Going to Graceland!

The mansion that was Elvis' home

The famous jungle room!

This room was just sensory overload

The king himself

This guy clearly had a thing for nice cars- his car collection was very impressive! 

            This morning I was reminded of why I typically don’t plan out a strict itinerary when I travel. Instead, I prefer to just have some ideas of things to do and see in a city, but leave some space for other opportunities that may pop up unexpectedly, and be flexible with plans. As I said near the end of yesterday’s blog post, the (loose) plan was to do the Civil Rights Museum today since it’d be raining. Well, it wasn’t until we were eating breakfast in the hotel lobby this morning that I actually looked it up on my phone, and discovered that the museum is closed on Tuesdays. I honestly wasn’t too surprised to learn that- yay for being flexible with plans! It was gray and drizzly outside, but it wasn’t raining hard, so we decided to do Graceland today and bump the Civil Rights Museum to tomorrow. So, after booking tickets online and returning to the room to get ready, we headed off to the home of the king!

            First of all, Graceland isn’t just his house. It’s an entire huge complex of restaurants, gift shops, and other rooms and buildings holding all kinds of Elvis memorabilia, including his impressive car collection, a movie theater always playing his movies, and more. There’s now even an entire hotel right next to the complex. After picking up our tickets at will call, we got into a shuttle that took us across the street to the mansion that was the home of Elvis and his family. From the front living room to his parents’ bedroom to the famous jungle room, it seemed like each room of the house had it’s own unique style and feel to it. After touring around the house itself, we were lead out to the pastures where his horses lived, and the meditation gardens, where Elvis is buried, next to his grandmother, father, and mother.

            When the tour of the home itself was complete, we went back across to the rest of Graceland. We got a late lunch at Gladys’ Diner, named after Elvis’ mother, then went and explored the building that housed Elvis’ very extensive vehicle collection. He clearly had a real love for nice cars, as well as motorcycles! We spent a good chunk of the afternoon wandering around admiring and taking pictures of his beautiful collection. We followed that up with dropping into the movie theater they have there and watching a few scenes of King Creole before browsing the gift shop and heading back to the hotel.

            Tomorrow our plan is to go see the Civil Rights Museum (yes, it will be open!). Other than that we were thinking about going back to Beale Street and exploring it some more, and other than that we don’t really know. I think we’ll leave the zoo for Thursday since that’s the day that they’re predicting the best weather. This post’s food for thought is not about travel, but a quote I saw at Graceland today. There was one room that focused on the influence Elvis has had throughout the world of music and entertainment. The room was full of memorabilia and quotes from other artists that say Elvis influenced them. This was one of them: “Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn’t been an Elvis, there wouldn’t have been the Beatles.”- John Lennon