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.