TCB in a Flash

Yesterday was well worth the 8 hours of round trip driving in torrential rain.

The day started off with a hearty breakfast courtesy of Martha "Stewart" Rogers and then a scavenger hunt for her CD case, cause a road trip just isn't a road trip without some tunes. The drive then started with aspirations of stopping at any little interesting road side stand or site just to mix things up a bit, but I don't know if we just drove through the wrong part of Mississippi or if it's just really not all that interesting because the only stop we made was a half hour outside of Memphis to grab a couple road maps and do a Chinese fire drill. It also just could have been because we were on our way to see the king and eat some BBQ!


As we got on Elvis Presley Boulivard we were pretty excited, we had actually been listening to Elvis music the entire 4 hours on the way up. Then from out of nowhere the clouds disappeard and a large Heartbreak Hotel sign came up on the horizon and we knew we were there. From the street front you don't see a whole lot and you don't necessarily feel like you're being taken back to the 70's. In fact you feel like you just came to the door of a quiant southern mansion with your typical ammenities. A large iron gate with music staffs that opens to a long curvy uphill drive way to dramatically reveal a moderatly sized estate in Southwest Tennessee. As you begin the tour you start to notice on the outside well landscaped gardens, a horse pasture with "Phillip" and his friends running around, and a few buildings that you can't pick out until you actually walk through them.


The tour began with a walk though the main floor and basement of the Presley mansion. As you walk in you don't get an immediate shock to your system as you see the stair case up to the private portion of the Presley home, but as you come in a little farther and turn your head to the right your brain goes into overdrive and begins to process the kilidescope of colors before you as you discover Elvis' sitting room. The first thing you notice are the two large stain glass peacock entry features and then the walls lined in mirrors and the ornate furnature. You look left and you jump right back into traditional fare with a very well put together dinning room. The tour takes you through the kitchen of the house and it brought back memories to me of visiting my grandparents up in Conneticut and how they had their house decorated. After walking through the kitchen you catch a glimpse of what is refered to as the jungle room and get to really experiance what shag carpeting looks like when it is not only on the floor but on the walls and ceiling as well! You then go downstairs and the first room you step into is the biliards parlor and it was quite ornate the walls are super busy as they're decorated with ornate drapes that go from the ceiling to the floor, you continue into the TV room where the bright couches and three TVs seem to be the only unusual feature in the room besides the wet bar with bright yellow polyester seats. The rest of the mansion tour consisted of seeing the racketball building where Elvis typically practiced with the band, the trophy hall that glimmered inside from few hundred gold records they were able to fit along the walls (the rest spilt out to anywhere else on the property that seemed appropriate), his rockin' costumes (my favorite was the Aloha from Hawaii one), and his colection of cars and toys (from a car lovers perspective was awesome).


Martha and I then checked out the touristy stuff of Graceland that's across the street from the estate, picked up a few fun memories from the trip, and scarfed down a grilled peanut butter and bannanna sandwich (it wasn't bad but the way it was made wasn't outstanding either I'm probably going to need to figureout a way to doctor it up a bit so the memory can live on ;)


The next stop was Beale Street, but it started raining so all we did was drive through downtown Memphis and out to the riverfront before turning down Beale St. The reveal as you come up from the riverfront is similar to what I would expect in Vegas and see all of the neon lights. We then hopped back on the freeway to Neely's BBQ as you can read below:

Day 2 (Tuesday July 28) notes:

Tour of Memphis:

BBQ Joint: Neely's BBQ
Free Rolls again served with the house BBQ sauce
Pretty Good Sweet Tea (lots of suga)
EXCELLENT RIBS (We might have a winner! The bar has been set high on day 2!)
Very Good Pulled Pork and Smoked Turkey
Pretty Good Beef Brisket and sides