The King and I...well...Us.

Welcome back. The past few days have flown by as we're rounding up the Tate Family Adventure and trying to cram in all sorts of last minute attractions and sights while we still have energy left. We started our morning in Memphis with a trip just about a mile down from our hotel to Graceland. After getting tickets, we were pretty quickly shuttled over to the front door of Elvis Presley's estate and able to take an audio tour all throughout his home. Still in 60's and 70's decor, Graceland was ahead of its time with technology, furnishing, and style. Although by today's standards some of the pieces seem ancient, like the giant brown box TV's, it was like taking a step back in time to rock n' roll with the "King" himself and his luxurious lifestyle.

Dad visited here on the original Tate Family Vacation way back in the day when Graceland had just opened up as a museum and American landmark (I'm pretty sure the actual National Lampoon's Vacation was based on this historic first Tate Family trip cross-country) and he informed us that not much changed from his first visit that he could remember. He also said that my grandfather, the legendary "Papa Tate" loved Elvis and Graceland that he took 3 or more rolls of film of the entire place - only to discover that when he left Graceland, he realized in his excitement he never actually remembered to load any film into the camera whatsoever. Therefore, as a tribute to Papa himself I made sure to take at least a few hundred photos of every square inch of the house. I'm sure if you put them all together you might even be able to recreate Graceland in 3D. Your welcome Papa. :-)

The Graceland Mansion isn't anything enormous like you see today on MTV's Cribs or close to the size of a pro football player's house, but for its time it was first class. It came with about 15 acres of property around the house itself which housed stables, a racquetball facility and gym, a shooting range, as well as a few other buildings where business was done for Elvis. At our Graceland visit we were able to see tons of Elvis memorabilia in addition to his personal belongings. For instance, his racquetball court is now turned into an exhibit honoring the King with many of his gold and platinum records and other awards hanging from ceiling to the floor and with his famous jump suits on display while you can watch some of his concerts that play on repeat on monitors around the room. Impressive stuff for sure. We also were able to visit his grave site where the Presley family is all buried and an eternal flame burns to remember the impact that Elvis had on all of his fans and American history itself. I made sure to get tons of pictures of the whole place, and after we left the mansion itself we were able to go visit a number of niche exhibits exploring the other aspects of Elvis' life.

For instance, we saw one display entirely devoted to Elvis' car collection. Everything from his famous pink Cadillac to his own private "pimped" out limousines and sports cars. Elvis was able to wear bling and "pimp out his ride" way before modern day rappers were able to coin the term. Another specialty exhibit highlighted Elvis' sense of style. It had an entire wardrobe that Elvis used to own, from the famous jumpsuits to his silk shirts, to jewel-studded jackets, to even creating his own signature logo. The "TCB lightning bolt" which stood for "Taking Care of Business in a flash." Rings and other jewelry, honorary police badges and colt .45's, and tuxedos were all on display in the exhibit and it was interesting to see just how Elvis created his own persona and image.

We also had the chance to tour Elvis' private planes. The "Lisa Marie" and the "Jetstar" were his way to travel in style as the seats were all custom leather, assorted colors, and the belt buckles and sinks where made with 24 karat gold plate. All of this in combination with the chance to tour Elvis' house made the Graceland experience a full-force insight into the King's life and I definitely think we took advantage and got our money's worth during our visit.

Following Graceland, we took a shuttle down to Sun Studios, which is the place that Elvis first recorded himself singing and was discovered by owner Sam Phillips. Sun Studios was also responsible for discovering legendary artists such as Johnny Cash, B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, and many other blues, country, and rock n' roll stars. Seeing some of the old-time recording equipment and listening to the original recordings from some of these artists in the studio was quite a treat and our tour guide was a zany rock n' roller himself who went by the name "El Dorado." Not only did he give us the entire history of how Sun Studios came into existence but was able to paint a picture of what Sun Studios really was like as it evolved from a private business enterprise to a larger record label who signed some of the best artists in music history.

After our exhausting day in Memphis, we packed into our car and headed for Nashville in the evening. It took a few hours to get to downtown Nashville, but we were recharged enough to walk along Broadway street, listen to some live music playing from the various bars and made our way to Rippey's, which was a late night barbecue and ribs place to grab a late dinner. We were able to get a spot out on their upstairs terrace and overlook all of Broadway Avenue while we listened to live music accompanying our meal. It was a nice finish to a long day of site-seeing and gave us the chance to decompress, recap our day, and then get some shuteye before exploring more of Nashville in the morning.

~Josh