November 2 and Elvis has left the building.

The visit to Graceland is well organized so that you can wander around for as long as you want either going through the home and outbuldings or the grounds which contain the graves of Elvis, his mother, father, grandmother and his brother who died at birth? Elvis’ grave was moved because fans were disturbing his peaceful resting place at the cemetery.

The former racquetball court is filled with honors and costumes. There is another section with recording honors. He certainly overwhelmed the music scene. Thhere is one framed honor that is for 50 different, 1 million singles.

The home is garishly decorated, mismatched items—the jungle room contrasted with the all white living room with a 15 foot couch. The kitchen is homey and faces the jungle room. He liked mirrors and the ceiling and walls going downstairs are smoked blue-gray mirrored. We did only the downstairs as the family wanted to keep his private life private. The basement was a family room and it was painted in yellow and blue—Elvis is King!

He had a gun collection and that seemed to be the largest collection of items he had beside pictures of himself and of course the record honors. The property is a nice size and they had horses. The surrounding properties now encroach on the grounds as does the 4 line highway that passes in front of Graceland. There is a lot of deterioration along this highway. There was a car dealership and the vehicles looked like one would buy one to trade in when a dealership offered a push, pull or drag your trade in. A pickup still had the stolen TV in the back. Graceland is able to make one forget the other part of the neighborhood.

We spent much longer than we thought we would and so could only do a short stay at the Lorraine Motel and did not go into the museum that pays tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King. The museum includes the site of the sniper’s location. The motel was in an industrial part of Memphis. This city does not seem to be thriving. I felt that it was a tired city which seemed to be carrying a burden and without pride.

Arkansas is our resting spot this evening. We are in North Little Rock and will probably leave from hear for Oklahoma and route 66. The GPS has taken two jumps off the window and is have problems starting. A lever that allows the navigator to switch the picture distance broke off on the second dive. We think that we will replace it which means we have to hit a store and then beat it. Did I mention Route 66?

Patti is keen to go on the tour and answered the bumper sticker corretly—US Marines . Patsy chimed in with the Mississippi River

Okay, so here is a question, Who shot Dr. Martin Luther King? On the plane are the the letters TCB. What do they stand for?

I forgot to mention that Elvis was a twin.
Cheers