Around noon on Saturday, a young man stumbled into the Graceland entrance plaza. Holding a take-out box in one hand, he slumped onto a park bench before devouring chicken and waffles with his bare hands. The man behaved like a complete savage— his hands were coated in syrup as he fingered soggy waffles into his mouth with one hand, his off-hand wielding a crusty chicken finger. Breathing syrup and grease rather than oxygen and nitrogen, he ate ravenously. All the while, this creature grumbled and groaned unintelligibly. I think he might have twitched a little. You could easily mistake this stumbling, zombie-like mess for your average homeless man, but you’d be mistaken. That wretch, sitting at Graceland forcing syrup-soaked chicken down his throat faster than you can say “Love Me Tender,” was myself.
Read More24 Hours in Yosemite National Park /
On a dreary Autumn night, I boarded the train to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t even planned on going to Yosemite Valley. Instead, I convinced myself I’d be flying off to the Grand Tetons by way of Jackson Hole, or alternatively, to Teddy Roosevelt National Park via Bismarck, North Dakota. As a plan C, we could always go to Memphis and hit up the Rendezvous. And that’s exactly the way I thought, until I ended up in Yosemite on “Free Park Day” two years in a row.
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