Day Five - Willie Nelson - On the road again

This morning we all woke up relatively early and were out of the house by 8:30 on our way to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee.  But first breakfast.  Despite its huge local influence the Elvis Presley estate could not secure a Denny's franchise anywhere near Graceland so we went to somewhere called "the Rock n Roll Diner."  It was shit.  Whilst we were eating it was raining rather a lot but luckily it had stopped by the time we finished and rolled into Graceland car park.

For Christmas 2018 I got us all "Ultimate VIP tour" passes which got us our own tour guide and access to some rare Elvis artifacts, more on those later.  The tour started at 10:45 when we were greeted by our guide, the interestingly named "Ecstasy."   I knew we were running with the cool kids when not a single member of our group took took the opportunity to pose for a theme park photo against a fake background.

The tour of the house was fantastic with our guide giving us some useful new insights (I had been to Graceland quite recently so was worried it would be repetitive.)  It was also quite fascinating to talk to Ecstasy, it was as if she had been indoctrinated into some kind of Elvis worshipping cult, it went way beyond someone with enthusiasm for her job and for that I am grateful.  The tour and subsequent museum were fascinating although it was interesting to note that Colonel Parker had been pretty much airbrushed from the Elvis story, perhaps at his request as he was too busy with his chicken empire.

The Yeats family outside Graceland (photo copyright Ecstacy)

Grelfie (portmantau of Graceland and Selfie)

Following on from the house we were given a guided tour of Elvis' car collection, which contains an amazing collection of cars and other motorised toys.  This caused Emma to remark that she thought I would have made similar life choices to Elvis if I had been a bit wealthier.  Having had time to reflect on this she was spot on, right down to the cheeseburger heavy diet.

The final bit of the tour which was reserved for those of us on the Ultimate VIP Tour was to visit our special lounge (mainly for people who were spending even longer than the 4 hour tour at Graceland and needed a good sit down).  Here we were instructed to put on some white cotton gloves so we could handle an actual Elvis artifact, which turned out to be the gold microphone he used during his 1972 Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite concert.  This was an amazing chance to touch something handled by the great man and all the members of our group were very careful.  Being keen to show the correct degree of reverence I promptly dropped it on the floor.  I am not sure I am allowed back to Graceland but Emma thought it was funny.

Elvis Mic in happier times

Following some lunch and some shopping (Emma) we hit the road for Nashville some 200 miles away.  Traffic was a bit heavier than yesterday so our cruising speed was a bit slower.  Our air b and b is slightly out of the town centre but is in a really nice development.  On arrival mum and I decided to walk to the local grocery store for a few bits, mainly beer on my part.  This involved walking through a neighbourhood which could kindly be described as 'edgy.'  To give an illustration the lady in front of us at the secure payment window asked for $1 worth of cigarettes.  That said everyone was very friendly, that or totally surprised to see us walking round there.  The guy in the shop was great and even handed back a second $20 bill that had stuck to the first one mum gave him. 

The next part of the day showed what different life styles mum and Emma have to me, they were both keen to have a quiet night in rather than defaulting to finding the nearest bar and bivouacking down for the night.  Still I don't think it will do me any harm but does mean today's blog post is quite short due to the abbreviated day.

Tomorrow I am having a day to myself and heading for the NASA museum in Huntsville Alabama.  Quite looking forward to some top notch space geeking.