Graceland

I wanted to fill you all in on our trip to Graceland. It was a lot of fun! Mike nor I were that excited about it at first, we were just taking Tanner. But, I have to say, once you're there you kind of get into it. The very first night we got to Memphis, we went out to eat on Beale Street. The first souvenir we bought were these sunglasses (with attached sideburns)! As soon as Tanner put them on, we could not resist! Note his new Elvis hat, too!!


We stayed in none other than the Heartbreak Hotel, which really is at the end of Lonely Street!! It was decked out in blue velvet and pictures of Elvis on every wall. We did have a little excitement while we were there. We went out to dinner our last night in Memphis and when we got back to the hotel, there were two firetrucks in front. As we entered the lobby, we noticed a lot of people sitting everywhere! Turns out, there was a faulty wire on the elevator which set off the fire alarms and all the guests were having to stay in the lobby on the ground floor until it was checked out. There was no fire, the firemen checked the elevator and we were allowed to return to our rooms around 11:00 (I think). Fast forward to 1:30 a.m.! We are waken by fire alarms going off! Talk about panic! People were going up and down the halls banging on doors telling people to get out! We were on the second floor. We were trying to throw some clothes on as fast as we could and get downstairs. You could not even think straight for the noise of the alarms! We get downstairs and oh, what a sight!! People are in their pajamas, hair sticking out everywhere, slippers on. It was a mess. So, after a few minutes, here come the fire trucks again! They check everything out and about 2:30 we are allowed to go back to our rooms. Who can go back to sleep after that?!?! Apparently, the sensor on the wire was bad and kept saying the wire was overheating or something, there never was a fire! But, we had to drive back home the next day and we were all beat!
Oh, I almost forgot the other exciting event! We were pulling into a gas station down the highway from the hotel and these two cars race out of the parking lot as we are turning in. Mike even commented that they must be racing. Well, when we get out to get gas, we find out a guy at the gas station just got his car stolen and one of those cars racing away was his!! Crazy!
We can't say we didn't have any excitement on the trip!


This is a shot of the front of Graceland. I like the way they do the tour. You walk through at your own pace and you have these headphones with this little player of some sort that narrates everything for you. You can pause it if you want to look around more before moving to the next room or you can skip ahead if something doesn't interest you. It's pretty neat. Graceland is not the mansion you think of celebrities living in today. But, it is still quite large. It looks smaller from the front, but seemed to keep going in the back.

This the first room you see when you enter the house. It's the living room. Check out those peacocks! If only I'd seen those before we finished building our house!!

This is the raquetball room that has been turned into a huge trophy case! These are just a few awards. There are hallways in the house lined with more!

The hotel had a sirius radio stand where you could listen to Elvis through headphones. Here's Tanner listening to the King!!

The Sirius radio station All Elvis (which we have to listen to all the time) broadcasts straight from Graceland. We got to go in the booth and talk with the dj. He told us all kinds of information. It was very interesting. He showed us how they set up the computer to play the songs. They have over 3,000 varieties of Elvis songs! This includes different versions of the same song as well as his songs done by other artists.

That concludes all the pictures I have so far. The rest of my pictures are not digital so I may have to post them later. We saw his private jets (the Lisa Marie and the Hound Dog), the Private Presley exhibit (from when he was in the army)and we toured Elvis' car museum. We also went to Sun Studio where he recorded while in Memphis. That was interesting. We also went to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. That was fun! We went over the Dolly Parton bridge to Arkansas, just so we could say we went to Arkansas! We stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi on the way home to see Elvis' birthplace and childhood home as well as the church he grew up. It really was a fun trip!

I thought I would end this post with a little Elvis trivia for those who might be interested:

*Elvis had a twin brother (Jesse Garron) who was stillborn

*Being a mama's boy, when his father remarried several years after his mother's death, Elvis would not let him continue to live at Graceland because he said that was his mama's house so he bought them a house next door (we rode by that house, too)

*The pink cadillac that everyone says he gave his mother never was his mother's. She never drove. He called it his mother's car because it was her favorite of all his cars

*Graceland today is what it looked like when Priscilla lived there, not what it was like when Elvis died

*Elvis (and his mother) were originally buried in a public cemetary, but due to security concerns, his father had them moved to Graceland. Today Elvis, his parents and his paternal grandmother are all buried at Graceland. There is a marker there for his twin brother, but he was buried in Tupelo

I'm sure there's much more I'm forgetting, but I'm getting really tired and can't think straight. I'll have to post more pix of our trip later when I can get them scanned. I hoped you have enjoyed your virtual tour of Graceland!