WE'RE GOING TO GRACELAND . . .



We left Mountain View, Arkansas at 0930 this morning and had a lovely drive to Memphis, Tennessee.  Really hot and muggy today with lots of dark clouds in the sky.  You could feel the rain in the air.  We did hit some rain but managed to just catch the tail end of it and missed the big downpour.

We arrived in Memphis around 3:00 p.m. and after realizing that the first RV park we had planned on wasn't in the best area we ended up at the Elvis Presley RV Park on Elvis Presley Boulevard, just two blocks away from . . . you guessed it . . . GRACELAND!!

We're going to take the day tomorrow to visit Graceland and do all the touristy things so decided we would head down to Beale Street and see what it was about.  Drove into down town Memphis and passed the famous St. Jude's Hospital and saw Danny Thomas Boulevard.  We stopped at a visitor's centre that had two beautiful big statues, one of Elvis and one of B.B. King.  Unfortunately, I forgot the camera in the RV so I didn't get any pictures.

We stopped in at the Peabody Hotel and saw their famous ducks.  They were getting ready to escort the ducks from the small fountain in the bar to the elevator.  All the people line up around the fountain and along the way to the elevator.  The curator of the ducks rolls out a red carpet from the fountain to the elevator and he has the ducks walk along it and get into the elevator.  We didn't stay around to watch the ducks leave the fountain as it was so crowded with everyone waiting to see the procession.

Beale Street is very noisy with all the different bands blaring out of all the different bars.  It's either bars or souvenir shops with not much else.  Very old and dirty.  B.B. King has a souvenir shop and a pub on the corner of Beale Street and South Second Street so we had a look but, again, very crowded so we didn't hang around.

Cam finally got his wish . . . we stopped for dinner at one of the "Man vs Food" restaurants.  It's called the Kooky Canuck and is a family restaurant that serves burgers, sandwiches and fries.  It's claim to fame is that is has a 4 lb hamburger with all the trimmings and fries.  If you can eat it in 60 minutes you get it for free and your picture on the wall of fame.  We opted to split a regular burger and a dessert.  Excellent food and very enjoyable.

Just too hot to stay out for very long so we headed home to sit in some air conditioning.  Want to have an early night so we can be at Graceland early in the a.m.