The most famous singer in America once climbed into the driver’s seat of a bus in Amarillo, Texas, and steered it west toward Hollywood himself.
Elvis Presley spent much of the mid-1960s turning out movie after movie in Hollywood, but home was still Graceland, his mansion in Memphis. Roughly 1,800 miles of road sat between the two.
And planes weren’t really his thing. A rough flight back in the 1950s had left him wary of flying, and for years he’d rather take the train or just drive.
He went out and bought himself a house on wheels. In March 1962, according to Graceland’s own timeline, Elvis picked up a Dodge “house car” with air conditioning, a double bed, two bunks and a kitchen. He planned to have it customized by George Barris, the Hollywood car builder who later designed the Batmobile, and use it to drive back and forth to California.
The guys who rode with him were old friends from Memphis, a crew the press nicknamed the Memphis Mafia. They took turns driving. Elvis liked to take his turn, too.
Along Route 66, his stops turned into local legend. The Trade Winds Motel in Clinton, Oklahoma, became known for Room 215, the “Elvis Room,” where he reportedly stayed at least four times.
In early 1965, Elvis was due in Hollywood to film “Harum Scarum,” and the group was running behind schedule. Riding along was Larry Geller, a hairstylist who’d become Elvis’s spiritual adviser, the friend he talked to about God and the big questions.
Geller liked to tell the story of how they first met, back in 1964.
Elvis Meets Larry Geller in 1964
When the bus reached Amarillo, Elvis took the wheel, according to Geller’s account. He kept it pointed west across New Mexico and into Arizona, with Larry in the seat beside him.
Past the Painted Desert, near the old Route 66 stops of Two Guns and Twin Arrows, clouds were piling up over the San Francisco Peaks outside Flagstaff.
Out of nowhere, Elvis shouted.
“Do you see what I see?” he asked Larry, as Geller later told it in his book about their years together.
Before long, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll had pulled off the highway and was running out into the desert on foot, telling Larry to follow him.
Larry would tell the story of that afternoon for the rest of his life. Here he is, looking back on the friend he lost in 1977.
Larry Geller on Remembering Elvis
By the time they rolled into California, Elvis was talking about leaving show business altogether, according to Geller. He even brought up becoming a monk. It took a long talk to convince him his voice was a gift he shouldn’t walk away from.
He didn’t give up the road, either. In early 1966, Graceland’s timeline notes, Elvis bought a Greyhound bus and sent it off to Barris to be customized as well.
Years later, he cut Chuck Berry’s song about a poor boy’s long ride across the country to California. It’s hard not to think of that bus when he sings it.