Sonya's Blog - Day 223 - Visiting Graceland

Sonya’s Blog - Day 223 - January 31st - Visiting Graceland

Today we will visit Graceland. We have booked ourselves onto a tour of Graceland itself (the mansion and grounds). There are also many supporting galleries and museums across the road that we will have access to after our tour. Our tour starts at 10:30. The Welcome Centre is about a 5 minute walk away, at the most. We cannot just walk onto the grounds at Graceland, or drive up to the house. They have shuttle busses that take you up there. It is just across the street, so it will be a 2 minute ride or so.

When we got all checked in, we each received an ipad. It is a self guided tour, with the ipad telling you all the details you need to know. The tour is voiced by John Stamos. The tour starts in the main foyer of the house. You can take your time going through the different areas and there are many extras included on the ipad for you to view. They simply have different tour time starts to control the flow of people through the house. You are only allowed to go through the house once, so we made sure to explore all the options. The rooms are blocked off, so you cannot walk through them. However, you have a good view of each room that the tour covers. The upstairs is not open to the public. Lisa Marie still owns this property and when she is in Memphis she stays in the house. They do not close off the tours when she is there, but it is one of the reasons that the upstairs is closed to the public. I would thing one of the other reasons is that Elvis died upstairs and, well it would be a bit garish to show where Elvis was found.

Overall I loved the 60’s and 70’s decor - so fantastic. I think the green shag carpet on the floor and the roof of the Jungle Room (on the roof for better acoustics) was a personal favourite. Although, it is hard to compete with the games room with the pool table in it.

The Living Room with the Music Room behind it:

His parents bedroom:

After his Mum died this bedroom was used by his Grandmother.

The Dining Room:

The Kitchen:

We then headed downstairs to the basement. First the Media Room:

The Pool Table Room:

Back upstairs to the Jungle Room:

Outside - Vernon’s Office (Elvis’ Dad) - no pictures, was just an office and they played an interview with Elvis when he returned from service.

Stables and Grounds:

Trophy Room:

Raquetball Courts and Workout rooms. This was a separate building that Elvis had built in the 70's. The court area is now a museum with more memorabilia:

Pool, Meditation Garden and burial plots:

Front of the house:

That wrapped up our tour of the house and grounds. We got back on the bus and it took us back across the road to the other galleries. We decided to grab something to eat first and Natasha wanted to go to the Rock and Roll Cafe. It was a greasy spoon, not much to say there. We should have just walked back to our RV.

We then went to visit some of the other galleries. Our first stop was Elvis’ private planes - The Hounddog and the Lisa Marie. The Hounddog was his first plane and it was just a small plane, I think it had 9 seats. The Lisa Marie was a much larger plane that Elvis had retro-fitted so he could travel in comfort with his crew.

Blake headed back to the RV to walk Kizmet and the kids and I went to the car museum. This museum had a display of the cars Elvis owned. He loved the Cadillac, so there were several of those. Pricilla’s Mercedes was there, a Christmas gift from Elvis. There were also several other cars and some of the vehicles he used around Graceland, for working or for goofing around on. The middle of the gallery was set up like a drive-in theatre and the film was showing clips of movies Elvis was in and also some of him in concert and out and about.

Our next stop was a gallery called Sincerely Elvis. This gallery detailed different photographers who had been assigned to Elvis and some of their most iconic shots. It also had some of his clothes and stage outfits, yes there were several jumpsuits.

Our final stop was the Archives. This was the least impressive gallery, but they did have some great clips playing of Elvis performances. They had lots from the 68 Comeback Special, which I love. Blake and the kids have never seen it, but now Blake would like to see it.

Blake went over to check out the car gallery and the kids and I headed back over to the RV (we could only use our tickets once in each gallery). I took Kizmet out for another stroll. Graceland closes at 4 PM and I wanted to get a picture of the famous gates that Elvis had installed. Blake and I walked down at about 5 to do that. There is a brick wall on either side of the gates and a stone wall that goes around the perimeter. These walls were covered in signatures and messages. I guess that people have been signing the wall for years, but they will fade over time and then people will sign on the faded spots. The whole wall was covered.

When we got back to the RV we had supper and settled down for the night. We thought about going out to the famous Beale Street, but were too tired to go. Probably would have been some great live music though.

Sonya