Days 22 and 23 - Graceland!

Days 22 and 23. I couldn’t post yesterday because this website was down!

Okies...so we left New Orleans yesterday morning and headed for Memphis, Tennessee. This meant a day’s driving, as well as leaving Louisiana, driving fully up the state of Mississippi and into Tennessee. The Bear picked up another rental vehicle which we had booked to drive there – and this time we were supplied with a Chevrolet – a massive white SUV. Now this vehicle came with a GPS – not that the Bear or I knew how to use. However we figured we may as well use the facility. Several pushes of its buttons later....and we were on our way.

It took us approximately four and a half seconds to get lost and wanting to throw the GPS fair out the window. Fortunately my husband has a good sense of direction (I am completely lost in this country because I don’t know the damned postcodes) and we were back on track. The Bear considers himself to be a walking GPS. A good three or four minutes later rather than find ourselves on a freeway out of town.....we were in a little suburb which was made up of mausoleums. Now whilst this might have provided the Bear with a great deal of frustration, I felt this presented me with a number of unexpected photo opportunities and began to snap away at the crypts. Seriously, this was a suburb of cemeteries and obviously people were dying to get in *boom boom*.

Each cemetery had a nice little entrance with the graveyards name on it....and some sort of feature. The first one that I saw....featured a nice fountain. An excellent idea. A mausoleum with a nice double decker fountain. I wondered which one of the residents was going to enjoy this. Or perhaps it was a very large bird bath? For a pterodactyl?

The next mausoleum was found to have a large statue at its entrance. I felt this was more appropriate not that my appropriateness metre was really running at this point. In fact it was quite the opposite and I resisted the urge to ask the Bear to go back for another look so that I could see if the statue was naked.

The next mausoleum that we passed seemed to be quite a wealthy one – or should I say that the residents obviously had a few dollars behind them – because their forever homes were quite grand. I wondered what interesting ornament would feature at these early gates. A large dollar sign? A wad of cash? Another bird bath or fountain perhaps? Nope. It was a very large stag (male deer). My non-appropriateness got started off with suggestions surrounding “horns”. Enough said. All the while, the Bear is swearing his head off at the GPS....but the walking GPS got us back on track.

Two and a half minutes later we somehow entered a shopping mall....when we were supposed to re-enter a freeway. I would just like to take this opportunity to thank my husband for an awesome scenic tour of New Orleans suburbia. (Seriously – if it had have been me driving we would have ended up in the potato fields of Idaho).

At last we were on the right track and had the awesome opportunity to drive over the World’s longest bridge (over water). This dead straight bridge is 40 kilometres long and is a masterpiece. To try to figure out how they managed to build this did my head in. There is a toll to be paid when heading southbound on the bridge. Fortunately we were headed north.

We really didn’t spend too much longer in Louisiana and we were soon in the state of

Mississippi. Now this is truly beautiful state. Louisiana is gorgeous but Mississippi is something else. The country-side is a cross between alpine and deep south. Amid the beautiful fir and pine trees, there were little cabins that you might see in the movies on the bayous....with an African/American sitting out the front on his rocker. The leaves on the trees are every shade of autumn/fall and I can see where the Americans get their colour schemes for Thanksgiving.

As we were driving I became overwhelmingly tired following becoming sick earlier that morning. I could not prevent myself falling asleep although I did not want to. By lunchtime the Bear needed to pull over into a gas station, as he too needed a kip. Later in the afternoon I again struggled to remain awake however the Bear woke me up prior to reaching the next border given that he knows I am taking photos of these milestones. We finally came to the Tennessee border and with that we were also in Memphis. The landscape immediately changed.

Memphis was nothing like I had imagined. No...I have no clue what I imagined, but I knew that this wasn’t it. I found that it was quite ugly and had no personality like the other cities or states we had been to. It is unassuming and quite plain. The freeway was littered with trash, the houses non-eventful, and the street corners are boring. In every other city we have been to, there is a CVS (large Chemist chain) on every corner, or a Walgreens (also a chemist but with a few groceries), or a large line of take away stores. Memphis doesn’t have this. I could have been in Brisbane for all I knew. However I knew Graceland was here so knew there was more to this city than it appeared.

This morning we headed off to Graceland early with the intention of having breakfast there. Again I was surprised by Elvis Presley Boulevard as it was nothing like I had imagined. It is a large main road which is very busy, and contains a number of run down businesses. There were homeless men begging for money – it was just ghastly given that it has a major tourist attraction (I sooooo hate using that term for Graceland). However once you actually get to Graceland, everything changes. On one side of the road you have the commercial side of things – the souvenir shops, eating areas and where you pick up the shuttle to go across to the mansion (you can’t just walk up there yourself) etc. It is also where Elvis’ planes and cars are housed, as well as a number of memorabilia items.

We went in and purchased our tickets before going and having a bite to eat. Again we encountered those that could not understand our accent however I am none the wiser as to why. Following this we went out to wait for a shuttle to take us across to the mansion. When you line up to get this, your photo is taken with a picture of the gates to Graceland. These photos are to be ready by the time you get back from across the road (the mansion). I find this concept interesting and an amazing revenue raising activity by the Americans. They do this absolutely where ever possible. Going to Alcatraz? *Snap* Now there is a souvenir you can’t refuse. Going on a paddle steamer? *Snap* Shit they got us again. Thank you for the unplanned souvenir. Going to Graceland? *Snap* You really would have thought we would have learned by now. Yes please...another souvenir. Going to the rest rooms? *Snap* Yep another souvenir of where you spent a penny. exaggeration maybe....but I am not too far off the mark.

Going up to the mansion was something I wasn’t quite prepared for. It was a total contrast to the commercial activity across the road – it was a quiet and extra-ordinarily beautiful residence. It was much smaller than I had imagined, and the estate was as well. It is not small by any stretch of the imagination however it was not humungous like I had expected. The house and grounds have been done up for Christmas and this added to its charm. When going to Graceland you wear a headset and listen to an audio tape explaining rooms, outer buildings, and items that are there. It was very easy to imagine Elvis being here and it seemed to make him more human. The things you learn about the man whilst you are there is very surprising. He was a very, very generous person who worked very hard at doing what he loved. He was passionate about his family and his privacy, and he was extraordinarily talented. He made a HUGE contribution to the music world and changed the lives and career pathways of many. However I still do not believe that he died 16 August 1977 and am still very much a supporter of the conspiracy theory....consider me mad if you must.

Once we got back across the road, we visited the museums and subsequently the attached souvenir shops to each one of them. I find the commercial side of “Elvis – The Business” quite awful and along with the Bear wondered what he would think of all this rot now.

Following this we headed to Sun Studios where Elvis first went to record a song for his mothers birthday. Fortunately a receptionist who was on the day that he went there, kept a copy of the song he recorded and played it for the owner of the recording studio. Unfortunately the owner was not interested, and it was a year before Elvis was contacted and asked to come in and record another song to see how it would be received on the air. The rest, as they say, is history. We did a tour of Sun and had the most awesome tour guide who was an enthusiastic man who clearly loved the music industry and its history. We heard original recordings of people such as Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis – just a couple of names of people who went there with a dream and became superstars. It was just awesome!

We then went for a quick drive over the next border to the state of Arkansas. Why? Because we could! Strangely once we crossed the border the scenery changed again and seemed appropriate for Arkansas – big fields of.....grass.

Visiting Beale Street was one of Alyx’s requests on the “to-do” list. This is Memphis’ Bourbon Street – a high activity location where jazz is prominent. I absolutely loved it. It was very similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans however was more open, cleaner, and more inviting. It was also very handy to The Peabody Hotel where we could witness “The Peabody Ducks” to their second march of the day. At 11am every day, the Peabody Ducks come down from their home in them, via an elevator, to take up residence in a fountain in the middle of the hotel for the day. At 5pm they return up the elevator and back to their home. It is a long held tradition with the hotel – there is a lengthy story to it however I simply do not have the time to go into it now. There were several hundred people at this viewing of the ducks and although we were quite a long way back, still got to see them do their thing. They were just awesome.

Now I have to be up in four hours, to catch a flight to New York....so I am heading to bed. Each day is more filled than the last and my time is very scarce. My blogs are becoming boring reads! As we are going on two flights again tomorrow, I am sure I will have plenty of material tomorrow night. So.....see you in New York