Memphis and The King

Front of the mansion at Graceland.
Jungle Room with green shag carpet on the floor and ceiling.
Living room

The records on this wall represent the records sold by Elvis in North America. The other walls were covered with record sales on other continents.

The grave site in the memorial garden with flowers and memorials received the day we visited.

Pink Cadillac

The Lisa Marie

The "Duckmaster" warms up the crowd.

The ducks walk the red carpet to the elevator to go to their rooftop "penhouse."

Museum entrance

Beale Street at night.

We are now at T.O. Fuller State Park in Memphis, Tennessee, a beautiful park only five miles from downtown but very much in the forest. Yesterday we toured Graceland, the home of "The King," Elvis. The tour covered the house, the grounds, an auto museum and two of his planes. We really enjoyed learning more about his life and what a generous person he was to both charities and individuals. The house tour included the common areas such as the living, dining, TV, jungle and game rooms and the kitchen. Everything is like it was when Elvis and his family lived their. On the grounds we saw the Trophy room and the racquetball court where many of his gold and platinum records and other awards are displayed. He had 30 number 1 hits and has sold over 1,000,000,000 records. We also saw the memorial garden where Elvis, his parents and grandmother are buried. Even today, flowers and other memorials are received at Graceland daily and all are put on display on the grounds. There are rooms of the many outfits he wore for his concerts and if you have a couple grand to spare, you can even buy replicas of many of them. The auto museum had many of his cars including the famous pink Cadillac and his many motorized toys. The two planes on the grounds are a small personal jet and a bigger one, the Lisa Marie, that had a queen size bed for the King.

In downtown Memphis we visited The Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. In 1933, friends of the owner put ducks in the lobby fountain as a prank, but when they came back in the morning the ducks had not wandered off and a crowd had gathered to watch them. The owner decided to keep them and thus began the tradition of bringing the ducks to the lobby each day at 11 AM and then returning them to their rooftop "penhouse" at 5 PM. Twice each day a crowd gathers (and spends money) to watch the ducks parade along the red carpet to and from the elevator. This ceremony is conducted by the Duckmaster, a position that was held by one person for over 50 years. We also toured the Memphis Rock n Soul Museum where an audio tour traces the contributions the people of Memphis have made to blues, soul and rock and roll. The tour covers the music of the early 1900's to the present. We also took in the sights and sounds of Beale Street's many music venues.