Today was our last day in Memphis.   We had a 5 pm flight so we had some time to do a few things first.

We went to the Peabody hotel to have breakfast because we wanted to see the Peabody Ducks at 11 am.

So the story with the ducks is that in the 1930s the General Manager of the Peabody had a bit too much to drink with his friends and put live ducks in the fountain of the hotel.   It because a tradition to have ducks there.  Then in the 1940s, a gentleman who had been with the circus, said he could train the ducks to walk to and from the fountain daily.

So everyday at 11 am, the Duck Master rolls out the red carpet and takes the elevator to the roof where the ducks live.  He brings them down the elevator and leads them on the red carpet to the fountain.   At 5 pm, they make the return trip.

If you want to see this happen, you will want to start lining up about 30-45 minutes beforehand.  

After this, we left Downtown Memphis to go to the Bass Pro Shop at the Pyramid.  The Pyramid was supposed to be an event venue but it did not work out.  

Bass Pro bought it and made it a huge store..and more.  There is a hotel in there and several areas of live animals.  There is a bowling alley and restaurant.  There is also the "Lookout" where you take the largest free standing elevator up to the top to get a view of the city.
    We took the elevator but unfortunately there was weather coming in and it was insanely windy.  We were only out there a few minutes when a staff person said we needed to come inside and they closed the area.
 
​    We walked around and had lunch in their restaurant.

And that's a wrap on Memphis.   We had a great trip.   We weren't able to do everything but we did a lot!

Our first stop of the day was to have breakfast at The Arcade.  The Arcade is the oldest cafe in Memphis.  It was also one of Elvis' favorite spots.  They even have a plaque in his favorite booth.   I had the sweet potato pancakes and they were awesome!

We then headed to Sun Studio.  This is where Elvis recorded his first record.  

You can only visit Sun Studio by guided tour.  They leave at the bottom of every hour.  

There were about 20 people and the first stop is an upstairs room where they have an exhibit of various items from different artists that recorded there.  They had the original machines used to record and then create vinyl records by Sam Philips, the owner of Sun Studios in the 50s.

They also had the original DJ booth of Dewey Philips who was the first person to play Elvis on the radio.  The booth was found in a building that was going to be remodeled.  The booth was set to be demolished but it was saved and moved over to the exhibit.  

We then went downstairs to the recording studio itself.   

Sam Philips had sold the building and moved to a bigger studio after about 8 years.  The building was used for a barbershop and other retail stores until it was bought back by the current owner who made it Sun Studio again.

When he bought it, he had Sam Philips come in to look at it.  Sam confirmed that all the rooms, including the floors, ceilings and lights were the originals.  You can still see the hole in the floor where the bass player would put his stand.
   Sam donated the original microphone that Elvis and many other great performers used to record there.   His only request was that it never leave the recording studio.  I was very excited that we were able to take a photo with it.

   There is an X on the floor where Elvis stood.  The guide played many recordings of records that were made there, including the original of That's Alright Mama, Elvis' first.
 
   Sun Studio is still an operating recording studio and many famous artists have come there to record.

 Our next stop was a Memphis BBQ food tour through Tastin' Round Town.   We met up with our guide just off of Beale Street.  It was just us and another couple.

It was a beautiful day though a little on the warm side.  We ended up walking about 2 1/2 miles by the time we were done.

  We had 5 stops and it was all good!!   Our guide was great as well.  He was born and raised in Memphis.  He did a great job of giving us the history of Memphis as well as talking to us about the food.  He cooks BBQ himself and he is a judge at the big BBQ contest they have in Memphis.

    One attraction that we didn't get to do was the Civil Rights museum.   We didn't know that the location was a stop on our tour.  We didn't get to go inside but we did get to see the location where Martin Luther King was killed as well as the window where James Earl Ray was when he shot him.  
   They have a line in concrete that shows the path the bullet took from the window to where it killed Dr. King.  
   The cars that are parked outside have not moved since that day.  Our guide said that the inside of his hotel room as also not been touched since that day.

Whenever we visit a new city, we like to check out the zoo and / or aquarium.  I had read that the Memphis Zoo was a great one and it definitely was.

The weather was perfect and there were a lot of school groups but it was spread out enough that it wasn't a problem.

The zoo is laid out in a big loop which made it easy to start by going one direction and see each exhibit until you ended up back at the beginning.

I took notice that there were a lot of places to sit to take a break and a lot of opportunities for rest rooms.

It took us about 4 1/2 hours to do all the exhibits including a short lunch break.  We walked a little over 4 miles.

Below are just some of my favorite pictures of the day.

I have been to Graceland once before...30 years ago.  Of course the house itself is the same but the complex across the street has expanded a lot.

We splurged and did the Ultimate VIP tour.  This is a guided tour for up to 12 people.  The alternative is a self guided tour with audio through an IPad.  

We checked in and received our lanyard and had a few minutes to wait for the tour to start.

Our guide for the tour was Ecstasy and she was awesome.  She said there were 4 people signed up but the other two didn't show up so it was now a private tour.  Fine with us!

   We rode over to the mansion and went to a back door area to watch a short introductory movie.  

    Then we went to the front of the mansion.  Our first stop was the living room / music room.  Ecstasy explained from the beginning that Elvis' father kept everything.  Everything in the house is original.   The management is always on the look out for original items that ended up in different locations.  The white piano was the original piano in the music room and it took some time for them to track it down and purchase it back for the house.
​   She also told us that Elvis loved television so there is always at least one television in every room.  The couch seated 15 people and Elvis had that custom made.

The next room was the dining room.  Again there was a TV in the corner where Elvis could see it from his chair. 
   She told us that the Presley family still celebrates either Thanksgiving or Christmas in the house.  The mansion is closed on both of those days.  The staff will know what day they are planning to be there and they will prepare the house for them.

The next room was Gladys' bedroom (Elvis' mother).  After she passed, Elvis had the room kept exactly as it had been when she was alive.  

Next was the kitchen.  Elvis had one of the first microwaves which he purchased for $600.  His aunt had a bedroom off of the kitchen area.  She lived in the mansion for several years after it had already opened for tours.  Our guide said that tour groups would never knew if you may see her in the kitchen cooking.

Then we went downstairs to the TV room which our guide called the ultimate man cave.  She said that Elvis liked to be there with his friends and had a movie screen that would come down from the ceiling.  The room next to it had a pool table where he also used to hang out.  It is covered in a fabric that Elvis saw and feel in love with and then had a designer work to put on the walls and ceilings.

Going back upstairs, we came to the famous Jungle room

From here, we went out in the back to some additional buildings.  There was Vernon's office as well as an archive building that houses a variety of different items from throughout Elvis' life.  
   We also went to the racquetball court building.  This is where Elvis was on his last day and played his last two songs on the piano in that building.

  Our last stop at the house was to the meditation gardens.  Originally Elvis and his mother where buried at a local cemetery.  Due to security issues, Vernon had them moved to Graceland.  Elvis father and grandmother are also buried there.  There is a marker for Elvis' twin brother.  

Before we went back across the street to the Elvis' Memphis complex, our guide told us she would take our photo in front of the mansion without any other people in it.  It was pretty busy with a continuous shuttle buses dropping people off but she said "Don't worry.  We will get it."   She basically held up people coming off the bus and waited for everyone else to get inside the door and then she said "let's go."   She was great!!

She called for our shuttle bus and then we rode back over to the complex.  There is so much more to see there.   Our first stop was the car museum.  This is just a few of the cars and other vehicles there:

Our next stop was an exhibit that walked you through Elvis' career.  Again, there is so much to see here, including many of Elvis' outfits.  My favorite area was a special section for his spiritual music.  Elvis won 3 Grammys and they were all for his Gospel music.

Our last stop with our guide was a special area only for the Ultimate tour.  It was a chance to see some items from the archive collection.  We were allowed to hold one of the items as long as we were white gloves.  Then we got to see a few more items as well.

That was the end of our time with the guide.   She was just amazing.  We got so much more information from her than we would have received from the audio tour.   Our tour ticket got us access to the rest of the complex and also included lunch at Vernon's Smokehouse.   We enjoyed our lunch and then spent some more time seeing the rest of the exhibits.

We ended up being there for 6 hours!   We were tired by the end but it was a great day.

We actually started our first full day in Memphis by driving to Tupelo, Mississippi.   It was about a 90 minute drive and we had smooth sailing.

   We arrived at Elvis' Birthplace by mid-morning.   We knew there was three main areas to visit: the museum, the church and the house.  We purchased a "grand tour" ticket that got us access to all three.  The woman at the ticket counter told us we had an assigned time for a presentation at the church in about 20 minutes.  We decided to make that our first stop so we looked around the gift shop a bit and then headed over to the church.

The church is the original church that Elvis attended.  It used to be about a block away from its current location.

  The church was sold and a family turned it into a 2 bedroom home for quite some time.  Then it was bought by the Elvis foundation and moved to the birthplace grounds.  It was restored to look like the church.  The only original piece of furniture is the pulpit.

   We entered at our assigned time and took a seat in a pew.  A woman told us the history of the church and told us that we would now see a multimedia presentation.   Three big screens lowered from the ceiling, one covering the front wall and two covering the side walls.  Little projectors dropped down from panels in the ceiling as well.
    What followed was about a 15 minute presentation that simulated what it would have been like to attend the church.  The side screens made it look like you were seated with the rest of the congregation.
    The pastor spoke some but it was most about the music.  They sang as a whole congregation and they had a quartet sing as well.  They also had a young Elvis come up with his parents and sing a little song.
        At the end, they showed video of the process of moving the church and restoring it.

We did not expect the presentation to be like that but we really enjoyed it.  ​

We then moved on to see the house.   The house was built by Elvis' father and still stands in its original location.   It was only two rooms.  The front room had a bed and a small sitting area.  It was in that room that Elvis was born.   Being the only bedroom, it is also the room that Elvis shared with his parents.
   The second room was a kitchen area and a table with a bowl and pitcher.  
   While electricity was available, the Presleys could not afford it so they used lamps.  They also did not have a bathroom.   They used an outhouse.
    Obviously, being so small, it really doesn't take long to walk through the house.  There is a volunteer there to ask questions and she provided basic information about the house.

Our last stop on the "grand tour" was the museum.  No photos were allowed inside.  It was mainly some items from throughout Elvis' life and some information about his upbringing in Tupelo.  

   After we were finished there, we walked up to a memorial area called "Becoming."  It has two statues of Elvis: one of him as a boy and a second standing behind with his cape spread out as if during a concert.

  The total time it took us to go through everything was about 2 hours, at the most.  It is well worth the trip there.  The grounds are well laid out and easy to get around.  

We have arrived for a few days of touring in Memphis!

  It was a rainy day with scattered thunderstorms in NY so our flight ended up being delayed but thankfully we made it out.

   Nothing planned for today except to arrive and get settled.  We are staying at the Guest House from Graceland which is associated with Graceland.  It used to the "Heartbreak Hotel" but it has had a big makeover.

​    We ate at their casual restaurant tonight.

We spent today with our friends at Colonial Williamsburg.  Colonial Williamsburg is a living history museum containing a combination of restored original buildings as well as reconstructed buildings.  
   Your admission ticket gives you access to various buildings as well as activities available throughout the day.   The buildings have trade people actually performing the various trade.  There are also other buildings such as the Capitol building, courthouse and Governor's palace.
   It was a gorgeous day, perfect for walking around and going into buildings as they came along.  

My favorite of the trade buildings that we saw today was the weavers.  There was a woman demonstrating the loom while another gentleman would describe what she was doing and answer questions.  There was also another woman using the spinning wheel to make cotton into thread.  

We took the tours available at the Capitol, the Governor's palace and the coffeehouse.  At the coffeehouse, you were able to sample your choice of either coffee, tea or chocolate.  I chose chocolate.  It was like melted chocolate that was not sweetened.

The tours at the Capitol and Governor's palace gave you an overview of each building and what would have happened in each room.  You would also get a glimpse into what was life was like in the colonial times.

As I mentioned it was a beautiful day and there were so many flowers and gardens to walk through.

  There is no way you could do everything Colonial Williamsburg has to offer in one day.  We enjoyed everything that we did and would definitely come back again.
    
   We went to dinner tonight at the Hound's Tale restaurant.  Our friends ordered Fried Brussel Spouts and Shrimp Tempura as appetizers to share.  Chris and I both had a burger and fries.  For dessert, Chris and I shared a piece of S'mores Cheesecake.  I did forget a picture of the cheesecake..oops.  Everything was very good.

  And that is the end of our touring.  Tomorrow we have about a 7 hour drive back to NY (where it is cold again!).    We had a great time.  With the exception of weather that was not great for the first half of the trip, everything went smoothly and we liked everything we did.
   I always love my trips to Disney, but it was great to do a non-Disney trip.   I am already thinking about where we could on another road trip!  

We have good friends that live near Williamsburg and they graciously took off two days from work to come and be our tour guides for Williamsburg.

Today we went to the site of the Battle of Yorktown.  Hamilton fans will be familiar with this battle and we made it a point to visit the specific site where Hamilton fought.  There were also many mentions and locations related to the Marquis de Lafayette.  

We started at the visitor's center, watching an orientation movie and then looked at the exhibits there.   We also walked around the building to the few outdoor exhibits.

We then went to the car to drive around the historic route around the site.  There is a map you can reference for different points of interest.  There were also plenty of signs along the way talking about what took place in each location.
   Top on our list of things to see was Redoubt 10, where Hamilton fought.

Redoubt 9 was in the same area.

We made a stop at Surrender Field, where the British surrendered.  

Our final stop was the Moore house, where the surrender agreement was signed.

There was definitely a lot to see at the Yorktown site.  It was also a beautiful day so it was just nice to be outside and soak up the sun.

It was late afternoon, so we decided to do a late lunch / early dinner at Pierce's BBQ.  I was a bad blogger and totally forgot to take any photos.  Chris and I both had the same meal.  Beef brisket, fries, hush puppies and cole slaw for me, cornbread for Chris.  It was all very good!  

Tomorrow we will be exploring Colonial Williamsburg... our last day of touring :(  

We left Savannah this morning to drive to our 4th and final destination - Williamsburg, VA.  It was a beautiful sunny day which made the drive seem so easy - after driving in pouring rain on our way to Charleston.  We arrived in Williamsburg after about 8 hours, including stops.  

I am loyal to the Hilton brand when I travel, specifically Homewood Suites if they are available in the area.   For our night in Mount Vernon, we stayed at a Hampton Inn (still Hilton brand).  Then we had a Homewood Suites for our other three stays.  Twice we had a king one bedroom and once a king studio.   We prefer the one bedroom, if we can, so that if one of us is awake and the other isn't, we can shut the bedroom door and use the living room area.

    We were happy with all of our rooms but our room here in Williamsburg has been the best.  It is so big and the bathroom area is also just outside the bedroom, so I can get ready in the morning while Chris is sleeping without any lights on in the bedroom area.

We ate tonight at a restaurant called Food for Thought.  There is a box of cards on the table with various topics and questions to discuss to give you "food for thought."   We liked the ones that gave you a court case to read and decide and then you would turn over the card to see what was actually decided.

We started out with a beer flight with local Virginia beers.   Then I had the pot roast with mashed potatoes and creamed spinach.  Chris had a nut crusted chicken with mushroom gravy and fries.  The pot roast just broke apart and I especially liked the creamed spinach too.   Chris isn't a mushroom fan and he said the gravy had a strong mushroom taste but he liked his meal too. 
​     For dessert, we ordered the apple nachos to share.  It looked so amazing that we dove right in and I totally forgot the picture until we were done.  I will try to paint a picture for you and show you what remained at the end.   There were cinnamon sugar tortilla crisps around the bottom with a large scoop of creamy, rich vanilla ice cream in the middle, and cooked apples around the base of the ice cream.   It was super good!   Neither one of us could manage the last few bites.

After yesterday, we felt we had a good sense of direction about the city and what we wanted to do today was well within walking distance for us (the furthest point was about a mile away), so we ended up not using our second day of the trolley pass.  We had it with us in case we decided to hop on, but it wasn't needed.  It was finally a beautiful day so we were happy with walking to our locations.

Our first stop was the Davenport house, which we had planned to do yesterday and didn't get to.   The Davenport family was working class, in contrast to the two homes we saw yesterday which were owned by wealthy families.  

The story of the house was interesting in that it was not owned by the Davenports throughout history.  It had eventually fallen out of the families' ownership and in the 1950s it was a boarding house that was pretty run down.  The city was going to buy it and tear it down.  But seven women formed together and purchased the house (and eventually created the Savannah Historical Society.)   

  Through the research and restoration process, a document was found that listed the assets of Isiah Davenport at the time of his passing.  He died in his late 40s from the yellow fever.   It was decided that the house would only contain items that were listed on that document.  They were able to recover some original items that had been with descendants of the family but many of the originals were gone.  So they use items that are antique and exactly what was listed but they are not origin to the Davenport home.
​
    When they removed the many layers of paint from the walls, they found wallpaper.  Again, it was not able to be restored but they found a company to make the exact kind of wallpaper that would have been used.  The wallpaper was certainly an interesting aspect of the house.

  

   Our next stop of the day was The American Prohibition Museum.   The museum was very well presented with a combination of actual items, information to read, and wax figures depicting various scenes.  There were also costumed employees in different sections that would speak in character about a particular situation.
​
   There was a lot to learn in this museum.  While I definitely knew what prohibition was, I was not aware of all of the details.  I think the museum also did a good job of presenting the ramifications of what occurred not just for the people that lived through that time period but for the history of America moving forward.  

Towards the end of the museum, you come to a door that is an entrance to a Speakeasy.  There is no handle but there is a button to push.  There is also some writing on the door that says "Tell them Gus sent you."     When you push the button, the eye level window opens and there is an LED screen with eyes looking at you.  The voices says "Who are you?  What do you want?  Who sent you?"   You say that Gus sent you.  The voice says "Ok, well if Gus sent you, you can come in."  And then the door pops open for you to enter.
    And you enter the Speakeasy, where you can get cocktails that were specific to prohibition time.  We had pre-purchased a drink coupon for each of us when we entered, but you can also buy drinks right there.  

Just before you get to the Speakeasy door, there is a section about the start of the dance the Charleston.  There is one part where there is a large mirror with videos playing above it showing ladies doing the Charleston.  You are encouraged to try it out for yourself and there are even foot steps on the floor to follow.  When you get into the Speakeasy, you find out that it is a one way mirror.  So when you are in the Speakeasy, you can watch guests try their hand at the Charleston and they don't know it.   It wasn't very busy when we were there but we did see a few people try it while we were enjoying our drinks.

  After the Speakeasy section, there is a little more to the museum about the repeal of prohibition and a short movie that summarizes everything.   It was a very well done exhibit and we enjoyed it.

    The museum sits right in the City Market which is a few blocks of shops and restaurants so we had planned to walk around there a bit before lunch.  We bought some pralines... because you kind of have to.. and some Boyd's cookies.  Chris also got peach wine which he wanted to bring home to try.

  Our next stop was Lady and Sons, Paula Deen's restaurant.  In researching, I had read some mixed reviews but we were determined to try it anyway.  They do have a buffet and you can also order from a menu.  The buffet really wasn't overly appealing to me and Chris doesn't like them in general so we decided to order off the menu.   I started with a Savannah Lemonade that was peach flavored vodka, lemonade and a splash of Sprite.  They came around with hot cheese bread that was AMAZING!   It had to be packed full of butter but it was warm and cheesy and dense.  
    For lunch, I went with my theme and had shrimp and grits.  This one was definitely the winner!   First it was huge!!  The plate weighed a ton.  There was a lot of flavor and it had a little kick as well.   I only managed to eat half and took half back to the room for later tonight.   Chris had a BBQ pulled chicken sandwich which he didn't rave about but said it was good.  You can also get one piece of fried chicken as an add on so we got one to share.  Wow, it was good!  Chris loved it.   I had a bite but my meal was so big that I let him have the rest.   We were definitely too full for dessert at the moment so we got a piece of pecan pie to take to the room as well.

We left the restaurant and decided to walk along River Street to get back our hotel.  It was a beautiful afternoon.  We passed the Waving Girl statue.  The story goes that this young lady was in love with a sailor and when he left to go to sea, she would go to this park daily and wave to the ships coming in hoping to find him returning to her.  She did this for 43 years and never found him.

We also saw the Olympic Torch monument that was placed in the park because the yachting events for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta took place on the Savannah River.

River Street is also a series of a few shops but mostly bars and restaurants.  You can carry open alcohol containers on the street here and there were already some folks that had been over served  walking around - and it was only 4:30 pm.   I can imagine that area gets a bit rowdy in the evenings.

And with that our time in Savannah comes to an end.  I was a little unsure about it at first because I had really loved Charleston.  But like Charleston, I would have liked at least another day here to do some more touring.   It is a beautiful city with a lot to see and do.

   Tomorrow is a full travel day for us, as we start to head back north.  We will be on our way to our final destination (how can this trip be almost over already?!?!)