Beej Weir's Blog: Beej Weir's Guide To Graceland: Chapter 1- Now and then, there's a fool such as I...

Monday, September 7, 2009

Beej Weir's Guide To Graceland: Chapter 1- Now and then, there's a fool such as I...

The other day, I was looking at the AOL main page (SHUT UP! And get off my lawn!) & saw a headline paraphrased to the effect: "Graceland is a tourist trap!" (actually, that's pretty much it, word for word).

My first reactions were 1) "Duh" and 2) "SHUT UP! Elvis rules!"

As it turned out, it was some article on their travel page about the top 10 tourist traps still worth visiting. Or whatever. But, yeah- Graceland's a tourist trap and HELL yeah, you should go.

Donna and I went back in January of 2008- about 10 days after his 73rd birthday. If he hadn't died, of course.

We were visiting Donna's parents & they wanted to know what I wanted to do while in Tennessee. I wanted to see Graceland. This is when I learned Graceland is the Pier 39 of Tennessee. (If you don't live in San Francisco- insert your city/state's tourist trap here...)

But, my in-laws are very gracious people. They smiled patiently & sprung for 2 Platinum packages. This meant we got to see everything- the house, the plane- everything. Including the TV he shot up. One of them, at least.

They dropped us off & ran like hell.

It was great. I took 101 pictures. A good number of them in focus, even (you're not allowed to use a flash). I'm currently uploading the creme of the crop. The next few posts will cover some of the more salient observations.

I checked out the website recently and they've made some changes. They've expanded the tours (you can see the stables now!). And apparently, they've replaced Sam Elliot's voice on the audio-thing that talks about what you're looking at with Lisa Marie's voice.

(I think it was Sam Elliot's voice. It sure sounded like him. If memory serves me correctly, Lisa Marie's voice did make an appearance in the Elvis Automobile Museum. But, until I learn otherwise, Sam Elliot was our audio tour guide).

Anyway, the non-VIP Platinum package is still a good deal & shows you everything you need to see. Although, I didn't see the 'Elvis After Dark' exhibit listed on the website. Maybe you won't get to see one of the TVs he shot up after all.

Lucky for you, I've got pictures.

Wow. I can now honestly say I visited Graceland when it was still cool.

Here's but a mere sampling of what's to come! Click on the thumbnails below and you'll be magically transported to my flickr page for a better look...