Ebbis's House

Graceland has never been high on my list of places to go but since I was headed to Memphis and I'd never been, I thought I ought'a. If you haven't been, maybe you should but for me, this will be my first and last time. Elvis was exploited in his life and he's still being exploited in death. I felt a little exploited myself. First of all, Graceland is a kind of nice, upper-upper middle class house with what looks like a Formstone® facade, a faux southern-plantation-with-columns front porch, a swimmin' pool, a target practice tool shed and the King's gravesite along with his parents' and granny's. Bad 1970's taste abounds. I hurried out of Tennessee and made it to Kentucky by nightfall.

 

Here's a little Graceland giftshop item I had some trouble getting my brain around:

And here are a couple of shots of the beautiful sunset in Kentucky:

Little Rock

Little Rock is a nice town. It was very quiet the day I was there, Tuesday, March 13. I'd had a yen for Thai food for about two weeks and I found one on Google Maps but it had just closed when I got there so that flavor had to go untasted for another while. I spent a couple hours at the capitol while the sun set.

I also noticed a fire hydrant in a way I hadn't before and used it as inspiration for another 3D project.

Moving Right Along

These pictures are about three weeks old, so I'm starting to catch up with reality. ([{!?!}]) First step after New Mexico was Oklahoma City (I was traveling at least two hundred miles every day), the next capitol I haven't been to yet. 


Here's a shot of the sky on that day. The skies in that part of the country are some of the most spectacular I've seen.

As it happens, I-40 takes you right past the famous Cadillac Ranch, an art installation that's basically a bunch of Caddies buried... well you see. The people in charge encourage the graffiti so I imagine it changes appearance quite a bit over time.

On my way through Oklahoma City I happened to drive past the site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. So I stopped. It's a very powerful tribute to the people who died there at the hands of our own home-grown terrorist, Tim McVeigh.

And the capitol. This place has oil derricks right on the capitol grounds.

Arizona to New Mexico

Heading east, the first stop was Tempe, AZ to see Ersula, Amanda's college roommate who's now a hot shot college professor at AU. We had a nice time. Tempe is actually a nice town. If I seem surprised it's because it contrasts so strongly with my impression of Phoenix.

I like this shot. It reminds me of a Giorgio De Chirico painting. It's on the campus of AU.

Next, I headed north to Flagstaff by way of Sedona:

From there it was on to Corrales, NM where I also a had a nice time with Debby and Marsha. I also had some of the only snow of the winter there.

3-D Stuff

Lately I've been gaining some skills in Strata Design 3D, the program I use to model, texture, light and render objects. This Gibson L00 guitar is one of my more challenging project in progress. I want to be able to create an exploded view so all the parts will have to be fully modeled.

 

Eastward Ho!

I hated to leave the Slabs but when the desert wakes up so do the rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, black widow spiders, gila monsters and killer bees. Here are a few last Slab City Shots:

Backstage at the Range:

A column of smoke at Slab City is often a cause for alarm. In this case, though, it was a controlled burn of crop stubble. It was actually quite beautiful.

This is the home of Moth, one of the locals. I think this was part of a sewage treatment plant when the place was a military base.

And my parting shot of the guard house with the message "Caution: Reality Ahead".

I left on March 6th and headed north to I-10. Off to the south there was another agricultural fire. This one was out of control and made the news that day.

And a dust storm to the north.