Party Like It's 2000

The wife and I are planning on leaving the area in 2007. In preparation for the move, I'm trying to relive a few of my favorite places and moments in the New River Valley. Since we didn't really have any plans for New Year's Eve, I talked the wife, Ella, and my friend Sean, who was visiting from Charlottesville, into reliving December 31, 1999 with me.


I've mentioned New Year's Eve 1999 before. For our last trip of the milennium, we went to the Roanoke Star and Miniature Graceland for the first time. It was a nice day, if a little overcast, and we had a wonderful time tooling around Roanoke.

December 31, 2006 was a little different.

To say it was overcast is like saying that France's military is a little incompetent, or the Dutch language is somewhat harsh, or Keven Federline is a moderately untalented scuzzball hack who prostituted himself for cash and a shot at fame. It wasn't just overcast; it was a three-dimensional diorama of Paris Hilton's thought process.

The cloud cover started something like three inches off the ground. Everything was gray, and visibility was approximately twenty feet or so. It was like being in Limbo.


It perfectly suited our moods.

We should have been scared to drive around in this muck, but we were amazed at the beauty of it all. It was a little clearer on the interstate, but the highway seemed to disappear a few hundred feet in front of the car, and every mountain's edge looked like a gateway to nothingness. In Roanoke, the cloud cover was a little higher, but Mill Mountain was still covered. It was like Mount Fuji, Southwest Virginia style.

We got a little lost on the way to the star, but ultimately found it. Right below the star is an overlook that, usually, has about a 60-mile view. Here's what it looked like on December 31:


That's my sister, Ella, dressed like an immigrant, circa 1906. Here's George in a similar costume:


As always, we had to take "Russian Heroic" pictures of ourselves at the star. Here's Ella, looking like a Soviet recruitment poster, circa 1947:



After we spent a little time looking out over the cloud cover shrouding the city of Roanoke, we went to Miniature Graceland. Surprisingly, we were able to find it very quickly. Every other time I've visited, I've found it overgrown and very shabby looking. This time, it was a different story. The Elvis statue had been cleaned up, and looked pretty sharp:


And the owner's son has done a beautiful job with Graceland itself. He's installed a little wall around it, and is in the process of putting in a replica of Elvis' gravesite. Overall, it looked pretty great. Here's Ella and George menacing it with their best monster looks:


And here's Sean doing his best one-man re-enactment of the history of Rock Music, circa 1976:


When we got home, we had a great Chinese dinner, then returned to the house to ring in the New Year. The next day was clear and bright.

I'm taking the weather as a portent. 2007 is going to be good.

The Day I Caught a Glimpse of Little Elvis

In Southwest Virginia, the big city is Roanoke. This, of course, is a little odd, as Roanoke has a population of just over 300,000 people. Still, it has an international airport, two ballet companies, four malls, a few hospitals, some museums, and a couple of interesting tourist attractions, so I guess that it could be worse. I mean, it's not Muncie.

One of my favorite hobbies is playing tourist in my own hometown. I buy a travel guide, list all the interesting things to see, and seek them out. When I started doing this a few years ago, the first thing on my list was Miniature Graceland. I read about it in Moon Guides' Virginia Handbook, by Juilan Smith. He wrote: "Miniature Graceland is [...] the product of hours of loving work. Don and Kim Epperly have filled their modest backyard with doll-sized replicas of major buildings in Elvis' life, topped by Graceland itself, complete with car museum."

Clearly, I couldn't resist. However, a place like Miniature Graceland deserves special treatment, so I saved it for the very end of the milennium. On December 31, 1999, accompanied by my sister Ella, my friend John, and John's creepy friend, whose name I've (mercilessly) forgotten, I traveled the hour down 81 to Roanoke. We started our pilgrimage at the Roanoke Star, which is the largest neon star in the world. Supposedly, Elvis also visited the star on a trip to Roanoke. Regardless, the star gave us an opportunity to take lots of Soviet-style pictures of ourselves and marvel at what, truly, is a huge eyesore. While up there, we also noticed what we thought was a group of Amish driving a compact car. On closer observation, though, we realized that they were only Mennonites.


On the way back down Mill Mountain, we stopped in on Graceland. I think we drove past the place a few times, as it is, essentially, the side yard of a non-descript house in a very non-descript neighborhood. Finally, though, we found the place, parked, and silently piled out of the car. Reverently, we approached the shrine. The first thing we saw was the statue of Elvis. The Epperly's had, apparently, decided that any shrine to Elvis needs an idol. There's was a full-sized gold replica of the man himself. However, when we got nearer we realized that the statue appeared to be a mannequin of an asian man with a huge pompadour and a lot of gold paint. Unwilling to let reality get in the way of style, however, we acknowledged that this was a true stroke of genius, dropped a dollar or two in the little gold-painted collection box, and went on our merry way.

Miniature Graceland was, to be honest, kind of a disappointment. While we enjoyed taking pictures of ourselves from forced-perspectives, the joy of impersonating Godzilla in Memphis quickly dissipated, particularly as we noticed that Miniature Graceland was...well, a little seedy. The grounds were overgrown, the house needed a paintjob, and the Barbie dolls that the Epperlys had put in the little buildings were somewhat threadbare. On further reflection, however, we realized that the Epperlys had, actually, captured the true spirit of Graceland: seedy, overgrown, a little tacky, and in need of a fresh coat of paint.

Happy once again, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, where we had our last official meal of the milennium.

I've since returned to Miniature Graceland, and found it to be even more overgrown and seedy. However, on the bright side, Don Epperly's son Mike has taken control of Miniature Graceland and is in the process of rebuilding and refinishing the houses. So there's hope for mini-Elvis after all.