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We drove to Memphis from Nashville the scenic route down the Natchez Trace Highway. For 200 miles all we saw were red, orange and yellow trees, no buildings, no people and hardly any cars, it was magical, but very long! We attempted to capture how beautiful it was (see 24 pictures and videos on flickr) but failed! Many hot, long hours in the car later we arrived in Memphis city.
Memphis had quite a sad vibe, it was kind of rundown and depressed. Neighbourhoods seemed segregated on racial lines wiith very nice big houses bordering on what appeared to be incredibly poor black neighbourhoods. We have been told subsequently that there is a lot of racial tension in Memphis and the community harmony of places like New Orleans doesn't exist. The district we stayed (cooper young) was bucking the trends a bit with new bars & restaurants opening up but still it felt a bit untrue, a few blocks down the road was really poverty stricken.
Graceland was also kind of an oasis and really interesting experience, it was like a themepark on the edge of the city, a bubble away from reality where everything is great because elvis touched it! I think it's fair to say it exceeded our expectations, we spent 4 hours looking around without realising the time had flown. The actual; house and grounds are amazing, very extravagant with lots of boys toys, its a proper playboy mansion. Having joked we were going to weap at his grave, I actually found myself quite choked by the time we got to his grave (next to the swimming pool, obviously). Having seen all his belongings and amazingachievements and awards in the house, it was hard not to by into the 'fever' surrounding his life, and therefore sadness around his death.
Elvis is a facinating character in many ways. The similarities between him and Michael Jackon are interesting: both extravagant spenders seeming to live in a fantasy world, both addicted to perscription drugs that ultimately killed them(and then Elvis' only daughter goes and marries Jacko). The thing that sticks in your mind is his spending: $100,000 for Graceland (1960's prices) when he was just 20; the same year he bought his first Rolls Royce. His manager bought a huge second hand passenger jet for him for $250,000: Elvis didn't even go to see the plane, he just tells the manager he wants a plane so buy it; he then spend a further $750,000 installing an amazing luxurious interior (gold plated seat belts). To keep the jet in the air cost a further $400,000 per year including having a fulltie crew on 24hr standby (the plane is now parked across the road from Graceland and you can walk through it). The pilot tells a story of getting a call from Elvis to get the plane ready to fly from Memphis to Chicago (1000 miles) in a hour's time. When they arrived, a limo was waiting on the runawaywith peanut butter sandwhiches on silver platters that Elvis wanted his guests to experience. . .the sheer size of his sucess & appeal is also mind blowing: 1.4 billion people watched his hawaii concerts (more than the moon landing) around the world (and Elvis never toured outside the US to promote himself). The whole experience really made me want to read a good biography of Elvis to understand more about him: I kind of ended up liking him and wanting to know more. . .
We also enjoyed beale st (main drag in Memphis)and heard a brilliant soul band in bb kings. Amazing horn section and lead singer who gave so much energy! A real treat. Beale street, aside from its history, is now basically a strip, very similar to the Nashville strip but again somewhat depressed, the vibe just wasn't there, I guess because the city it struggling so with poverty and discrimination. On Beale st there were police cars at every corner, in Nashville we went 48 hours without seeing one policeman...still the soul band were brilliant. There is more (shakey) footage here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/byerin/collections/72157625116497716/
We left Memphis really early to make the long (400 mile) drive to New Orleans. The highlight of the drive (aside from thinking we had nearly won $50,000 on the McDonalds monopoly game) was the 50 mile flyover we took over the Mississippi river swamps as we entererd Louisiana, the scenery was amazing, water as far as the eye can see (even though we were inland) and stunning trees over the swamps. We didn't see any aligators though! We finally arrived to our beautiful b&b in Treme, near the french quarter in New Orleans. early evening. This is is definitely our favourite city so far and I think we have both fallen in love with NO a little bit.... but more about that in the next blog!
John and Erin xxx
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