So after watching the moon rise at Monument Valley we hit the road again. We drove South East to New Mexico and eventually arrived in a town called Farmington around 9pm.
Day 383 - November 15
We got up this morning and decided it was time to do some camera admin (backups, downloading pics from the big cameras, etc). It took Murray 6 hours to get everything sorted out so that he could pack it all safely away until we got back to Minnesota.
While he was doing that I made us sandwiches - in the parking lot - oh dear I was so embarrassed as cars drove by (but I must say the grilled cheese & veggies & meat sandwiches were SO SO good)!We left at 4pm and drove South East eventually arriving in Amarillo, Texas around 11pm. We stopped at McDonald's for dinner and had an interesting burger - cheeseburger with green chili - interesting!
Day 384 - November 16
We were up and back on the road by 10am - a LOT of RVs in the parking lot last night - this guy has a great setup! Think about it - that's a LONG load. The truck is huge as it is, let alone the RV and THEN a long chopper on a long trailer...now look at where the driver would be and where the last wheel is on the bike trailer!! Imagine trying to drive that around Europe? HA! No chance.We drove the rest of the way across the Texan panhandle, and then across Oklahoma.
We made a lunch time pit stop in El Reno, Oklahoma to stop at Johnnie's Grill for one of their famous onion fried burgers (or at least that is what our book said)
I admit we did have to ask our waiter what the heck a coney was
Apparently it is a hot dog with stuff on it - this is the Coney with Chili & Slaw (it was pretty darn good too - home made coleslaw!). We had to roll the truck windows down a few times after one of these bad boys.....The burgers (which are fried along with the onions - thus the name) was pretty good, as were the onion rings - a good old unhealthy but yummy lunch!
We drove on until we eventually got to a small town in Arkansas called Brinkley. We decided to just call it a night and found a cheap motel with wifi - perfect.
Day 385 - November 17
We slept in a bit, exhausted after yesterday's long long drive, then headed East to our destination in Memphis Tennessee..........
We're gonna Graceland, Graceland, ...Memphis Tennesse, we're gonna Graceland.
Graceland! The first part of the 'platinum tour' that we bought was a tour of the mansion
Young Elvis, and a photo of his parents
Lots of lovely portraits of him around the house
His mother's room
LOVE this photo - Priscilla & Lisa Marie
The formal dining room
The kitchen
So dated looking! Fun to see
You could see the stairways leaded up to the second floor - but visitors are not allowed up there
The cool bar downstairs
The TV room - or the TCB room as he called it (taking care of business)
His record collection
This is the taking care of business emblem
The wild pool room - check out that funky material ALL over the room!
WOW - just a BIT over the top?
The jungle room - love it!
This apparently was Lisa Marie's favorite chair in the house
Crazy material & designs. The green shag pile carpet everywhere, including the walls...seems over the top, but it had a purpose beyond 70's cool..the living room was used as a recording studio. Some of his last albums were recorded here!
The house from the back - doesn't really look like a mansion by today's standards
The office where Elvis's father helped managed his career with The Colonel.
The office with lots of fan portraits around the room...
A model of the modest home he was born in
They had a bunch of horses
The mansion from the other side
Part of the mansion tour was an exhibition with some of his outfits & awards
Amazing how much memorabilia they have
The awards hallway - wow!
Now THAT is an old school television!
And they also had an exhibition all about the movies he made
Priscilla & Elvis's wedding outfits
Me with the movie poster of my FAVORITE Elvis move - Blue Hawaii!!
Outfit from the comeback special
Copies of the zillion checks he made to charitable causes, I was shocked - he went down in history as one of the biggest private donation entertainers.
Click to enlarge for details..
So many lovely awards as well
And back outside - the pool!
His workout room was in another separate building, with a big racket ball court. He loved racket ball, and played often, even the day before he died.
ANOTHER award room with a few outfits was set up in what used to be his raquet ball court
They even had a few Australian awards!
And finally the resting place of Elvis and his parents
Lots of flowers & gifts from fans
Me & Murray posing for a photo in front of Graceland! What a FANTASTIC tour!!! I have been before when I was a kid, but gosh it was fun to see again!
Next stop - the auto museum! Murray was VERY excited!!
First - the bikes
Elvis loved motorcycles
Elvis' purple Cadillac was bought in 1956 and was originally white. He traded in in 1957, and a fan bought it and kept it until her death in 1974. It was then bought by another fan, who spent more than $30,000 restoring it - that work began in 1974. She had hoped to bring the car to Memphis to show Elvis, unfortunately the car was still in the final stages of restoration when he died in 1977.
This 1960 MG was used by Elvis in Blue Hawaii and was also part of his personal collection. Sometime in the mid-60s Elvis apparently gave the car to his secretary who later traded the MG at a car lot in Hollywood. It was then bought by a chef from the Spinout crew, who gave the car to his daughter as a wedding gift. The car is once again part of the Elvis Presley collection at Graceland.
He also had a TON of fun little scooters, snowmobiles, and snowmobiles he had converted to work on grass, go-carts, etc to entertain his friends in the backyard of Graceland
The grass snowmobile
LOVE this pink Cadillac!
Perhaps the most famous of Elvis' cars - this Pink Cadillac was one of the few cars that Elvis kept throughout his career.
He often referred to it as Gladys' car (his mother) even though she did not drive.
Next up was the jumpsuit exhibition!
Really amazing how many jumpsuits he had! The idea came from his love of karate - a nice comfortable design to move around in on stage as well!
I love how they all have their own matching gigantic belt as well!
Amazing beading
The jumpsuit collection was amazing - fun to see all the craftsmanship and all of the different designs!
Then we stopped by the gift shop - hmmmm no I do not think I want/need this - odd
Next stop was the planes!
Murray was detected as an Elvis fan
Me with Elvis' jet the Lisa Marie - also known as Hound Dog I
The fancy gold plated sink - on a plane - SO Elvis!
Quite a roomy cabin - please sit here and I will bring you your drink!
Even the seat belts were gold plated!!!
Looking into the meeting room
Pretty comfy looking - except for the protection plastic they now have on all the seats
You can just see in this photo - the bed had a gigantic seat belt that stretches across near the pillows!!! Apparently that is the only was the FAA would allow a bed on the plane - cool!
His private bathroom in the back
WOW you don't see planes like that anymore! Look at that crazy engine flute?
Fancy
This is the inside of Elvis' other jet - Jetstar - also known has Hound Dog II
some info about the planes (click to make the photo bigger if you are interested)
Next up was the final exhibition called Private Elvis - all about his time in the army
It was an interesting exhibition - lots of stories on panels from family and friends and quotes from Elvis himself about what it was like to be sent abroad - which must have been tough for someone who was SO famous!
On our way out Murray got one more shot of Elvis' logo on his planes - TCB - Takin' Care of Business!!!WOW what a great tour. We are both big Elvis fans and it was SO SO fun to see all the stuff they have on display - fantastic!
After we finished up all those tours, we set off with Dolph East towards Lynchburg, Tennessee.
We arrived in Tullahoma (just past Lynchburg) and decided to grab a bit to eat before deciding where to spend the night
The Road house it was - for dinner and Lynchberg Lemonade's - of course! (Jack Daniels & Lemonade)After dinner we drove around Tullahoma looking for somewhere to stay. There was one expensive hotel, and one just ok looking one which was cheap. We checked into the cheap one, as we figured it was only one night and was good enough.
We got into our room, and I called my Mom to chat while Murray took a shower. He got out and dried himself - then ewwwww noticed the towel was dirty - it looked like it had makeup stains on it. He was then grossed out, so whipped back the bed cover to check the sheets - EWWWW - suffice to say it was nasty.
SO, he got dressed and we went to the front desk to complain. She was immediately defensive and said she didn't believe us that the room was dirty because 'she does the cleaning herself.' SO, we asked her to come and take a look. She stomped out after us and when she saw the towel was wet - accused Murray of dirtying it himself (ummm yes, he did take a shower, but he doesn't wear makeup - that thing was already dirty). Then we showed her the sheets - she said NO - impossible, they were clean, we did this. Ummmm really crazy lady?
I had to leave because she was just acting like a lunatic, so I went to wait out the drama in Dolph. Murray politely insisted that we did not dirty the room. She insisted we did, and threatened to call the cops. Murray was shocked by this suggestion, and said fine - do it! Shockingly, she did.
While they both stood there waiting for the cops he said - don't you think it would have been better if you had just offered us clean towels & sheets rather than call the cops? Or perhaps move us into another room? We had already paid anyhow, we would have been happy with that. She said 'well you didn't suggest that' - ummm WE are the customers - shouldn't SHE be suggesting that? Crazy crazy crazy
A few minutes later 3 - yes THREE cop cars showed up!!! They listened to her crazy rant and then came to Murray for his story (they even had rubber gloves on - does that much crazy stuff really go on in the middle of Tennessee??). They agreed with him that she was nuts and the room was disgusting, however they informed him they couldn't make her give us our money back because it was a civil matter. The cop came into the office with him though and she gave us half our money back - she THEN offered us clean sheets and towels - but um you just called the cops on us for no good reason, there is NO way we are staying now!!!
SO we sucked it up and checked into the nice hotel in town - hurt the budget - but oh WOW was it fabulous - amazing pillows, cable tv, and the MOST fantastic buffet breakfast EVER- I think we each ate like 6 rounds!
Day 386 - November 18
We slept in a bit today, hit the breakfast buffet hard, then drove the 10 minutes back down the road to Lynchberg - where the Jack Daniel's distillery is!!!
We got onto a tour and the shuttle took us out to our first site - the wood they have cut up to make barrels drying out in preparation
And a display of the charcoal they filter the bourbon through that makes it sour mash whiskey
Our guide was kooky and VERY hard to understand (I'm not use to those REALLY strong souther accents). She told us how each employee gets a free bottle of Jack on the first Friday of every month - her husband works at the distillery as well so they get 2! (they call it Good Friday)
The water used in the distilling process comes from this natural spring on the property. They use the same spring now as they did when they started! This spring was the main reason Jack chose this location.
Me with Jack
The original crew
The ingredients they use to make sour mash whiskey
There has only been 7 Master Distillers in the history of the making of this whiskey - they are the guys who go around to the barrels and by taste they tell when the barrel is ready to be bottled
The distillery makes their own barrels, once a barrel has been used (only 1 time) they are shipped all over the place for other uses, one place the barrels are sent is to Louisiana, they use the wood from the barrels to flavor Tabasco!
You can really smell the whiskey even after the barrel is empty. All of the color and most of the flavor in Jack Daniels comes from the barrel.
The Single Barrel whiskey is a club you can join for just $9-12,000. You get a barrel the Master Distiller hand picks
They then bottle it up for you and put your name on each bottle - you get around 240 bottles
They then package up your barrel and all of your bottles on a pallet - wow that is a LOT of Jack!
Back to the distilling process - a few facts..........* 60% of the cost of each bottle of Jack Daniels is state & federal taxes
* Gentleman's Jack has been filtered through the charcoal twice
* The number one country for Jack exports is the U.K., #2 is Germany, #5 is Australia!
* Green label Jack isn't as aged as other Jack's, it doesn't have time to go in and out of the wood as much as Black Label (it is also only sold in 18 states and not overseas)
* The whiskey goes in and out of the wood as the temperature changes
* There has been NO staff turnover for Master Distillers in the history of the company
* The leftover grain from the fermentation process is used as cattle feed
* It takes 3 days for clear alcohol to drip it's way through the charcoal (we got a little smell of that process and WHEW is that strong!!!
Unfortunately we couldn't get any photos in the distilling buildings because the alcohol content is so high they are afraid people using their camera flash's may ignite something!
SUCH a fantastic tour - and so very very interesting!
After our tour we went back to the tiny town of Lynchburg to check out the gift shops (a lot of the good have Jack in them - but they can't actually sell alcohol - surprisingly it is a dry county!)
It is a cute little town - all based around a tiny square
Yummmm
The town - and you can see the owner's old house up on the hill in th backgroundAfter a lovely local lunch we hit the road and drove to Atlanta, Georgia!
We drove to Dunwoody, the area where Murray lived for 4 years as a kid and stumbled upon one of the restaurants he so fondly remembers....
The Old Hickory House!
We enjoyed their Brunswick Stew - oh WOW was it good!
We also HAD to have some peach cobbler - lovely!
Brunswick stew - yummm yummm yummm It was AWESOME! Exactly the same as 25 years ago!
Murray had fun going down memory lane!We then drove aimlessly down the freeway trying to find somewhere to stay - we wanted to stay close by, but not pay a fortune, luckily we found a great hotel just off the freeway with lovely rooms & wifi - hooray!
Day 387 - November 19
We got up and drove back to Dunwoody and went on the search for the homes that Murray's family lived in.
The first house - 1136 Coronation
Murray in front of the house
The side of it
Looking at the house from the other side
Next we stopped by the school where Murray attended Kindergarden through half of 3rd grade.
Next stop was the second house - where they lived the longest - 5279 Wyntercreek
Luckily the lady who lives there pulled up just as we were taking this photo - she invited us up for a chat and we found out that her & her husband actually bought this house off of Murray's parents in 1984!! She invited us in for a look around which was FUN (although we didn't think it was appropriate to take any photos!)
The view of their house on the side...
Our friends house next door....lots of bbq's and they had a path to the local woods! (fun for kids)
Our neighbours on the other side, the husband cut his toe off lawn mowing and the wife rolled down the driveway in her car, into the house on the other side! Twice! In the three years we were there. Exciting neighbours!
Where we played tennis and swam!
We stopped at a pizza place called the Mellow Mushroom for lunch - Murray had his 7th Birthday party here!
Oh WOW was it a great pizza!!! In fact the BEST pizza we had EVER had since leaving London.
We stopped by the mall and had to laugh - is it just me or are these dog strollers ridiculous!!!???!We then drove to another part of Atlanta to see my Grandma's best friend Margie, her daughter Judy and Judy's husband Gary. Margie's sister Judy was also in town from Minnesota. They had prepared a lovely dinner for us, and we had fun sitting around and chatting.
Unfortunately that evening Margie's sister Judy was sick that night and ended up having to go to the hospital. We stayed at the house with Margie, it was a scary night to say the least! Thankfully we hear Judy has recovered now - thank goodness - she is such a nice lady (they all are SO nice - we had such a nice visit other than the medical drama).
Day 388 - November 20
After breakfast and goodbyes to everyone we hit the road again.
Goodbye Georgia - we had a great time! (just LOVE this water tower - the Georgia Peach)!
Next up......................... North Carolina & our drive back to Minnesota - coming soon!!!!!!!!!!
