I'm Chevy Chase... and you're not

I'm posting from the lobby of my hotel in Collinsville, Ill., ready for NASFiC to begin tomorrow. It's somewhat surreal, since scenes of the horriffic bridge collapse in Minneapolis are dominating the airwaves on pretty much every TV channel except for the one playing noisily here in the lobby. We've driven across the Mississippi several times on this trip already, and a certain "there but for the grace of God go I" vibe is working its magic on Lisa and myself. Fortunately, the sage acting of Gary Sinise on the TV behind me is soothing my cares.

You'll all be dissappointed to know we did not strike it rich at Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas. Someone found a diamond right away, but that someone didn't have the last name of Blaschke. Instead, we found some interesting quartz, jasper and several other stones. The heat was sweltering--as unseasonably cool as Texas has been this summer, Arkansas wasn't. We then jaunted over to Hot Springs, and were bowled over by Bath House Row. Thunderstorms were rolling in, so we didn't get to hike much in the park, and instead pushed on to Memphis for the night.

Memphis was great. It's sort of like a strange hybrid, equal parts Houston, Austin and San Antonio. We caught some live music on Beale Street, saw the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assasination, visited an underground railroad museum, were denied the chance to tour Sun Studios (a particularly annoying development as far as I was concerned) and did the whole Graceland thing. Yeah, we'll be back to Memphis someday.

Today we drove from Memphis to St. Louis, by way of Metropolis. Normally, Metropolis, Ill., isn't a place that would find itself on the route to St. Louis from Memphis, as one surprised postal carrier opined. But we're not in this part of the country very often, and the chance to see the giant Superman statue, not to mention visit the Superman Museum, was too much to resist. Unfortunately, they have insanely low speed limits on most of the non-interstate highways through Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois, so we made horrible time. Most of the day was lost, so our grand plans to visit the St. Louis Arch this evening were scrapped in order for us to avoid additional car time. We had dinner at White Castle, the first time Lisa and I have ever dined at that particular establishment. Color us not impressed. Whatever the big deal is, it's lost on us.

Now Playing: television medical drama in the background