Today we are staying in the Sleep Inn at 40 Front Drive. The allowed us an early check in at 7.00 am and even gave us a free breakfast. After having our fill we showered and left for a fun filled day in Memphis, despite the fact I'd had no sleep on another packed coach.
Memphis is situated in the South West corner of Tennessee on the banks of the Mississippi. It's Mid South USA . Our hotel is just a street back from the river.
We were in need of an easy day so we headed to the man made Island, built in the river and accessible by a walk way, Mud Island. It was unfortunately closed on Mondays (this is beginning to become a theme) so we went for the Elvis, Graceland option. For $35 a shuttle bus picks you up from your hotel and takes you the 10 or so miles out of town to Graceland. The fee also includes entry to all the 'attractions'.
Whilst queuing for the bus across to the 'mansion' the cheese is almost intolerable, with Elvis crooning away in every corner and all to a backdrop of tacky souvenir shops. By the time I got to the front of the queue I found that my hips gyrating involuntarily and I got a feeling of regret that I'd had my quiff cut off.
The mansion itself is interesting but you do feel like your being herded around. The house isn't huge, but it is tastefully decorated (for the 70's) in parts and not in others. I guess he had it the way he wanted with a Pool Room, a TV room and bar and the jungle room. As you leave through the back you are lead through the old office and then into the trophy room where all his gold discs are on display. It is here that I began to understand the impact that this fella had had on the world. Considering I was only 2 when he died I knew he had been special, but here I found out that he really was a phenomenen.
When you get to the Meditation Garden, where Elvis and his Mum and Dad are now laid to rest, you again get the sense of his impact as you see grown women weep. I heard someone say that they felt it had been tastefully done, well I beg to differ. It feels strange walking around the house of a dead man that I never knew, in a blatant piece of exploitation, and then taking photos of his grave. I found that I did exactly what everyone else was doing and when I checked I saw that I'd taken over 60 photo's.
Having done the mansion we then went to his motor museum and did a tour of his 2 planes and then of course went to buy some tat in the souvenir shop.
For some people it is genuinely there lives dream to come to Graceland. I can say that I've done that, but I'm not sure how much it enriched my life.
So it was back to Memphis and the mundane stuff like laundry. Having asked about 10 locals not 1 could tell us where a laundromat was. Eventually someone offered the corner of Paplar and Mannassas. The walk down Poplar, further into Midtown Memphis, started well enough, but then the sense of forboding grew as we passed the court buildings and saw the numerous bail bond offices.
There was plenty of homeless people lining the streets asking for a couple of bucks or a cigarette. We ignored them all, hoping they wouldn't notice that we were tourists. We, however, stuck out like sore thumbs.
Having made it to the corner the laundromat had closed down and we were both in agreement that even if it had been open we wouldn't have been been, not just because of the distance, but more because of the risk to my existence on this earth. I'm not ready to give that up yet and especially not in Memphis. We made a swift retreat, but this time down a nicer street.
We still hadn't found a solution to our laundry problem, but quite by chance we found a laundromat 2 blocks up from our hotel, a fact our hotel receptionist had failed to divulge. It's gonna cost $2.25 a lb ($28 in total) for a fluff and fold (I have no idea what that means). We got chatting to the nice lady about our laundromatt adventure and she informed us that last week someone had been murdered whilst walking down Poplar. That's reassuring to know.
In the evening we went to Beale Street for dinner. Historic Beale Street is where it all happens (or should that be happened) in Memphis. It's the place where BB King, Ike Turner and Minnie Douglas (Memphis Minnie) and other such great names, that will mean more to my Dad, made famous. A fact which they blatantly still try to exploit. It's neon lit with pubs and bars on both side offering greasy food, karaoke, elvis impersonators, blues night and gumbo challenges. The music is loud, but the clientelle are all tourists and old. They come from all over to Memphis. My only question is Why? Maybe it's for the numerous bail bond offices, it's certainly not for the laundromats.
