Tennessee and Alabama

From Kentucky we headed down to Memphis, Tennessee. I had always wanted to visit Graceland, the home and final resting place of Elvis. We stayed at Graceland RV park, right across from the mansion, so didn’t have far to go to get there. The mansion was much smaller that I expected and the tour only covered the ground floor and basement, so didn’t get to see upstairs. The grounds were quite big as he used to keep horses and also loved cars and motorbikes, so the garage was quite big. No flash photography was allowed so some of the pics are slightly blurred:

Front and back of the house

Lounge area with baby grand piano

Dining room and kitchen

Jungle room where he used to hang out with friends and family

There are over 150 gold and platinum discs and many more trophies in what was the garage

And even more in what was the racquet ball court. He was very generous and gave millions of dollars to charities both large and small. I guess coming from such humble beginnings he never forgot his roots.

The Meditation Garden was built in the mid 60s and offered Elvis a private, serene and quiet place for reflection and meditation. It was one of his favourite places and is now his final resting place, along with his parents and his grandmother.

Elvis loved his cars and bikes and most of his ‘toys’ are now in the museum. They include the white Mercedes 280L Roadster he bought for Priscilla in 1970, a black 1960 Rolls Royce Phantom, a 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood that he later gave to his mum, a 1966 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud, 1975 Ferrari Dino and a 1956 Cadillac Eldorado that he had painted purple, to name just a few.

We also went inside his Convair 880 jet called the Lisa Marie. He bought it for $250k in 1975 and then spent over $800k customising it. There was a large lounge area, dining room, queen size bed and gold plated sinks and taps and lots of TVs everywhere as Elvis liked to keep his guests happy

Every night we went down to Beale Street, the centre of night life in Memphis. This is where all the bars and restaurants were and most had live music. Many legendary performers such as Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, B.B. King played on Beale Street and helped create the style known as “Memphis Blues”. It’s also where Ulysses S. Grant had a Civil War Headquarters and where Martin Luther King Jr marched and was assassinated nearby.

We said goodbye to Memphis and took a small detour through Mississippi and into Alabama to a place called Red Bay which is where Tiffin Motorhomes (e.g. Allegro, Phaeton, etc) are made. We did a proper factory tour, walking through where the workers were (what health and safety?), so we could see how these are put together. One huge shed was filled with lots of wood and very large machines as they make all their cabinets on site. It was great to see how they built the sliders before inserting them into the coach.

A short hop (100 miles) up the highway and we were in Huntsville, also known as Rocket City. The story of the Saturn V (America’s Moon rocket) begins here in this small southern cotton town, where missile research and development was the key. When Allied troops advanced into Germany during World War II, Wernher Von Braun and some of his team (responsible for the V-2s that bombed England, France and Belgium) surrendered to the U.S army.  Huntsville has one of the three Saturn V rockets on display. The other two can be found at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida (which we’ve seen) and at Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.

The one outside at Huntsville is a replica, but the one inside was used for initial vibration tests.

Apparently, when all five rockets were test fired, it caused an earthquake which blew out windows in the town and all the skunks in the vicinity let rip their scents. Eeww, I wouldn’t have wanted to be around that day! There were lots of other rockets and exhibits to look at and also Pathfinder, a 75 ton Orbiter simulator that was used to practice lifting and handling the real orbiters and as a stand-in for the space shuttle

Then it was off to Nashville for a few days and a bit of country music and a visit to the Grand Ole Opry, home of the famous stage and radio show in Music Valley.

We spent the evenings in a variety of bars and restaurants, listening to a number of bands and even though we're not big country music fans, it was enjoyable.

A trip to the mountains was next, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to be exact. It straddles the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, with lush forests, wildflowers, streams and rivers and is part of the Appalachian Trail.

We also drove along part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Tomorrow we head down to Atlanta, Georgia and check out another state. 

never in my life

was i embarrassed to be british until tonight. For everyone who didnt vote, shame on you. For everyone that voted leave, i disown you. As the son of a refugee, i'll be exploring my alternate heritage as I really don't want to be one of you.

Four states in two weeks...

Namely Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky

After a very stressful drive into Chicago (for me, not Mark – he was quite comfortable navigating multi-level interchanges that make Birmingham’s spaghetti junction look like an infant, a 12 lane highway and multiple closed lanes and coned off areas) we arrived at our salubrious pitch for the next four days - the truck marshaling yards at McCormick Place, the largest conference centre in North America. This was where all the tour buses and trucks park once they’ve unloaded their passengers/cargo for the events held there. The nearest RV park to Chicago was at least an hour’s drive away. As we only needed somewhere to sleep, a quick walk to the bus stop and a short 15 minute ride had us in downtown Chicago – perfect.

Our first stop was to the top of the Sears Tower, now known as the Willis Tower. The Skydeck is 1,353 ft/412m high and from here, we could see all the way to Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin

We walked all over the city and joined a couple of tours with local guides where we got the inside story on many of the buildings. We were rather footsore at the end of 3 days, but it was worth it

We also visited Peoria, home of Caterpillar. It showed the history and how the company evolved over the years. Mark was rather disappointed as he expected more information on machinery that wasn’t even covered, but I guess they only have so much space.

We crossed over into Indiana and stayed at a small village called Shipshewana in an Amish community. The town of Middlebury only 5 miles away, is where the majority of motorhomes, 5^th wheels and caravans (travel trailers) are made in the US. We had to go on a couple of factory tours to see how Badger was made and how 5^th wheel’s were manufactured. All in all, very informative.

Next, on to Ohio and Dayton for the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where we were 2 years ago. We just happened to be there for the official opening of the fourth hangar, where lots of R&D, presidential and experimental planes that we saw previously on the air base are now on show. It is now easy to walk around them including the only surviving North American XB-70 Valkyrie, Bockscar the B-29 Superfortress that dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb on Nagasaki during the last days of WWII and old Presidential planes.

Kentucky was our next state and on to the Bourbon Trail. We visited Woodford Reserve (premium/craft brand), Maker’s Mark (medium) and Jim Beam (common). Not being a whiskey drinker, I didn’t know anything about bourbon. To be called bourbon,

• It must be produced in the US
• It must be made for a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn
• It has to be aged in new, charred white oak barrels
• Distilled to no more the 160 (US) proof (80% alcohol by volume)
• Barrelled for aging at no more than 125 proof (62.5% alcohol by volume)

There are a few more regulations around labeling the age of the bourbon. 

We also spent a day at Mammoth Caves, the longest known cave system in the world. It currently has 400 miles/640 kms of surveyed passageways and more are being discovered on a regular basis. It was interesting squeezing our way through Fat Man's Misery, a winding passageway that was only two feet wide in places from the waist down and Tall Man's Misery where even I had to bend double.

We’ve also been doing the barbecue trail with lots of ribs, pulled pork and brisket. I can understand why they gave the world KFC and kept the good stuff for themselves! Mark has already blogged about that :-) 

Tomorrow we head for Memphis in Tennessee. 

"I like pig butts

And I cannot lie"...to quote the staff shirts from bucky bee's in Kentucky, one of the many BBQ restaurants we have been visiting in the past few days.  We've visited a number of places across the US over the past two years but now we are coming to the home of BBQ where everyone else copies it from. The West Kentucky BBQ sauce is smokey and sweet, apparently it will get more sour and tangy as we go across to the Carolinas, but for now I'm doing my best to live by pig alone. And the odd bit of brisket....

We also did a small part of the bourbon trail in central Kentucky, Jim beam, makers mark and woodford reserve representing large, medium and small distillers. All cite the limestone aquifer and subsequent water quality as the reason they are there. One of them also blames the calcium in the water and the grass as the reason Kentucky raises such good racehorses. But we haven't yet found anywhere that combines all 3 into barbecue bourbon basted horse ribs...

Wisconsin...

is known for its cheese. Having visited 5 cheese factories, we've come to the conclusion that most of it is not to our taste and was quite bland. It's just as well we didn't have high expectations. We don't really care for all the flavoured varieties and prefer the cheese to 'speak for itself' as it were. We did find some pleasant aged Swiss (at Kraemer) and also bought a block of 3 year aged cheddar (at Beechwood) that was quite palatable. At the Cheddar Valley factory, they specialise in Italian style cheese, so we've taken a punt on some Mozzarella and Parmesan as it wasn't on the tasting platter.

Milwaukee is home of  MillerCoors, a joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing Company, the second largest (to Budweiser) beer company in America.

We went down to Miller Valley (which is huge), did the factory tour and free tastings after the tour. As expected, the beer was inoffensive with a little flavour. We then headed down to Lakefront Brewery, Milwaukee's first brewery to grow from micro brewery to Regional Craft Brewery status. and founded in 1987. It was one of the best tours we've been on as the guide was very informative. We also got to take our tasters on the tour and refill half way through. The beer was very good too :-)

Today we visited the Harley-Davidson museum. Founded in 1903 by childhood friends Bill Harley and Arthur Davidson, they couldn't have foreseen how their venture would grow.  It was great to read about the history and look at all the great bikes. It was just as well that these bikes were bolted to the floor as I struggled to reach the ground.

Tomorrow we head for Chicago...