171 "We're going to Gracelands, Memphis Tenesee"

Friday 24th May 2013 Miles Today 244  Total  4931


Last night we had a re-think over our route. We had an invite from a lovely couple in Nashville, Walt Mobley and his wife, who post comments on the blog as Dragonfly, unfortunately we unable to mesh in the dates and as we are getting a bit behind with the mileage so we decided to skip a few places, namely, Nashville, the Cedar Park fun fair on Lake Erie and Chicago. This has saved us about 800 miles.  Despite that I have to say a big thank you to Walt and his Lady.

This change allowed us to head straight for Elvis Presley's, Graceland's estate in Memphis. A 180 mile dash got us there mid afternoon and after buying our tickets, which for a change we thought was reasonable, especially with the Armed Forces discount. They seem to revere their current and previous forces personnel. 

Anyway, Gracelands. Brilliant. We started off with a tour of the actual Gracelands mansion which was a lot smaller than we expected it to be.

The whole place was quite small

The lounge including piano

Dining room

A very dated (now) kitchen

The jungle room. Even the ceiling has a green carpet on it.

One of the many trophy rooms with probably 30% of the gold disks.

Some of the outfits made famous by Elvis

We then went outside into the garden and the place took on another dimension.  As well as a swimming pool, paddock and racket ball court, there was the family plot.

In the garden is Elvis' grave along with his Mum and Dad

Across the road is a museum with some of his old cars and other toys in it.

Elvis also had two planes. inside one was like a long plush hotel.

This was the dining room inside the larger of the two planes.

We then hit the Diner, and also a couple of bottles of Bud.

Comment not required.

It was then, up-sticks and set off on the very long journey across the massive wheat-fields and farms of central America. On the West side of the Mississippi the world becomes flat for about 2000 miles.

Pic taken whilst riding on a motorway so please excuse the shot.

As we approached our stop for the night in Jonesboro the sun was sinking fast.

Once we had found a motel, we went straight out for some dinner and then hit the sack.

The next few days are going to be a hard slog riding over the flat farming vastness of central America so do not expect too much in the way of scenic photos for a while. The good news it that when it is over, it will get real good.