Events of Friday, January 28, 2011

                Chirp, cheep, cheep, chirp, chirp…cheep… Waking up to hear birds singing is probably my favorite way to wake up. My morning started with listening to one bird singing a quiet melody and then a whole chorus of other birds joining in for a grand finale. I almost thought we were in California again. No, we weren’t in California, we were in Memphis, Tennessee, and parked in a campground in Elvis Presley Land. It doesn’t feel like we’re in Tennessee, it feels like we took a wrong turn and landed in the home of all Elvis Presley fans, which we basically did, except that turn was a purposeful one. We plan to  see Graceland today, the home of Elvis Presley, where he lived and died. Elvis was everywhere! His picture was on the bathroom wall, looking down on us as we took nice hot showers to began our day. He was on our campground hookups and watched us as we unhooked and slid in our slideouts after a yummy breakfast. As we drove that short drive, down Teddy Bear Lane, Elvis Presley Boulevard, and finally into the Graceland parking lot, he appeared on our parking pass. After we parked, we walked to the ticket booth, and Elvis music was in the air. It was crazy! He was everywhere! Elvis LIVES!

                We bought tickets and used the restroom while waiting for the shuttle to arrive. Caitlin noticed three trash cans that said “Thank you, Thank you Very much!” Very funny! Soon the shuttle arrived and we were handed our audio tours and loaded on the bus. As we listened to the introduction, the shuttle drove us across the street and up the driveway. Really exciting, right? When we arrived we were ushered into the house and into the living room. The first thing I noticed was two beautiful stain glass peacocks at the end of the living room. These peacocks created glass walls between the music room and the living room. As we listened to the audio, the narrator pointed out a fifteen foot white leather couch, portraits and busts of Elvis, and pictures of his mom and dad.

                If it happens that you don’t know Elvis’s entire story, he was born into a poor family in Tupelo, Mississippi. He had a stillborn twin brother. His full name was Elvis Aaron Presley. Hoping for a better life, his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee when he was in his teens. He loved to dream. He used to imagine that he was the hero, and promised his parents that someday he would make a lot of money and give them a fine life. Soon he found his passion – singing. His favorite music was gospel music. Elvis’s career in singing started when he walked into Memphis Recording Studios and paid $4.50 to make a record. The people there noticed his talent, and started him recording more and more. As his popularity grew, so did his fortune.

                He bought Graceland at the age of twenty-two for little over one hundred thousand dollars. (It was a lot in those days, but I would like to get a mansion for one hundred thousand dollars.) The original owners  of this 1839 colonial mansion had an aunt named Grace and named it in her honor. Elvis liked the name and so he kept it, thus the name Graceland. He gave his parents a very nice bedroom which we saw next. Our Mom loved the purple velvet on the chairs and the shaggy purple quilt on the bed in addition to the purple bathroom with purple tile, purple curtains, purple sink and purple toilet‼ Now it was back to the dining room. This room had a fancy yet comfortable feel, and, after seeing the kitchen with three TV’s in it, we headed downstairs to the basement. The stairway was covered in mirrors and it was very disorienting, especially if a person is trying to climb down stairs.

                Downstairs we saw Elvis’s TV room, where he also listened to his collection of over 800 records. He had three different TV’s, constantly playing different channels, all at the same time. Next door to the TV room was his pool room. In his pool room he hung out with family and friends and showed off his original and weird plans for his house. His pool room had cloth walls and ceilings. The cloth was brightly printed and pleated throughout the room. On the way back up the stairs we were able to see the other side of the cloth that was also pleated. It was really weird. It felt like you were in one of those birthday boxes with the bow on top, just waiting to be opened.

                Next stop… the jungle room. This was Elvis’s family room where he enjoyed the liberty of decorating to his tastes. The floor, walls and ceilings were covered in the green shag carpet popular in the 60’s. On one side of the room was a fountain surrounded by tropical plants. The furniture was covered in fake fur and brown leather. My favorite chair was a half circle chair covered in brown leather that had a shaggy brown pillow, a shaggy green pillow, and a big teddy bear on it too. It looked very comfortable.

                We were ushered out the back doors, through his carport and into his manager’s business office. Elvis loved to buy cars and gave away cars to family, friends, fans, or just random strangers on the street. Only one car did he keep throughout all of his stay at Graceland, a bright pink convertible Cadillac, and it was his mother’s favorite. In his manager’s business office, he and his manager worked through thousands of letters from fans and had interviews with the press.  Inside of the office, a video of an interview filmed in this room was playing about when Elvis returned from the army. One of the questions that he was asked was if he had had any romances overseas. He said that there was only this little girl, the daughter of an Air Force officer. We found it funny that the little girl, Priscilla Beaulieu, would become Elvis’s wife in seven years. She was only 14 when she met Elvis so she was a “little girl”. We watched the video and admired the Lisa Marie’s, Elvis’s daughter’s, swing set and the stables outside and then went  up to Elvis’s trophy room, which tracks his singing career from his beginning album all the way up to his movie career and then his “’68 Special”. This special was performed by him when his movie contract ended, and consisted of live concerts and a singing tour of the country. There were lots cute pictures, including one that showed a little girl with crutches kissing Elvis on the cheek. Elvis was holding a sign that said “March of Dimes”,  a march that raises money for polio victims. We walked through the museum, admired all his Grammy’s, all his gold and platinum records, and all of his other awards. These awards cover an entire hallway, on both walls, from floor to ceiling, and it wasn’t even all of them.
                Deciding that we were done with this museum, we walked by Elvis’s pool and then into his racquetball building. Elvis, as we learned, went through different hobbies. Motorcycles, golf carts, horseback riding, racquetball and tennis were just a few. Some he stuck with, others he didn’t. He loved racquetball so much that he spent half a million dollars building a professional racquetball court, and another half a million decorating the lounge, the showers, the dressing room, the entrance way and the kitchen. The way Elvis decorates, you can bet that he would spend half a million doing so. Today the racquetball court is decorated with his performance outfits and more of his awards.

                The last stop on our tour of Graceland Mansion was Meditation Garden, where Elvis and others of his family are buried. There is a nice fountain and the marble slabs are elaborately decorated with gifts from fans. Finally we were done with our tour. We hopped back on the shuttle and rode back across the street and then walked back to the RV. After a quick and yummy lunch of wraps, we went back to the ticket pavilion for restrooms before heading to Elvis’s car museum. We saw many of his cars and watched a very cute movie that began with a cartoon couple going to a drive in movie theater to see Elvis and then showed little clips of various movies in which Elvis was in a car. A couple of the clips we recognized from movies that we have seen, but others we had never seen before. After walking through the car museum gift shop, we went to another museum called Elvis Lives and watched another film on how Elvis lives on in the media, movies, and commercials. Again a couple we had seen, others we hadn’t. We exited through the gift shop again and into another museum called Elvis in Hollywood  and watched the trailers to all of his films in Hollywood. Then it was another exit through another gift shop and out to Elvis’s airplanes.

                Elvis had two airplanes, the Lisa Marie, named after his daughter and the Lockheed Jet Star. The Lisa Marie was a 1958 Convair 880, which he bought in 1975 for his personal use. Besides the cost of the jet, he spent more than $800,000 having the jet remodeled. We climbed aboard his private jet and admired the living room, conference room, sitting room and private bedroom, gold plated seatbelts, suede chairs, and leather covered tables, as well as two bathrooms with 24-karat gold flecked sinks. The Lockheed Jet Star was usually used by Elvis’s manager and staff so that they could prepare the next city for Elvis on concert tours. I loved the bright yellow and bright green chairs inside this jet.

                We exited through a gift shop (have you noticed a pattern?) and walked a short distance to the Fashion King Exhibit. In the museum a film was playing about his fashions and his motto, “taking care of business”. The museum also displayed some of his outfits. We finished that museum and headed to the ’68 Special Exhibit. (Wait, did I mention that we exited through a gift shop?) At the exhibit we watched a short film narrated by Priscilla Presley. She talked about how nervous he was about the ’68 Special, and how he was so happy when it all turned out OK. At last we were done with Elvis Presley and after exiting through yet another gift shop, we went back to the RV. Singing Elvis songs that were stuck in our head, we drove away from Elvis Presley Land and back into reality.

                There, we found a nice Costco in Memphis and settled down to start math. Soon, a man came by asking for money for gas. Dad agreed to go with him and found that he was hungry. We gave him a couple of granola bars and cans of Vienna sausages and Dad went and bought him gas. It turned out that one of Mr. Ron’s favorite foods was Vienna sausages. Soon after Dad came back we went into Costco for a delicious dinner in the food court, shopping and then back to the food court for dessert. YUM! We got permission to stay the night, went back to the RV and watched one of everybody’s favorite movies, Ratatouille. At last we settled sleepily in our warm parking lot for a night of boondocking.