Day 12 - Elvis has left the building

We started our day by sleeping in slightly till about 6:30AM, and then eating breakfast at the hotel. Graceland doesn’t open till 9:00 AM so we had a little bit of time before we had to leave the hotel and make the drive over to the mansion.

We got to Graceland a little before 9:00 AM, which allowed us to park and pick up our tickets from Will Call. Our tour wasn’t scheduled till 9:45 AM, which was the earliest I could get, so that allowed us to visit the Elvis Museum. Graceland is not just the mansion now, it is a whole museum and shop concept devoted to Elvis. The museum, gift shops, dinners, ticketing, and parking is all across the street from the original mansion, which you are bussed over to at your designated tour time. The museum was good, with a lot of memorabilia, life story, gold records, and of course the jump suites on display in all their rhinestone glory. The museum also has on display all of his cars, including pink and purple Cadillacs.

Jump suits one of of 4 walls of them

Jumpsuit the second full wall of them

The wall of gold record recognitions (not the full wall)

The tour of the mansion was good. The tour starts with a 10 minute video giving a brief outline of Elvis’s life and all the stats from records, #1s, ticket sales, concerts, ect.; Then they file everyone outside to get on the bus, but not before a photo opp and giving you Ipads loaded with an audio tour and additional information. Our tour level only covered the lower level of the house, the grounds, the office, and the graves. I was not going to pay for the Elvis VIP experience to see the upper levels, Elvis is great and all but I’m no supper fan. Yes, you can take photos inside the mansion, no flash. (I'll be posting those photos later since they are on my big camera and I didn't do a lot of cell photos.)

Part of the Graceland Mansion kitchen

After visiting Graceland it was time to trade in our blue suede shoes and head towards Knoxville, Tennessee. We originally planned to stay the night in Knoxville, but Jim asked if it was ok if we just drove on through to home. Since he was the one driving I was ok with it, if he was. This put us home at 3:00 AM on 9 June and brought our little cross country road trip to an end.

I’ll be doing a full trip wrap up later in the week. So stay tuned.

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