Day 12

Hurrah, finally a decent breakfast served by the motel - scrambled eggs, sausage and sliced tomatoes followed by fruit and yoghurt!
Off we go again, heading to Graceland, Graceland. A pleasant drive, accompanied by a game of spot the dead armadillo, led us to the home of the King. Love the fact that everywhere you go, all you can hear is Elvis! On purchasing our tickets, we join the queue for the bus to the mansion. Have to say, that the whole tour of the mansion is extremely tasteful and well done. You aren’t allowed upstairs as apparently visitors never were when the Presleys still lived here. Accompanied by a guide through attractive headsets, we were taken through Elvis’ world. From the 15ft sofa in the front room through the jungle room with indoor waterfall, down to the mirrored ceiling of the TV room and the billiards room, all screamed of Elvis and the fashion of the time. Not to bore you, as I could talk about this for the next few days, and have used most of the memory of the camera with taking photos - all for you Daddy Taylor!
Seeing the graves, and the commentary and music that accompanied them, was a touching and moving experience. His achievements and the personality of a humble, charitable man were put across perfectly.
Lunch followed, obviously burger and fries, before touring his planes and car museum. All in all money very well spent.
Now we head to Memphis. Finding a bargain motel Downtown, we decided to have a swim in the pool. I say ’we’; I did 50 lengths while Matthew did a float.
Time to head off for dinner and drinks. As we were riding down in the elevator, a friendly couple got in, who happened to be all the way from Newcastle! And Peg, if you are following this, the lady was Brenda O’Brien and was your mentor in your placement at Walker School - small world!
BB King’s Blues Club was next on the agenda, a touristy must do and yet another venue for good free live music. Next we wanted some ribs, so settled on the Memphis 2010 ribs champions. This was a brilliant restaurant as it had live entertainment - an Elvis impersonator! Following this we went to an open air bar (the heat still stifling even approaching midnight) to listen to more great music and met a real life redneck, with black teeth and everything! After hearing her sad story of family members being murdered and her husband who has 7 kids with 7 women, we said goodnight and ended up in a karaoke bar. Karaoke in Memphis is different to any kind of karaoke in the UK - people have real talent!
Will try to put photos on later, Blogspot is not letting us at the moment.