Memphis, Tennessee

Here are the pictures of the rest of our Tennessee trip:

First we went to Graceland...it was pretty awesome! The kitchen

The front room

The Jungle Room-there was even green carpet on the ceiling. Apparently it had such good acoustics, Elvis recorded a few songs in this room

Don't you just love the fur covered couches?

The basement tv room

Elvis Presley's grave

Tom, Ainsley, and the King of Rock n' Roll

There was rooms full of gold records and awards...this gives you a tiny glimpse of the amount we saw. I think these were just his foreign awards.

Some of his sweet costumes

We toured his two private jets-the big one was named the Lisa Marie. It was pretty sweet and included three sitting rooms, a dining room, a bedroom, and two gold sinked bathrooms.

Sun Studio where artists like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and others recorded
After we went to Graceland, we drove to downtown Memphis. We walked around Beale Street which is where blues music began. Since we had Ainsley, we didn't get to go into any bars, but we did hear a couple of bands playing in open courtyards.

Next we went to the Peabody Hotel. This is a beautiful hotel in downtown Memphis famous for it's ducks that live in the fountain in the hotel lobby. Here is the history of the Peabody ducks: About 80 years ago, the General Manager of the time, had just returned from a weekend hunting trip in Arkansas. He and his friends found it amusing to leave their live decoy ducks in the hotel fountain. The guests loved the idea, and since then, ducks have played in the fountain every day. In 1940, a bellman volunteered to care for the ducks. He was given the position of "Duckmaster" and served in that position until 1991. As a former circus animal trainer, he taught the ducks to march into the hotel lobby along a red carpet, which started the famous Peabody Duck March. Every day at 11:00 a.m., the Peabody Ducks are escorted from their penthouse home, on the Plantation Roof, to the lobby via elevator, they spend the day hanging out in the fountain, and then ceremoniously led back to their penthouse at 5:00 p.m.
We didn't realize we were in a different time zone and so arrived an hour early to see the Duck March. So Ainsley had plenty of time to hang out with the ducks. She thought they were funny and kept sticking her hands in the water. It was cute.

The Duckmaster gave a little speech before leading the ducks up to the roof. We bought Ainsley a rubber ducky that is dressed like the Duckmaster to remember our trip. It is pretty cute and she has played with it during every bath since.

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The next morning we went to the Rock n' Soul Museum. Right across the street is the Gibson Guitar Factory

Then we went to the Memphis in May Barbeque Festival. It is the biggest bbq festival in the world. There are hundreds of competitors competing in ribs, shoulder, and whole hog.

It was really hot that day, I got fried. Luckily Ainsley was able to hang out in the shade of her stroller and catch a few zzz's.

Some of the competitors booths were pretty extravagant. This is just one section which was along the river

We tried to keep cool with fresh squeezed lemonade. Ainsley learned to use a straw and enjoyed drinking Dad's lemonade.
Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to buy bbq from the competitors, but we were able to help judge samples in the People's Choice Tent. We got to taste some Boston Butt (the tastier half of the pork shoulder) It was so fun, we decided to do it twice.
They gave us five samples and a list of instructions on how to judge it. We would vote on our favorite of the five samples. It was delicious!!!

It was so hot after the festival, we took Ainsley back to the hotel for a little dip in the pool.

Our last morning in Memphis, we went to the temple. We had to do sessions one at a time because we had Ainsley but it was so wonderful to be in a temple again. We have rarely been able to make it to the temple since moving here since we live a few hours from the closest one.

Ainsley and I didn't quite get enough of the great state of Tennessee....we are headed down there again this Wednesday-Sunday to visit my mom who will be teaching at a scrapbook convention at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. We're excited to see her!!!