Walking in Memphis

We have been to Memphis several times but never had the inclination or time to see Graceland.  This time we got the inclination and decided to take the time.  We stayed at the Graceland RV Park, just across the street from Graceland.  The $35 tour includes the Graceland tour, the Car Museum, two Airplanes, plus three small museums:  Sincerely Elvis, ’68 Special and Elvis’ Hawaii.

 

Graceland was surprisingly nice.  The living room is light and open with white furniture and white carpet (!) but the highlight is the beautiful wall of glass panels decorated with peacocks.  There are a lot of mirrors in this room; mirrors are a consistent feature throughout the house.   

Across the hall is a formal dining room and a nice-sized kitchen.  The famous “Jungle Room” is also on the first floor, and it’s not what I thought.  The decor is a little over the top but it's not freaky.  There is a waterfall against one wall, several plants around the room, and the furniture carvings have an animal theme.  I guess back in those days nothing like it had ever been seen.  To me the most unusual feature is the abundant use of shag carpet.  Not only is the floor carpeted, but so is the ceiling!  And the nearby hallway has the same shag green carpet on the walls, too.  Apparently they did some recording in this room and carpet helped control the sound . . . or maybe he just liked it that way.  
The stairway to downstairs has mirrors on the walls and ceiling, which is really disorienting.  The stairwell opens to what is known as the TV Room, which is done entirely in yellow and purple, with more mirrors on the walls and ceilings - also disorienting.  This room probably is the most dated-looking because of the three old-style TVs and the collection of 45 records.There is also a really interesting pool room downstairs.  The walls and ceiling are completely covered with pleated fabric, which is cool, as well as a bit claustrophobic.

A building next to Graceland holds Elvis' zillion gold and platinum records.  Seriously, a zillion.  There are rows and rows of record awards . . .

and then you turn a corner and are in another big room filled top to bottom with more awards, plus some of his many stage outfits.And at the end of all these awards and luxury are the graves.  So sad, he just wasn’t that old.  These graves belong to Elvis, his parents and his grandmother, plus a plaque commemorating his twin brother.

The Elvis Car Museum was also interesting.  That man did love cars!  The ones they have here include a 1966 white Rolls Royce Silver Cloud with blue leather seats, a purple 1956 Cadillac Eldorado, a couple of Stutz Blackhawks, a 1962 Lincoln Continental with a gold alligator top, and my favorite, a fabulous 1955 pink Cadillac Fleetwood.Next we walked over to see the Jet Star and Lisa Marie airplanes.  I like it that Elvis used his planes for spur-of-the-moment trips; once he took his daughter on a quick trip to Colorado just so she could play in the snow for a couple of hours.  I don’t know much about airplanes but looking at the Lisa Marie cockpit, I’m amazed they were able to fly it at all!Whether at home or on a plane, Elvis enjoyed his little luxuries.  On the plane that meant gold-covered seatbelt buckles and gold-plated wash basins. 

The other museums were interesting, too, and of course every single one ended in a Gift Shop.

Since we were in Memphis we decided to go to Dyers for lunch.  They are famous deep-frying their burgers in the same grease for 90 years.  

Nobody's died yet and they are reported to be very good, so we tried them.  Nice hamburgers, but not as remarkable as you might think, what with 90 years of seasoning.  Randy has a more complete review in the The RV Chef blog.

We also took a walk down Beale Street, which is not much to talk about during the day; it gets livelier at night.  We stopped at Schwab's, a dry goods store which opened in 1876 with the motto "if you can't get it at Schwab's, you're probably better off without it".  However, now it's mostly a souvenir store, full of Memphis trinkets and old-fashioned candies.  I found out later it was was sold out of the family in 2011, which probably accounts for that.  But where else can you find candy cigarettes?

Upstairs they have a little museum, including something I've read about but never seen - paper collars.  These were used in the mid-1800's and I read about them in "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", but this is the first place I've seen them.

One thing we must do whenever we are in Memphis - eat dry-rub ribs at Corkys!  In fact, we ate there twice.  Plus got some to go.  Normally we are too full of ribs to even think about desert, but this time we were swayed by the pecan pie with French vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and caramel sauce.  And although we really should have stopped after the ribs, it was very good.

Two years ago: Tuscaloosa after the tornado
Three years ago: Ferry to Haines, Alaska