On the road to Graceland

No dramas at breakfast this time. We hit the road at 8.30am listening to the CD of my new best friend, Jason Link. He's not bad on the ear. 

Actually he loves me. I know that because he kissed me twice (the others got only one kiss) and he wrote that he loves me on his $10.00 CD I purchased at the bar where he was singing, our final stop on the city tour of Nashville.  But...I had to let him down gently; I'm a travelling gal, need to keep moving. 

The first stop was a happy happenstance. We'd been planning to stop for coffee at Jackson, Tennessee but missed the exit. Instead we took exit 80A off I-40 which led us straight to Casey Jones village. According to its website on http://caseyjones.com  it is 'the best whistlestop between Memphis and Nashville.' And so it proved to be.

It comprises a series of buildings, a couple of them looking like log cabins, one of which houses the 'world famous Brooks Shaw's Old Country Store.' We'd never heard of it but it made an indelible impression, especially the food. Kathie's eyes lit up when she saw their beef brisket and declared she was going to have some. Bear in mind we were only an hour or two from breakfast.

Kathie's beef brisket

Maxine and I settled for coffee and shared peach cobbler, all delicious. While lining up for our food Maxine got into conversation with a tall, well dressed black woman who told us she had been at a party the night before where one of the family members dropped dead of a heart attack. She'd been comforting people she hardly knew all night. He was only 45. I'd got her all wrong, given that it was Sunday morning, I thought she'd come straight from church. 

peach cobbler

Of course Casey Jones is a tourist trap, and I bought a few bits of Elvis memorabilia there.







I took over the driving for the first time, all the while telling myself  'keep right, keep right.' I had hardly been at the wheel but a few minutes when the navigator (Kathie) fell asleep and the back seat passenger nodded off too. Good job driving in the US is so easy, especially when you stick to freeways as we did.

Via my netbook and thanks to free wireless access, we'd booked a Comfort Inn again, a bigger suite (2 toilets) after making sure there was also refrigeration in the room. A step up we thought until we stepped over a towel mopping up what must have been a bit of a flood the night before, to enter the lift. In the interests of heart health we took the stairs when we could but even that was fraught with occupational hazards, one of the hand rails was broken. The best thing about the hotel is its location, only 3 miles from Graceland. After a cup of tea and pastries filched from the Best Western Breakfast bar back in Nashville, we drove there to do a recce before our official tour the next day.

To the accompaniment of Elvis hits blaring from the loudspeakers, we explored the lobby of the Heartbreak Hotel, (it has Elvis films playing 24/7 on an old style TV)






We saw the King's 2 aeroplanes, the Lisa Marie and a smaller one, ate an ice cream in the fifties-style ice cream parlour, and made some purchases in the inevitable gift shops, all over priced. We  hoped to take pictures of ourselves outside the famous Graceland gates but couldn't find the house. The next day we kicked ourselves when he discovered it was across the street!

Ice cream parlor at Graceland tourist complex

 We were so tired that night we ordered in from Marlow's as recommended by the hotel. Fried green tomatoes appealed because of the movie and the fact that I'd never eaten them before. Alas! These were not the finest examples because like the southern fried chicken, they were coated with thick breadcrumb batter. They sat heavy on our stomachs but didn't stop us from sleeping. Maxine was so tired she slept in her clothes all night!

It's hard to know why we were so weary, given that it was a short driving day and we didn't do much walking, only 3561 steps. Maybe it was mental tiredness, and the warmth, the temperature was around 85 degrees Fahrenheit. It could also have been the oppressive damp atmosphere in the hotel. Dreamt about seeing Graceland the next day.