furniture store with not much business. As it turns out, Harvey’s seems to be one of the nicer places in town, both in terms of ambience and food. My choice of shrimp and grits was a good one. LVL seemed OK with her teriyaki Ahi, but there were a few fishy bites along the way. Our waiter was really nice and had just about the thickest accent I’ve ever heard.

For non-Elvis fans, we sure seemed to be hitting all the hotspots. No sightings in Tupelo, but lots of signs for EP birth house and no fewer than 10 painted guitar replicas posted on Main St, many of which had an Elvis theme of some sort.

In case you had forgotten, summer in the south is H-O-T.

** We did have time to stop at a Cracker Barrel in order to exchange the Grisham book we started a day or so ago. A terrible choice for several reasons not really worth discussing. This time, we settled on “Dry Ice,” by Stephen White. We hope this standard formula crime thriller will get us quickly back to our pulpy comfort zone.