Day 34 - 18th November. Goodbye y'all

Our last day here. Usually at the end of a trip, we spend the last day at a bit of a loose end; not wanting to venture too far afield in case for some reason we get caught out trying to get to the airport, but also not wanting to go to the airport too early as there’s nothing more tedious than hanging around an airport.

Our first task is to see if we can extend our check out. Normally check-out is 12pm, but we wanted to see if this could be made a little later as that will give us time to do a few things and not have to keep the bags in the car all day. We were extended to a 2pm check out which was great, so jumped in the car, fighting a reluctant GPS again, and headed back to the Galleria Mall area.

There’s a huge fountain, about 3 stories high, built in a semi-circle with water cascading down both sides. It’s quite a dramatic structure (and very noisy & wet close up). It’s in a largish green park (say about the length of a rugby pitch but maybe ½ as wide) in a very well to do suburb. We took a few photos and then got some takeaway coffees to sit and ruminate on the world going by. Fort a change it was a grey day and a bit cooler, but quite pleasant to sit outside.

Not long after we settled in, a group of about 7 people turned up, all African American and a mix of men & Women with three young girls in tow, and they started to do some interesting walking around & gesturing (all independently of each other) and seemed to be led by an older guy. We were trying to think if it was a therapy session of some kind as he seemed to gather them round occasionally, preach a bit and then they’d all go off in different directions waving arms and talking to themselves. Fascinating the things one sees.

We’d collected quite a bit of coins over our travels –as has no doubt been mentioned, the ticket price for an item almost (depending on the retail rules of the state or city concerned) never includes the tax, so getting to the counter to pay for a $25.00 item invariably needs a total+tax amount of  $26.60 or some such thing, leading to a very large collection of scrappy coins. I’d tried to find a coin to notes machine and we headed out to a Walmart super centre to give it a try, but unfortunately it would only allow us to print vouchers to be used in Walmart, so we spent an entertaining hour looking for something to get.  At least it cleaned us out of coins though.

Then it was back to the Hotel to collect our things and go to the Airport. It was 2pm, but we decided to leave with plenty of time in hand (we needed to get fuel as well) and this was just as well, as the traffic around Houston, which from our limited exposure seemed to build up and crawl almost all times of the day, was doing just that and an expected 30 minute trip ended up taking over an hour.

The skies had been growing ever more ominous and dark, and as we finally made it to the airport and the Avis rental return, the heavens opened and the rain came down in huge sheets. This lasted about 20 minutes or so then just stopped.

The rental return area was huge in scope with each car agency having it’s own huge garage area for returns. We followed the signposts to the Avis garage and then got directed down one of several long narrow lanes of parked cars, all returns. Our car was quickly checked by a guy with a portable, um, car checking device, and then we were out of there. 2600 miles on that car from Pensacloa to Houston, not bad mileage! It’s a pretty good operation though, as shuttles take you from the rental garage areas to the main terminal area, and there are lots of staff on hand to do the heavy lifting.

We’d arrived a bit too early for check in, by about ½ an hour, so hung around for a while, and after a while a few more kiwi’s started turning up as well. The check-in area seems to be shared by different airlines and Avianca were in our spots (though by the slow progress of a family we were watching, it looked like their checking in was all being done manually).

Eventually Air N.Z’s allotted time came and Avianca’s staff all had to move along to a new set of desks, while still having to perform the manual check-in. Not a task I envied.

We had an entertaining chat with our check in lady as she wanted to understand what “sweet as” meant, so while she was loading our bags into the conveyor belt we gave a quick 101 in kiwi-speak. Our two back packs were OK weight wise but our spare bag was about three kg’s over the max limit, however we also had one very light box of stuff, so she let us off.

Then it was hanging round. We found a bar and settled in with a couple of glasses of wine, while our B.777 was manoeuvred into the gate. When one is in far flung lands, there’s something about seeing that Koru on the tail of an aeroplane that just seems to point you home.

There was a very boisterous crowd of Mexican men & women in the bar as well, all having a great (and loud) time , fortunately they weren’t on our flight as by the time they left the rows of empty beer bottles had grown exponentially. I pity their air crew.

Before long it was time to board our flight although board was delayed by about 15 minutes. It seems that the traffic build up that we had encountered at 2pm, had also impacted the crew as they tried to get here in time.

Unlike our flight over, this one was quite full, as according to our check-in assistant, full flights are the norm not the exception. Fortunately we had paid for allocated seats and down the back of the B.777 just before the galley, are four rows of two seats only abreast against the fuselage side, so Deb & I could sit together without having to deal with a third person. It makes for a much better flight.

So our time in America came to an end with another 13 hour flight (plus an hour from AK to Wellington).

Our trip around the South was quite different from what we had done before – there were less “wow” moments to have with stunning geography and this trip seemed mostly urban with lots of city & museum time, and the driving was over generally similar Interstate scenery (and so all up a bit harder to write about). However we have seem historically significant sites like Dealey Plaza, got to see the Blue Angels, and we  found two places that were nicer than we expected and would like to go back to one day; St Petersburg and Key West.

So that’s this blog all wrapped up, thanks to all who have read and followed our travels as we’ve journeyed through the southern American heartland. Its been a great trip and we will look forward to the next one, whenever and wherever that may be.

Cheers y’all !

Day 33 – 17th November

Our penultimate day in Houston and the U.S.A. After five weeks we have done all we wanted to do and see, and are ready to go home. However we had a free day today, so I looked up the nearest Hobby Town U.S.A Store which was about 30 minutes away, so after a leisurely coffee & breakfast we jumped in the car and headed out to the store. The store was in a strip mall along a wide boulevard so I went to look in there while Deb wandered off to look at a clothing store. Hobby Town U.S.A is a chain Hobby store with locations (as we know) throughout the U.S, but sadly they are usually far out of town!

This particular store was quite a large one and so I spent a few happy minutes browsing coming away with a kit and a few paint sets. There was a Barnes & Noble book store a few doors down (Barnes & Noble are similar to Whitcoulls) so I met Deb there and spent another few happy minutes browsing before we headed into town. There was a place called “Discovery Green” which is a sustainable green space in the CBD so after getting a park close by we headed down there.   

First things first and we stopped at a restaurant along the way for lunch. This place was called Pappasito’s and was a ‘Tex Mex’ type place. The first thing they give you is a small basket of corn chips and salsa, complimentary of course, and Deb & I kicked off with a non-alcoholic cocktail. She got a salmon & mango salad, and I got a fajita with Beef & chicken. Fortunately I asked for a small size as when it came out it was huge! However the food was delicious and after five weeks of food on the road it really was welcome. I’d also ordered a dessert called Sopapilla’s , small pastries covered with icing sugar and cinnamon, drizzled with honey and a caramel dipping sauce. Heaven! However I was as full as a tick so we had to get the doggie bag of shame and left to carry onto the park.

The green space is really nice, it’s a mix of grass, a pond, a hill and various sculptures dotted around. There’s also an amphitheatre and it looks like the area’s used quite a bit for various events & concerts. We wandered around and sat under the shade of some trees and watched the world go by for a while. Opposite the park, and parallel for a distance of about three blocks, is a huge new events & conference center being built which is a stunning piece of architecture. The noise of the construction and roadworks barely penetrated the park area. There were quite a few people dotted around with badges and eating lunch out of large cardboard boxes, and, catching a glimpse of one of the badges, saw they were all from a Japan Space Agency – welcome to Houston!

We wandered around the area for a few blocks but remarkably, and much like Memphis before, the area was very sparsely populated and it felt more like a weekend that a weekday. Maybe the tendency is to stay in the office block rather than go out?

By this time is was getting late, and so we jumped in the car and headed back to our hotel room. Once again, the freeways seem maniacal and it’s seriously like looking at a “dance of the cars” – how there aren’t more collisions I don’t know.

Our flight is tomorrow, sadly it was time to begin our final preparations, so the evening was spent cajoling various items of luggage into the cases we have. Deb’s space management skills come in very handy, and we managed to get it all done.

So tomorrow, it’s off to the airport and home, back to windy and shakey welly.

Day 32 16th November

NASA day today.  The Museum opens at 10am, and the car needs a fill-up, so we headed off about 8.30 so we could get gas and breakfast en-route.  Dora spat the dummy again this morning, she had been programmed with the Space Centre as destination the night before but got her panties in a wad and would give us directions but not show us the map, nor accept any instructions to take us via a gas station.  So between using google maps on the phone, missing a few instructions and improvising a little we made it to a nearby gas station with only a couple of minor tanties and topped up with $20 of the cheap stuff (had to pay cash at the cashier first, the 00000 post code trick would not work this time).  By this time Dora had gotten her act together and we were off, or go for launch – ha ha - Space Centre bound.  It was a relatively quick and easy trip out there, most of the traffic was flowing into the city, and was gridlocked.  We diverted via McDonalds where we had a McGriddle, which is a weird combo of maple pancake used to sandwich sausage pattie, egg and cheese like a burger.  Tasted ok and the coffee was drinkable.  Apologies if I’ve already covered this, but here, sausage is a pattie, if you want what we think of as sausages, these are called ”links” – as in they are in a link, not a flat pattie.

So we arrived at NASA without incident and paid another $6 for parking, on top of the already exhorbitant entry fee (we’ve spent a small fortune this trip on entry fees – Gnnnnn !!) and managed to find a park in the shade not too far from the entry.  My internal compass is so out of whack I have no idea if we will still be in the shade by the time we get back to the car or not, but we should get a 5 degree reduction in internal car heat for making the attempt.  It’s quite warm here, 30 degrees, not a cloud in the sky but a dirty smudge of smog on the horizon.  We’ve been told everywhere that it’s much warmer than is usual at this time of the year.  I digress, back to the Space Centre.  It really is impressive, very large, lots of displays that are very well done and informative, lots of interactive stuff for kids, and perhaps most impressive of all, some pretty good historical artefacts.

When we first arrived there were about a thousand school kids outside, all pushing and shoving each other, yelling and generally being obnoxious.  Well it felt like a thousand, but was probably about a hundred.  So they were herded in before us and scattered like sheep all over the place.  I managed to avoid most of them by going to the International Space Centre exhibit, which was really good. 

The Centre also has several genuine spacecraft, including three capsules from the early days of manned flight when the whole capsule was recovered. They’re tiny and looking inside it beggars belief how an Astronaut in bulky gear could deftly manipulate the mind-boggling number of buttons, toggles and switches all while being in the most inhospitable environment operating a craft that really, always must work first time!

We’d booked a tour of the Space Shuttle and the 747 that had been adapted to return the shuttle from it’s landing point to it’s launch pad.  The plane was the actual real thing, the shuttle on top was a model.  To prove that the concept of attaching the shuttle to the 747 would work, some pretty keen modeller built a remote controlled model of the two, and that included “releasing” the shuttle from the 747 in flight and landing it by itself. One chap who was manning rhe flight deck as a volunteer was most informative to chat to. He told us that the traditional Shuttle cockpit would normally have up to 3,000 switches, buttons & dials, but the newer craft coming online (notably the Orion project for deep space missions) will be more a touch-screen environment as the younger generation of Astronauts are more comfortable and familiar with these that the “steam-gauge” Astronauts of yore.

Once we’d finished there we had a quick bite of lunch and did some more wandering before our 1pm booking for the tram tour.  This loaded us all onto a trolley bus and took us to three separate buildings at the space centre.  First and most interesting was Mission Control for the Apollo missions – the actual Mission Control that managed the moon landing, plus the aborted Apollo 13 which made such a good movie that I am a big fan of. They had the flag that had been to the moon and back (not from the first moon landing but a subsequent one and sadly I can’t remember exactly which one).  They also pointed out the speaker that broadcast those famous words “one small step ….” you know the rest.

We all herded back on the trolley and off to the next stop.  This was the Space Vehicle Mock Up facility, which is basically a huge long hanger filled with cool stuff they have developed or are developing to help with advances in space travel.  The next project on the list is Mars, and they had, literally under wraps, a project that is being worked on in conjunction with Tesla, which will help them reduce the cost of sending an astronaut up to the International Space Station.  Due to the demise of the shuttle program, they now have to pay the Russians something like 80 million dollars to send one astronaut up there.  Tesla is aiming to do it much more cheaply (we can’t agree between us what the savings were, but they were significant) plus it has the advantage of making America more autonomous in the space race.  Yes it’s still a race, and Mars is the next goal now the moon is old hat.  There were hardly any people on the floor, and I did wonder why that was, I expected it to be a busy hive of mad scientists beavering away.  We did wonder if this was mostly for show and the real stuff is done away from the plebs.  Amongst some of the cool stuff that was there, though not being used, was an air floor, that blew air up from the floor to simulate weightlessness.  They also had vehicles that looked like they were used in a science fiction file with multiple legs, plus a couple of robots that were able to turn pages in books without tearing the paper (something I have not managed to achieve and why I love my Kindle) and write a text paragraph without using autocorrect, again, something I have not yet achieved.

Once we’d all filed through the building it was back on the trolley for another stop at the Saturn 5 rocket hangar.  This is enormous, and so hard to comprehend, let alone convey the scale of it.  It’s big.

Back on the trolley again and back to the main museum.  While what we saw was pretty interesting, the trolley ride was turgid, way too many people, all yapping when they should have been listening and not following instructions.  You could have whipped around all those places is half an hour with a decent sized group, rather than the 90+ minutes that it took.  Sigh.

Time for a quick sit-down with a coffee and some more exhibits, including touching actual moon rock – ooooohhhhhh 3.8 billion years old !

Finally a stop at the gift store and six hours after we arrived, we headed back to the motel.

Dinner was the same place as last night – hey if you like it, why not ???

Day 31 - 15th November

Not too much to report from today, we left Dallas at about 9am and managed to miss the worst of the rush hour traffic as we headed out of the city while most commuters were heading in.  The drive was mostly uneventful, though there were hundreds of trucks on the road, so we spent quite a bit of time following moving road blocks as one truck would inch past another which took several minutes due to the relative speeds.  I think we’ve whinged about this previously in the blog, we are at least grateful that there are two lanes (minimum) so we can actually pass.  Also the limit in some parts of the Interstate in Texas is 75 mph, so time speeds past.  The drive has been pretty dull this trip.  Texas is flat and boring, not much to see except vast lengths of road ahead.

We arrived in Houston with no problem. Which reminds me, Dora spat the dummy again this morning so we had to wing it until she woke up and started giving us directions.  Sigh.  This will be our last trip with Dora, time for her to be retired I think.  Poor Dora, she has served us well but her unreliability is intolerable.

First stop was a boot shop I had sussed out with a view to trying on some I had only been able to lust after online.  Alas the largest size they had was a 8.5, and despite my best efforts, I could not get my foot in.  They have no zipper, so it was just too tight to get my highly arched feet in through the ankle bit.  And in fact, they did not look as nice in reality as promised on the web picture, so it was no great hardship to settle for what was originally my 2^nd choice, which they had available in my size.  Finally, boots purchased, I am a very happy boot-a-holic J  And the boots have the flower of Texas – the Blue Bonnet, as decoration.  Doesn’t get much more authentic than cowboy boots with the Texas flower.

And for anyone who saw the boots on Facebook, that was actually a mini tin of peppermints in a boot shaped tin, not a real pair of boots J I was being facetious about my boot purchase!

Boots duly bought, we stopped for lunch at a nearby café, and I tried tamales for the first time.  These are a corn based dough which is filled with meat and then steamed in a corn husk.  The café reportedly has the best tamales in Houston, and while I have no frame of reference, they were very good.  After that we hoofed it to a nearby Mall, the largest in Houston.  It really is very large, and very Mally, with many chain stores.  I was not really in the mood to try anything on with my 5-days-in-a-row-without-washing shorts, 2 day old t-shirt and stinky (yes, STINKY) sandals, so I browsed and enjoyed looking at lots of clothes I had no intention of buying, nor could I afford if I wanted to.  The sales people were obviously bored and I was approached MANY times, “can I help you find something M’am” – “no thanks, just browsing” – “well my name’s Betty, so you just holler if there’s anything you need” – yes super polite despite my slovenly appearance.  I guess they are made to watch Pretty Woman as part of their training and do not judge a customer by they smell of their feet.  We are seeing more of a mix of races here, more Asian and Indians, plus quite a few muslims, including a guy with three women following along behind, completely clad in black except for their eyes.

By 5pm we’d about had enough wandering so headed back to the motel to chill for a bit.  For dinner we headed back to the tamale place again, managed to get slightly lost on the way home as we didn’t follow Dora’s directions closely enough.  Prep for the next day included booking tickets online for the Johnson Space Centre. 

Day 30 - 14th November

Today we would be visiting the scene of one of the most famous crimes in history, Dealey plaza and where the assassination of JFK took place. We had also booked tickets to the Sixth Floor Book Depository museum, but the tickets are usually sold on a timed basis so as the museum didn’t open till 12pm on Mondays (usually it’s earlier) we picked 12pm and went into town early to find a park and spend some time on the plaza itself.

Getting into town was pretty straightforward; we’d hit morning rush hour so no whizzing cars and getting to the Elm St off-ramp was also no drama, phew. We managed to find a parking lot on Elm close to Dealey Plaza where we paid $15 for up to 24hrs parking (not bad we thought).

The plaza itself is all quite accessible and it’s a lot more compact that either of us imagined it would be. The street’s length between the Elm St turn to the triple underpass, where the shooting took place, would be no more than a couple of hundred meters, and the plaza itself is only several dozen meters wide at the top point.  The other thing of note is that the infamous “grassy knoll” where the ‘other’ shooters are supposed to have been, is almost right next to where Abraham Zapruder was filming the motorcade. We’d always envisaged it to be in another location, eg across from the motorcade’s street. So the grassy knoll, Abraham Zapruder’s spot, and the Book depository all occupy the same side of the street.

As we were looking around, a number of touts came up to sell glossy magazines about the shooting (complete with gory autopsy pictures) as well as newspaper reprints but we shooed them away.

There were also two “x” marks in the street to indicate where JFK’s car was at when each shot was fired, though I understand these were placed by members of the public and are not any ‘official’ marking. 

So we first went to the spot where Abraham Zapruder was filming, and could see that he had a prime location for filming the motorcade after it turned onto Elm and went down towards the underpass.  We then went to the grassy knoll, really a small slope up towards a wooden fence that bordered a carpark and was also next to the railyards.  This was where some people thought the shots had come from initially.

On the ground, the window on the sixth floor of the book depository is kept open and from there you can see that Oswald had a prime spot to take his shots as the motorcade moved away from him in the same line of sight. I’d always though he had to move his rifle from one side to the other, but now I can see that he just had to move it upwards to keep tracking the car. That to me makes the concept of the lone shooter more plausible now.

We spent an hour or so going over the ground and went to the other side of the plaza to see the whole length of the street and take some photos. With still time in hand before the museum opened we went to the Museum store and café for a bite & coffee. We have found that a latte with an extra shot of espresso makes for a pretty decent flat white alternative.

At 11:45 we duly took our place in the queue at the museum, showed our ticket and picked up our audio tour device, and then went up to the 6^th Floor. The 6th Floor area has been designed to lead you around the room following a timeline of the day’s events and aftermath. It starts with a small background as to the reason for the visit and why JFK was unpopular to some Americans (he was not the uniting force that some myth would have us believe). The tour then takes you through the shooting timeline. The corner of the 6^th floor where Oswald positioned himself has been walled off by a glass wall, but the boxes he used to hide and provide a support for his arms have all been arranged as best they can determine. There’s also a large model of the plaza and building with string used to show the bullets trajectory to the car at each time that he fired.

The tour then goes through the aftermath & funeral, and also touches on the many conspiracy theories that have sprung up about the assassination.  There’s also a replica of the rifle used, and the tour of the floor finishes with the legacy of Kennedy and some of the things he tried to start during his thousand days in office.

There are no photo’s allowed on the 6^th Floor, but the 7^th floor is open and we were able to position ourselves in the corner above where Oswald was hiding, and take some photos of the street down below. There are more trees now covering the line of sight than there were in ’63, but it’s still easy to see the track of the motorcade away from the hiding place.

It was an amazing experience to see this ground, and to finally see how the land lies despite having seen it in various documentaries and films. I think being able to walk the street enabled us to get a better sense of the perspective from all angles.

We’ve also come away with two differing viewpoints; Deb is leaning towards the theory that there was a conspiracy of some kind in that Oswald did not act alone, but I have begun to believe the lone gunman theory as I can now see how he could have got three shots off in the space & Time he had. I purchased a book from the store that claims to put those theories to bed, so now I have to read and retain the information so that I can confidently argue my point.

Following our time at the museum, we decided to go over to the “Geo-Deck” tower a few blocks away. The tower, which looks like a large singer’s Microphone stood on end, contains an observation deck that allows great views of Dallas. The entry fee was $16 (almost everything needs an entry fee) and we got escorted into the tower where our “ambassador” spouted a few facts & figures on the way up. The observation deck was pretty amazing, and we could walk the circumference of the tower for some amazing views. We could also see the whole of Dealey Plaza from the perch so took a number of photos for the record. After a few pictures, including one of a very spaghetti-like interchange we headed back down and went back to the 6^th floor museum café for lunch. Two rolls, two coffees and a couple of ‘cakes’ came to $40! Yikes.

Once we finished, it was getting late so we walked a few blocks but couldn’t see any signs of interesting retail activity, so jumped in the car and headed back to the motel. We happen to be directed through the spaghetti-junction we’d photographed earlier, and the GPS had a hard time figuring out where we were. Fortunately the traffic was moving very slowly due to road works closing a lane and a breakdown further along also causing a jam, but once we got past that we sped up and were back at the hotel in a short time.

We decided to cut our Dallas time short and head to Houston tomorrow, a day early, so that we have enough time at the Space Center as well as get all our last packing sorted before we leave on Friday.

Over the last couple of days we have been watching event in NZ from afar. The news has also made it over here with some segments on CNN & Fox, and making to the “ticker tape” news ribbon. Amusingly, this morning the segment showed the three cows stranded on an island and we couldn’t help but be amused that this may be the most lasting image of the disaster that Americans may have! We have also been keeping an eye on Wellington as that has been getting flooded out due to the torrential rain, our poor lovely city is being hammered!

Day 29 - 13th November

We awoke to a text from our house sitter, Rowan, to the effect that there had been a significant earthquake in NZ, but the house and occupants were OK. That began a day of great unease for us as we watched events unfold from afar, feeling quite helpless and sad for our home country as it went through this terrible events. We kept ourselves glued to Stuff and Facebook during the day as we drove from our overnight mid-point stop in Texarkana, on the Texas/Arkansas border, to our penultimate destination, Dallas.

We made good driving, again managing to dodge the multitude of trucks on the road, and got to our chosen Hotel by about midday. Unfortunately our hotel room wasn’t ready, and so with car full of luggage, we picked a local mall to go and spent a few hours at until 3pm.

We picked the North Park mall further along on the I-30 into Dallas, as this also had a boot shop that deb was keen to see. Going along the freeway, there was a curious optical effect where the city’s high-rise buildings seemed to be quite distant, then suddenly appeared much closer.

As has probably been mentioned in a previous post, driving a city freeway system can be very fraught. Often there are exit only lanes that can trap you, and after going past an exit there may be a need to have to quickly cross two to three lanes of traffic to be positioned for the next correct exit or off-ramp. Add to this other cars whizzing past at all speeds and cars frequently changing lanes suddenly and without warning, and changing lanes is a bit of a mission as well, because cars tend to hang in the blind spot. Dallas was no exception, and after we’d negotiated our way through the network and to the mall we were both happy to just stop and take a breather.

The mall, North Park, is pretty much like any big mall. Two floors with major department stores at each corner with many smaller shops and boutiques jammed in between. Deb had earmarked a shop for some boots to look at, and we found it without too much issue (and by looking at a store map) but although they were nice, they weren’t the “wow” factor she was looking for.

We had a bite to eat at the food court and watched with admiration as a young Latina woman corralled and fed a raucous and fidgety group of young kids whose vocal volume seemed to be permanently set to loud.

After that we split up so Deb could look at clothes and I could see if the place had a book or toy store, but the closest was a Disney store where I picked up a small die cast model of an X-Wing for $10.

I happened to be wearing a t-shirt with a silver fern on it, and two gentlemen walked up and asked me if it was a silver fern, to which I replied in the affirmative. They said they’d been in NZ a few months ago and had heard about the quake, and were hoping and wishing the best for the NZ’ers, which I though was a very nice sentiment.

We met up about 3:30 and jumped in the car to head back to the Hotel, and again negotiated the freeway of terror. The Hotel we’d booked was about 7kms out of the central city but this worked out pretty well as it keeps the costs down but having a car means we can go into town and the short distance doesn’t make for any hassle.

We spent the rest of the day watching updates unfold from NZ.  

Day 28 - 12th November

Stopped at Little Rock for a while then carried on and stayed in Texarkana for the night. Not a whole lot to report for this day. Mostly driving. Although the award for the worst coffee we have had on this trip goes to a food stand in a market food court in Little Rock, where the coffee was weak and the whitener had some kind of weird flavouring.

We stopped at Texarkana for the night to recharge and then carry onto Dallas the next day.

Day 27 - 11th November

 Veterans Day here in the U.S. The post-election fallout continues, and we watch CNN and, to a lesser degree, Fox to see what the talking heads are saying. In general it’s agreed that everyone expected a Clinton win and a lot of people voted for Trump who were expected to vote for Clinton ‘just because’ , e.g. because they’re women , black , Hispanic etc. etc. However the more we watch the more we realize that a larger voice of the electorate was ignored by the Clinton campaign, and these are the people in what is known as the rust belt, where once manufacturing was a primary industry. They saw Clinton as part of that Washington machine that signed free trade deals that gave away their jobs and they saw Trump as an outsider who will shake up the political landscape. That remains to be seen but a couple of our observations so far are that

-          We think that Clinton expected to win and had no concession speech planned. Her defeat was such a shock that she couldn’t face the crowd. However to us this is an example of a failure of leadership, and to our mind she should have fronted the crowd even if to just mouth platitudes and clichés.

-          The riots that are currently happening in U.S cities against Trump are being given a lot of almost approving press. However as one commentator pointed out, that if these had been directed against Clinton after her win these people would be vilified, and another commentator said that Obama & Clinton should be speaking out against these riots and get people to accept the results of the election. By saying nothing they are tacitly approving of them.

Its certainly an interesting time to be in the U.S and we’re seeing some good information about what’s happening. Of note is that Trump has given a full interview on 60 Minutes and it appears he has toned down and mollified some of the harder rhetoric, so perhaps he may not be such a bogey man after all. I think we have been here before with the election of George W. Bush and the U.S survived.

Our day dawned a bit cold and grey. We had a free day in Memphis so decided to start by going down to the large pyramid we’d seen down by the riverfront and hopefully have breakfast there. We had wanted to go to Mud Island (as seen in the movie “The Firm”) but it was closed for the Autumn & Winter months and opens from April – October. Mud Island is a large area and contains several subdivisions as well but access is either by footbridge to the museum, which looked to be closed, or car to the housing area.

The pyramid is 32-stories tall, and inside is an absolutely huge outdoor and hunting & fishing store. The store is all open at its base with a mezzanine floor around three of the walls. In the center of the pyramid is the tallest free-standing elevator in the world that takes you to the top of the structure where there’s a restaurant and a viewing platform. However the structure otherwise is open to a great height.

However the interior is something else. The floor area is bisected by waterways that have huge fish swimming in them as well as ducks of at least two breeds that we saw, wandering around as well. Surrounding the base of the elevator area is an alligator pen that has three ‘gators there, with the water and rocks they lie on kept to a perfect temperature for the beasts. It’s an amazing structure, and inside almost anything and everything outdoors related is for sale, including boats, dinghies, and electric ride-on cars for the kids and all-terrain vehicles for the grown-ups. There are several large aquariums as well dotted around the place. This in addition to everything else needed for the great outdoors (or catching or shooting what moves in the great outdoors)

Entry to the store is free, but to ride the elevator is $10 so we decided to do that, have a look at the viewing platform and see if the restaurant was open for breakfast.  The elevator only has two floors, G for Ground and O for Observation. The ride up is amazing and as the elevator is glass you can see the floor drop away alarmingly. At the top, the restaurant has another large aquarium as its centrepiece on the bar, and the area makes full use of the stunning views. Of the two observation platforms, only one was open and this gave us views to the south, over the city and down the Mississippi. The land is completely flat for dozens of miles around, and Memphis itself does not have a lot of overly high structures. The outer edge of the platform is reinforced glass and is vaguely uncomfortable to stand on initially, but fortunately it’s opaque so you don’t see fully below you as you stand on it. Both Deb and I only had our phones for use as cameras, and as the barrier is a wire barrier just below chest height it would have been all too easy to drop the phone over the edge! Over firm grips ensured that didn’t happen and we got some stunning views of the city and landscape.

After spending several minutes taking in and photographing the view we went back in to see about breakfast, but the restaurant only did lunch so we headed back down to the main shop floor to see if there was a café or something.

The first place we saw was a fudge shop that sold beautifully flavoured fudge of all kinds, and we picked 6 while chatting with the very friendly lady behind the counter (almost everyone we have interacted with has been incredibly friendly and very interested in us and our journey), and grabbed some coffee and went outside, picked a bench, and supped our coffee while taking the shop area all in. It seems a bit mundane to call it a shop really.

We spotted a grill so went over there and got ourselves sat down for breakfast. I decided to try grits, as a side, because I’d heard them mentioned often in stories of the south and was keen to see what they were like.

It was just as well I tried them as a side to a main meal as they were awful. They’re basically like polenta (similar grain I think) and then boiled up to a very mushy consistency. It’s like over boiling rice then mashing it. The taste was really bland and I think they need to have butter and/or some kind of seasoning added to give taste. Glad I tried it, but never again!

After that we had a wander around the store and in the main aquarium it was feeding time for the fish, This is turned into a bit of a show and there’s a compere out front who introduces the diver (yes, diver) who goes into the tank and feeds the fish. The diver has a microphone in the facemask so provides a running commentary on the types of fish being fed. It’s a pretty good idea and was great entertainment for us and the attendant kids.

We then went for a wander round the mezzanine floor where a lot of the duck hunting kit is located including some impressive gun racks (there are gun safes at the store front for those visitors who are packing!) and after several more minutes, called it time and  wandered our way back into the Memphis CBD.

The riverfront has been nicely sculpted and an effort made to beautify the space, so it was a nice wander back, as by this time the sun had come out again and we were enjoying some warmer temps.

 Memphis CBD is an odd place. We had expected there to be some main retail areas (much like Wellington’s Lambton Quay & Willis St area) but instead the CBD was a very quiet area, and the main street, unsurprisingly called “Main St”, seemed to be mostly cafes, restaurants and hotels. Running the length on Main St are tram lines but amusingly, the trams are now buses made to look like trams, and I don’t know if genuine trams are used anymore.

After wandering the length on Main St and not seeing a lot we headed back to the Hotel room to gen up on where there might be some retail action. It looked like most of the main retail stores are now in malls outside the CBD however there was a part of the Main St a few blocks further down that featured some eclectic shop stores so we took a breather and carried on down. It took about 10-15 minutes to get down there through some pretty derelict real estate but alas it wasn’t quite what we expected. A few small boutiques and a bookshop (I duly purchased a book as well, to add my support) but otherwise was more of the same as we’d seen further up Main St. However down this end of town was the Lorraine Motel where Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr had been assassinated in 1968. The motel fell into decline after his death, and was purchased to be kept as a memorial. There were some plaques around to describe what had happened, and adjacent to the Motel is now the Civil Rights center, though we didn’t explore that as our travels up till now have been very informative in that respect.

We wandered back to our Hotel following the same path. As noted before, central Memphis seemed a bit quiet and there wasn’t as much there that we thought. There were large derelict sections with broken concrete, footpaths in disrepair and bent & rusted fences. Most of the action revolves around Beale St which itself is a bit smaller than we imagined it would be, especially after Nashville. However the main attractions, like Graceland, the Gibson factory, Beale St, the Lorraine Motel and the Peabody ducks are all within a manageable distance. 

Speaking of the Peabody ducks, we decided to go back to the Hotel and stake our claim to a spot early. Downstairs in the lobby area, all the seats & tables & chairs were taken, so we went up to the Mezzanine and found a perfect place with two large chairs and a table. Deb staked our claim while I went downstairs to the bar to get a couple of drinks. The place was incredibly busy and it took me about 20 minutes to get served. We then had a 30 minute wait and during this time our perimeter started to be overrun by enemy forces. There were a group of three European tourists (we think German or Swiss) to whom the concept of personal space was an alien one, and they kept moving forward to try and get a better view. The duckmaster is very good and managing the viewing and ensures people in the lobby are seated and that the area around the ducks is totally clear. Nevertheless by the appointed time the mezzanine was crowded by the time the ducks did their thing and marched off. Just before, while we were watching them, the ducks would jump up on the fountains edge and stretch their necks down the other side but they never left the fountain edge. Very well trained. 

After this we had another drink to enjoy our spot and then went back to the Hotel, via the Peabody Hotel shop which has a very strong duck theme!

Then it was off for dinner. A place had been suggested on Main St. called “Flight”, a bit like a tapas bar where small dishes on the meal could be served in groups or each dish as a larger main (much like our bourbon flights oh so many miles ago in N.O!) however on arrival we were told, despite many empty tables, that the next available table was at 10:20pm! So it was back to Beale St and the “Blues Café”, recommended to us by the lady at the fudge shop in the Bass Pro store.

The Café was loud, noisy, and smoky,  and seemed like organised chaos, but we were seated pretty quickly and I chose a steak while Deb went for the ribs. We both ordered a red wine and it arrived in thin plastic cups, much like a Hotels one. Classy joint! The kitchen area was right next to us, it was an open kitchen, and we watched the guy prepare & marinate huge pieces of steak. He massaged cooking oil into the steak and then literally pounded the seasoning into it. When I got mine it was perfect!

That nicely finished off our time in Memphis. Tomorrow it’s on the road heading for a waypoint at Little Rock then off to Dallas for our penultimate stop.  

Day 26 - 10th November

Our first full day in Memphis and today on the schedule was the almost obligatory tour of Graceland, Elvis’ home and now a shrine to the entertainer.

We’d booked a V.I.P tour the night before which sounds flash but just allows access to more of the exhibits dotted around the plaza as well as access to the Graceland mansion.

We’d booked a 09:30am tour as we figured it’d be better to get things underway earlier, and thought we’d have breakfast out there to save time. So after picking up our car from the valet (another tip) we drove out to Graceland, alternately using the google maps on our phones as well as the recalcitrant GPS system which had chosen that moment to lock up again. However getting to the venue was simplicity as we only had to negotiate a couple of the freeway roads, and we were there in about 10 minutes.

The area (on Elvis Presley Boulevard) takes up a big chunk of real estate. On one side of the road is Graceland itself, and on the other side is a long plaza made up of the car parking, various museum exhibits including Elvis’ cars and his two aeroplanes, gift shops, restaurants & café’s. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we thought the appearance of the buildings and grounds wasn’t quite as “flash” as we thought it might be and in some places looked pretty tired and in need of a spruce up.

Unfortunately the breakfast place we wanted to go hadn’t opened yet, so we went through to the ticketing area, picked up our tickets and found an open diner in the plaza area to have breakfast. It was all short order stuff so we had a couple of fried bread sandwiches (egg, bacon, cheese) and coffee. The place also offered a fried peanut butter & banana sandwich (“the kings favourite!”) so that would have to be a lunch stop as well.

We scoffed down breakfast and then went to our pick up stop to start our tour. It’s a very slick operation with staff everywhere taking you each step of the way and handing you off to the next person. We climbed into a small bus that was to take us a cross to road to Graceland to start our tour. There is a crossing which allows foot traffic to go across but as we were on that V.I.P tour we went on the bus. Just before we alighted we were given an iPad and headphones as that would be the guide through the house.

We got dropped off and were guided around (by yet another staff member) to the front of the house to start.
The tour of Graceland takes you through the lower floors, kitchen, entertainment and “jungle” room, then through part of the ground and outbuildings. The upper floors are all closed off for both privacy & respect reasons. As you tour the house, you flick the iPad between the rooms as you go and there’s both narration as well as interview & music tracks. It’s really well done, and the house itself is quite amazing.  Fortunately, the crowds of people were quite small as it was a self-guided tour, you could take your time and often did not have to cope with lots of other people. The furnishings in the house are quite stunning, and there are T.V’s everywhere, but at least three rooms are worthy of mention.

The first is his “entertainment” room (today it would be a “cinema room”) – decked out in shades of yellow & blue, mirrors & glass, with big couches, three T.V’s, a bar and a retractable movie screen. It’s a stunning space and is quite striking. The next room is the pool room. This has 350 yards of fabric across the walls and fanning out across the ceiling and again is just an amazing space to be in. The third is the famous ( or infamous) “Jungle Room” , a long room decked out in wooden furniture with a very African feel, a small indoor water feature and green carpet on the floors and ceiling. The latter apparently improved acoustics in the room and he did some recording and jamming sessions in there.

There’s a trophy room which contains all his recording awards and achievements (and there are a LOT of them!) as well as various costumes he wore and more information on his later career, and the racquetball court has been converted into an awards room celebrating all the things that Elvis achieved either for himself or for the others he tried to help (for example he put on a benefit concert to help raise funds for the U.S.S Arizona memorial in Hawaii). Outside is a huge area for horses and today there are four horses still there, three rescue horses and one horse that’s a descendant of one of Elvis’ herd.

Outside in the meditation garden he set up are the graves of Elvis, his parents and a marker to his stillborn twin brother.

We had access to an extra room (part of the V.I.P package) that celebrated Elvis’ movie career ( 31 films!) and had some of the costumes as well as some more info about each of the films he starred in. He desired to be a more serious actor, but alas with his looks and singing ability was typecast in the romantic comedy roles (with singing).

We both came away from the house with a fresh appreciation for the man as well as his talents and abilities. It seemed to me (Joe) at least that he was a guy who at his core was still a pretty simple and straightforward guy who always wanted to do the right thing, yet just had made so much money it would have been hard to reign in any excess, but the excess he indulged in was not due to any malevolence or narcissism.

After we’d finished at Graceland, we were picked up by the tour bus after a small wait and after an extra tour of the grounds (which contains a chapel still available for weddings, and they stop tours so that the married could can get their Graceland pictures) we then went back across to the plaza to carry on our tour. We looked at the two aircraft that Elvis had, and to get to the aircraft we had to go through an “Elvis Fan detector”, so as you walked through it said “Thank you for being an Elvis fan. Thank you, thank you very much”. The two aircraft (a large four-engine Convair 880, and a smaller Lockheed Jetstar) look a bit weather-beaten, but you can walk through the Convair and see how it had been fitted out (complete with bedroom at the end). It was always available, and on one of the video loops, a story recounted how that after Elvis had realised his daughter had never seen snow, they jumped in the plane, flew to Colorado where she played in snow for several minutes, and then flew back.  The smaller Jetstar was used to go ahead of the Convair and entourage and make sure things were set up before Elvis’ arrival.

After these, it was through the gift shops (anything and everything Elvis related) and then off to the automobile collection where several of Elvis cars were stored; Two Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari Dino, Mercedes-Benz 280 SL Roadster, the famous “Pink Cadillac”, Cadillac El Dorado, Stutz Blackhawk and Mercedes 600 Limousine. Quite an impressive collection. Additionally there were several smaller vehicles (like a snowmobile converted to land use) that he liked to use around Graceland. He almost seemed like a big kid that never quite grew up.

After this it as down to the diner we’d been to for breakfast to get some lunch and a fried peanut butter & banana sandwich. Well, this was nicer that it sounds and is basically bread with peanut butter & banana inside and buttered on the outside, then fried in a pan, pretty much a toasted sandwich. Delish I thought J

We then did a circuit of a few more of the museums and gift shops (where you can buy a replica Elvis jumpsuit starting from $1700 USD to $2600 USD!) and marvelled at what you could buy that was Elvis related ( Elvis Coffee even). One of the staff we spoke to said that this was a pretty quiet time for tourism (which ties in with what we’ve seen in town) however in the few hours that we’d been there the numbers of people had grown considerably, and we were grateful we’d done our tour earlier in the morning when there were less people around.

By about 1pm, we were ready to go, and all up had spent about 4 hours at Graceland. We came away very happy that we’d done the tour and with a better appreciation of Elvis’ achievements as a singer and as someone who just wanted to make life better for those around him.

So it was back into town and our hotel, retracing our steps and getting back in short order. Wondering what to do with our afternoon, we decided to go to the Gibson guitar factory just a few blocks away from our hotel. Gibson are a famous manufacturer of electric guitars so the chance to see how they were made was too good to pass up. There are a couple of factories, one in Nashville and this one in Memphis that does the tours. We were a bit early for the next scheduled tour but only had a few minutes to wait before we went through.

Our guide was a very young fella with a most endearing Mississippi drawl and very dry and witty sense of humour.  It would be hard to repeat the comments he made (as you almost need to hear them in the original accent) but he was a great tour guide. Sadly we were not allowed to take any photos for proprietary reasons.

The tour started where the ‘side’ and the top of the guitar is made. The raw wood is kept in a temperature & humidity controlled room to ensure that the wood will be malleable enough to be worked on. The top is made from three laminations of wood with the top being of a type that has the grain visible to have the nice ‘wood’ look to the body. The side is one piece of wood stamped and formed in a press that gives it the curve, and they then slice the wood length wise to get as many sides for the type/model of guitar they are making.

Then the sides are clamped and glued together over the base, and then the top is glued on and then binding is applied to the edges of the guitar and bound with cloth following a specific binding process that has to be unique for each guitar type so that the curves and bends are catered for.

The necks are formed from shaped but spare wood, and are then cut to allow the frets and tuning necks to be added.

Nickel fret bars are added, and then are glued to the base, which is a source of pride here as bolted necks can eventually fray over time. So each neck has to be shaped and checked for a secure fit before it is glued into place. The guitar is then put into a machine and checked to ensure the fret bars are all exactly correct, to prevent irregularities from affecting the sound.

The guitars are then tweaked and then taken to the paint room. Painting is all done by hand and essentially by one operator. So every guitar that features a shaded paint job is all unique and no two will be alike. They are then coated in nitro cellulose to ensure longevity and protection over time. No polyurethane here! The only masking that’s done is to the neck to protect the fret, thus the lovely edge binding is painted over. However the next stage, and this bit really impressed me, is to pass the guitar to one of six women who sit down and with scrapers and razor blades, remove the paint from the binding in such a manner that it looks perfectly straight. Incredible seeing how they do it.

The guitar is then polished up to a perfect shine using three polishing machines, and then has the strings and electrics added, getting through the two smallish sound holes at the front of the body to add the electrics. It is then quality checked (again by one person on the line). If it passes muster it’s put into a box ready for sale, and if any aspect is not good, it’s sent back to the part of the factory to be re-worked.

The process with a few exceptions is very hand crafted and it’s an amazing process to watch. Around 60 guitars a day are produced with each guitar talking about four to five weeks to make (and that even has to allow for a great diversity of models as well). We both came away with a real appreciation for the craftsmanship involved.

There is a mist continually being pumped into the factory to keep the ambient temp & humidity correct (1000 litres of water per day) and the guitar has a lifetime warranty. One of our tour asked the guide where these skills come from. He replied that across the south is a generational woodworking skill, to the point where some furniture manufacturers can trace their origin back to before the civil war. He also pointed out that the number of people in the factor under 40 can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and many of the skilled workers have been there almost two decades.

There’s a small Gibson shop attached to the factory and it was very tempting to buy one and take it home after seeing how they are crafted, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see the binding edges on a Gibson guitar without thinking of those six women gently scraping away paint with a keen eye and steady hand.

After that tour it was time to go back to the hotel room, freshen up and go out for dinner. We decided to try and pick a place on Beale St, the famous street in Memphis where many of the blues bars are located. It was a cold night and for the first time we were both wearing jackets (it’s a bit more like Wellington temps now). Beale St was not very lively, as we are well out of season now so there’s very little foot traffic around. However most of the food is all the same (BBQ or Fried this & that, Catfish, Po Boy sandwiches, and huge portions of everything) so we eventually picked a very quiet place called “Wet Willies” whose claim to fame was frozen margarita slushies. We duly had those and Deb had what was basically a Nacho mountain, and I had a fried chicken sandwich with a mountain of fries. The portion sizes were huge though and after our Graceland meals, were almost too much.

So sated and happy we wandered back to our hotel room, and will see what tomorrow brings.

Day 26 - 10th November

Day Twenty-six - 10^th November

Our first full day in Memphis and today on the schedule was the almost obligatory tour of Graceland, Elvis’ home and now a shrine to the entertainer.

We’d booked a V.I.P tour the night before which sounds flash but just allows access to more of the exhibits dotted around the plaza as well as access to the Graceland mansion.

We’d booked a 09:30am tour as we figured it’d be better to get things underway earlier, and thought we’d have breakfast out there to save time. So after picking up our car from the valet (another tip) we drove out to Graceland, alternately using the google maps on our phones as well as the recalcitrant GPS system which had chosen that moment to lock up again. However getting to the venue was simplicity as we only had to negotiate a couple of the freeway roads, and we were there in about 10 minutes.

The area (on Elvis Presley Boulevard) takes up a big chunk of real estate. On one side of the road is Graceland itself, and on the other side is a long plaza made up of the car parking, various museum exhibits including Elvis’ cars and his two aeroplanes, gift shops, restaurants & café’s. We didn’t really know what to expect, but we thought the appearance of the buildings and grounds wasn’t quite as “flash” as we thought it might be and in some places looked pretty tired and in need of a spruce up.

Unfortunately the breakfast place we wanted to go hadn’t opened yet, so we went through to the ticketing area, picked up our tickets and found an open diner in the plaza area to have breakfast. It was all short order stuff so we had a couple of fried bread sandwiches (egg, bacon, cheese) and coffee. The place also offered a fried peanut butter & banana sandwich (“the kings favourite!”) so that would have to be a lunch stop as well.

We scoffed down breakfast and then went to our pick up stop to start our tour. It’s a very slick operation with staff everywhere taking you each step of the way and handing you off to the next person. We climbed into a small bus that was to take us a cross to road to Graceland to start our tour. There is a crossing which allows foot traffic to go across but as we were on that V.I.P tour we went on the bus. Just before we alighted we were given an iPad and headphones as that would be the guide through the house.

We got dropped off and were guided around (by yet another staff member) to the front of the house to start.
The tour of Graceland takes you through the lower floors, kitchen, entertainment and “jungle” room, then through part of the ground and outbuildings. The upper floors are all closed off for both privacy & respect reasons. As you tour the house, you flick the iPad between the rooms as you go and there’s both narration as well as interview & music tracks. It’s really well done, and the house itself is quite amazing.  Fortunately, the crowds of people were quite small as it was a self-guided tour, you could take your time and often did not have to cope with lots of other people. The furnishings in the house are quite stunning, and there are T.V’s everywhere, but at least three rooms are worthy of mention.

The first is his “entertainment” room (today it would be a “cinema room”) – decked out in shades of yellow & blue, mirrors & glass, with big couches, three T.V’s, a bar and a retractable movie screen. It’s a stunning space and is quite striking. The next room is the pool room. This has 350 yards of fabric across the walls and fanning out across the ceiling and again is just an amazing space to be in. The third is the famous ( or infamous) “Jungle Room” , a long room decked out in wooden furniture with a very African feel, a small indoor water feature and green carpet on the floors and ceiling. The latter apparently improved acoustics in the room and he did some recording and jamming sessions in there.

There’s a trophy room which contains all his recording awards and achievements (and there are a LOT of them!) as well as various costumes he wore and more information on his later career, and the racquetball court has been converted into an awards room celebrating all the things that Elvis achieved either for himself or for the others he tried to help (for example he put on a benefit concert to help raise funds for the U.S.S Arizona memorial in Hawaii). Outside is a huge area for horses and today there are four horses still there, three rescue horses and one horse that’s a descendant of one of Elvis’ herd.

Outside in the meditation garden he set up are the graves of Elvis, his parents and a marker to his stillborn twin brother.

We had access to an extra room (part of the V.I.P package) that celebrated Elvis’ movie career ( 31 films!) and had some of the costumes as well as some more info about each of the films he starred in. He desired to be a more serious actor, but alas with his looks and singing ability was typecast in the romantic comedy roles (with singing).

We both came away from the house with a fresh appreciation for the man as well as his talents and abilities. It seemed to me (Joe) at least that he was a guy who at his core was still a pretty simple and straightforward guy who always wanted to do the right thing, yet just had made so much money it would have been hard to reign in any excess, but the excess he indulged in was not due to any malevolence or narcissism.

After we’d finished at Graceland, we were picked up by the tour bus after a small wait and after an extra tour of the grounds (which contains a chapel still available for weddings, and they stop tours so that the married could can get their Graceland pictures) we then went back across to the plaza to carry on our tour. We looked at the two aircraft that Elvis had, and to get to the aircraft we had to go through an “Elvis Fan detector”, so as you walked through it said “Thank you for being an Elvis fan. Thank you, thank you very much”. The two aircraft (a large four-engine Convair 880, and a smaller Lockheed Jetstar) look a bit weather-beaten, but you can walk through the Convair and see how it had been fitted out (complete with bedroom at the end). It was always available, and on one of the video loops, a story recounted how that after Elvis had realised his daughter had never seen snow, they jumped in the plane, flew to Colorado where she played in snow for several minutes, and then flew back.  The smaller Jetstar was used to go ahead of the Convair and entourage and make sure things were set up before Elvis’ arrival.

After these, it was through the gift shops (anything and everything Elvis related) and then off to the automobile collection where several of Elvis cars were stored; Two Rolls-Royces, a Ferrari Dino, Mercedes-Benz 280 SL Roadster, the famous “Pink Cadillac”, Cadillac El Dorado, Stutz Blackhawk and Mercedes 600 Limousine. Quite an impressive collection. Additionally there were several smaller vehicles (like a snowmobile converted to land use) that he liked to use around Graceland. He almost seemed like a big kid that never quite grew up.

After this it as down to the diner we’d been to for breakfast to get some lunch and a fried peanut butter & banana sandwich. Well, this was nicer that it sounds and is basically bread with peanut butter & banana inside and buttered on the outside, then fried in a pan, pretty much a toasted sandwich. Delish I thought J

We then did a circuit of a few more of the museums and gift shops (where you can buy a replica Elvis jumpsuit starting from $1700 USD to $2600 USD!) and marvelled at what you could buy that was Elvis related ( Elvis Coffee even). One of the staff we spoke to said that this was a pretty quiet time for tourism (which ties in with what we’ve seen in town) however in the few hours that we’d been there the numbers of people had grown considerably, and we were grateful we’d done our tour earlier in the morning when there were less people around.

By about 1pm, we were ready to go, and all up had spent about 4 hours at Graceland. We came away very happy that we’d done the tour and with a better appreciation of Elvis’ achievements as a singer and as someone who just wanted to make life better for those around him.

So it was back into town and our hotel, retracing our steps and getting back in short order. Wondering what to do with our afternoon, we decided to go to the Gibson guitar factory just a few blocks away from our hotel. Gibson are a famous manufacturer of electric guitars so the chance to see how they were made was too good to pass up. There are a couple of factories, one in Nashville and this one in Memphis that does the tours. We were a bit early for the next scheduled tour but only had a few minutes to wait before we went through.

Our guide was a very young fella with a most endearing Mississippi drawl and very dry and witty sense of humour.  It would be hard to repeat the comments he made (as you almost need to hear them in the original accent) but he was a great tour guide. Sadly we were not allowed to take any photos for proprietary reasons.

The tour started where the ‘side’ and the top of the guitar is made. The raw wood is kept in a temperature & humidity controlled room to ensure that the wood will be malleable enough to be worked on. The top is made from three laminations of wood with the top being of a type that has the grain visible to have the nice ‘wood’ look to the body. The side is one piece of wood stamped and formed in a press that gives it the curve, and they then slice the wood length wise to get as many sides for the type/model of guitar they are making.

Then the sides are clamped and glued together over the base, and then the top is glued on and then binding is applied to the edges of the guitar and bound with cloth following a specific binding process that has to be unique for each guitar type so that the curves and bends are catered for.

The necks are formed from shaped but spare wood, and are then cut to allow the frets and tuning necks to be added.

Nickel fret bars are added, and then are glued to the base, which is a source of pride here as bolted necks can eventually fray over time. So each neck has to be shaped and checked for a secure fit before it is glued into place. The guitar is then put into a machine and checked to ensure the fret bars are all exactly correct, to prevent irregularities from affecting the sound.

The guitars are then tweaked and then taken to the paint room. Painting is all done by hand and essentially by one operator. So every guitar that features a shaded paint job is all unique and no two will be alike. They are then coated in nitro cellulose to ensure longevity and protection over time. No polyurethane here! The only masking that’s done is to the neck to protect the fret, thus the lovely edge binding is painted over. However the next stage, and this bit really impressed me, is to pass the guitar to one of six women who sit down and with scrapers and razor blades, remove the paint from the binding in such a manner that it looks perfectly straight. Incredible seeing how they do it.

The guitar is then polished up to a perfect shine using three polishing machines, and then has the strings and electrics added, getting through the two smallish sound holes at the front of the body to add the electrics. It is then quality checked (again by one person on the line). If it passes muster it’s put into a box ready for sale, and if any aspect is not good, it’s sent back to the part of the factory to be re-worked.

The process with a few exceptions is very hand crafted and it’s an amazing process to watch. Around 60 guitars a day are produced with each guitar talking about four to five weeks to make (and that even has to allow for a great diversity of models as well). We both came away with a real appreciation for the craftsmanship involved.

There is a mist continually being pumped into the factory to keep the ambient temp & humidity correct (1000 litres of water per day) and the guitar has a lifetime warranty. One of our tour asked the guide where these skills come from. He replied that across the south is a generational woodworking skill, to the point where some furniture manufacturers can trace their origin back to before the civil war. He also pointed out that the number of people in the factor under 40 can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and many of the skilled workers have been there almost two decades.

There’s a small Gibson shop attached to the factory and it was very tempting to buy one and take it home after seeing how they are crafted, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see the binding edges on a Gibson guitar without thinking of those six women gently scraping away paint with a keen eye and steady hand.

After that tour it was time to go back to the hotel room, freshen up and go out for dinner. We decided to try and pick a place on Beale St, the famous street in Memphis where many of the blues bars are located. It was a cold night and for the first time we were both wearing jackets (it’s a bit more like Wellington temps now). Beale St was not very lively, as we are well out of season now so there’s very little foot traffic around. However most of the food is all the same (BBQ or Fried this & that, Catfish, Po Boy sandwiches, and huge portions of everything) so we eventually picked a very quiet place called “Wet Willies” whose claim to fame was frozen margarita slushies. We duly had those and Deb had what was basically a Nacho mountain, and I had a fried chicken sandwich with a mountain of fries. The portion sizes were huge though and after our Graceland meals, were almost too much.

So sated and happy we wandered back to our hotel room, and will see what tomorrow brings.

Day 25 - 9th November

The morning after.  It is good to note that the sun still rose this morning.  Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States of America and the world did not end.  Not yet at least J

And so starts, the post election analysis and hand wringing.  How did everyone get it so wrong.

We spent most of the day on the road, driving from Nashville to Memphis, via the Shiloh National Park, which is another Civil War battleground.  We did a self-drive tour of the park, stopping for photos as specific points in history, taking photos as and when opportunity presented itself.  Best that Joe fill in any details, I spent most of my time in the car with the air con running (it’s still very warm summer temps here) following the election coverage and laughing at the enevitable memes that have surfaced in the wake of the outcome.  There are some witty and creative people out there !!

[Joe] Shiloh was one of the bloodiest battles up to that time. In April 1862 there was a plan by the Union to try & cut Confederate rail links in the area, so Union forces were shipped down the Tennessee river and landed at Pittsburgh landing and encamped around Shiloh church. They were expected to be reinforced by more Union soldiers but the Confederates attacked before the reinforcements arrived.

Over the two days more than 50,000 Union & 40,000 Confederate forces clashed leaving over 23,000 as casualties. The battle progressed with troops being fed in, and seemed to be a terrible “slugging match”. In the end the Confederates lost a popular general and withdrew although the Union forces did not pursue.

Like Antietam & Gettysburg, Shiloh has become a byword for the type of terrible fighting that occurred in the civil war, and so the opportunity to see the ground for real and see the famous church site and “Hornets nest”.  Like most (maybe all) national battlefield sites, this one is run by the National Parks service, and entry is free. We picked up a map of the site from the visitor centre, where the staff were very curious as to our accents and, when told, how long it took to get to the US from NZ.

Driving around the park and stopping at various sites took at least an hour. The park meanders through lots of wooded areas and fields, and is dotted with markers, monuments and cannon to indicate the relative positions of various units. The preservation of civil war battlefields is, from what I have seen so far, excellent, and much effort must go into the research to be able to position these markers effectively.

The Shiloh church, which gave the battle its name, no longer exists as it was destroyed during the battle, but an exact replica was built using 150 year old wood, so is the next best thing.

After a good look at the site and the cemetery, we headed off to Memphis and the next stop on our tour. 

We arrived in Memphis just after 3pm and duly checked into our hotel (no Sleep Inn, we have learned our lesson) and are very handily placed in downtown Memphis, opposite the Peabody Hotel (more on this later).  We schlepped our luggage up to our room and then set out for a walk to get acquainted with the area.  It was a short walk to the Mississippi river, and we strolled along the river front and then made our way back down Beale (Walking in Memphis…… walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale – the lyrics of the song made famous by Mark Cohen).  This is the music and bar/restaurant part of town, similar to New Orleans and Nashville, though much smaller here than Nashville and the music has a blues/rock feel rather than country.  It is much quieter there than Nashville, we are definitely tail end of the season here, and shops and things seems to close at 4pm.  It’s also noticeably cooler, and we have finally broken out the long sleeve tops and may also have to upgrade to long pants and shoes rather than shorts and sandals.  Probably about time, I’ve worn the same sandals every day for the last 4 weeks and they are stinky.  No, really, they STINK.

We stopped in at the Peabody hotel to see the world famous Peabody Ducks.  Yes you read that right.  There has been a tradition since 1933 – the owner came home from a hunting trip, with his decoy ducks (real live ones) and after a few drinks, set them loose in the hotel fountain and went to bed slightly under the weather in the early hours of the morning.  When he got up next morning, the ducks had made themselves at home in the fountain and had not escaped, and so the tradition was born.  Every day at 11am, they ducks are brought down from their lodgings on the roof of the building, through the elevator, across the specially laid out red carpet to the fountain in the middle of the hotel lobby.  There they stay for the day, swimming in the fountain and quacking happily.  At 5pm, the reverse happens.  The ducks are lead from the fountain across the specially laid out red carpet in the lobby, up the elevator to the roof where they are bedded down for the night.  This has become a great tourist attraction, and when we got there at about 4.30, the lobby was packed with all the prime spots taken.  We were able to get a bit of a glimpse of the whole process from the upstairs mezzanine.

Dinner was at Rendez-vous – a renowned rib place conveniently in the alley next to our hotel.  They are apparently the best ribs in Memphis, and they were seriously good.  Then it was back to the motel for a bit more election result hand wringing and then an early night to make up for not much sleep the night before. 

By the way there are reports on Stuff of “rioting across America as people protest against Donald Trump winning the presidential election”.  Of course, we have seen none of this.  America is a VERY big country, and the reality is that there are a few hundred spoilt brats not able to accept a valid result, that are making a bit of a fuss.  How typical of the sensationalist media to blow things completely out of proportion !