Huntsville, Alabama

It was off to Huntsville, Alabama to visit Richie's Uncle Les and Aunt Elaine, and Grandad and Doris.

Uncle Les is the youngest of three - and loves to tinker with stuff. Ever since childbirth, he has always wanted to take stuff apart and put it back together to learn how stuff works. He's a retired engineer, but continues to take stuff apart and put it back together. And, naturally, he is busier now than he was when he was working.


He loves motorcycles, and has 4 awaiting some TLC. He fabricates parts in his machine shop, which he added a room to, and is like a kid in a candy store. We could watch and listen to him all day as he describes how things work and the problems he thrives in solving. You can see the joy and excitement in his face.



He sliced the tip of his finger off a few months ago on a tire mounting machine. "Uncle engineer" decided to photograph the sliced tip, AND measure and weigh it. He even did a photo shoot with it next to a quarter and dime to show the size of the tip... as if it was needed to show on Ebay. We laughed and laughed and said "Eeew" a few times. Our knees wiggled from the story... Then Uncle Les brought us out to the machine that did the detaching and showed us the PVC pipe he rigged to protect against the slicing again.

He is a joy to be around - and you can't help but smile when you see him. And Aunt Elaine is his perfect match. She is calm and sweet. She even baked cookies - and those were some awesome cookies!

We had hoped to get a day of hiking in, but the weather had been finicky since our arrival. A tornado had blown through Huntsville our second day in. Eeek! Still, we ran outside like little kids and watched the slowly rotating funnel cloud zip over the mountain. It didn't touch the mountain and moved over us within 10-minutes, but it wasn't so nice to the other side of the mountain. Uncle Les reported on squashed cars and uprooted trees.

We left the next day for Grandad and Doris' house. Grandad is turning 90 this July, and Doris will be 81. They are dancing love birds - always on the go traveling the world in cruise ships. Did I mention yet that they LOVE to dance? I remember the DJ at our wedding commenting on how beautiful it was to watch Grandad and Doris float across the floor. They beam with love and affection for each other. It is a beautiful thing.

Grandad & Doris at our wedding
June 2002

Grandad is very soft-spoken with a classic English accent. He wears a cardigan and though he is a gentleman, he can tell some funny naughty jokes. I remember the first time he shared one with us... I adore him even more for it. The joke:

3 nuns died in a car accident and were on their way to meet St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

St. Peter welcomed the nuns and stated that each nun must correctly answer a question before being allowed into heaven, so he said to the first nun "Complete this sentence... Adam and ________." The nun answered "Eve," and St. Peter let her through the Pearly Gates.

He asked the next nun to fill in the blank... "Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of ___________." And the nun said "Eden." "Very good." said St. Peter, and let her through the Pearly Gates.

He then asked the third nun "What's the first thing Eve said to Adam?" And the nun replied "Oh, that's a hard one." St. Peter looked down for a second and said "You're right! Welcome to heaven."

Heehee. I've never looked at him the same since!

Grandad & Doris
Grandad's 85th Birthday, July 2005

When you ask Grandad his secret to longevity, he replies "Good love, good food, and good dancing - and not necessarily in that order." While we agree with his response, we also think it has to do with his active brain. The man has a Rubik's Cube with the day of the week, month, and year, which he changes every morning. He also works Sudoku puzzles, crosswords, reads and reads and reads, and has a great sense of humor.

Lynchburg, TN

Our friends, Vern and Julie, recommended Lynchburg, TN, but warned us about the dry county law. If you don't know already, the ironic part is that Lynchburg is home to the Jack Daniel's distillery. The law does however allow the distillery to sell small, commemorative bottles of whiskey to tourists (as long as it's not Sunday). As our tour guide told us, "All we can do here is breathe deeply." And breathe deeply we did.

In 2008, Jeff Arnett became the seventh Master Distiller of Jack Daniel's.
Jack Daniel himself of course being the first (photo above).

By the way, our tour guide was hysterical! If you are ever near Lynchburg, we highly recommend taking the FREE tour. You won't regret it!

So how is Jack Daniel's whiskey made?

Well it all starts with mixing corn, rye, and barley malt. Then water from the natural Cave Spring that runs through the distillery is added to the mixture to create "mash."


The mash then ferments and is distilled in copper stills. At this point the whiskey is perfectly clear and is 140 proof.

This next step is what separates a whiskey from a bourbon. The mixture is filtered through 10 feet of sugar maple charcoal, which takes about 12 days and brings the alcohol content down to 110 proof.


The next step is aging. Determined to maintain the highest possible quality, they make their own wooden barrels from American White Oak. The insides of the barrels are burned in order to carmelize the natural sugars in the wood. The whiskey then ages in a barrel in one of the 75 wood and tin barrel houses. As the seasons pass, the oak barrel pores open (in summer) and close (in winter), drawing the whiskey in and out of the wood. It's this process that gives Jack Daniel's whiskey that distinctive dark amber color.



If you have the cash, you can buy your very own barrel of whiskey (which is actually hand-bottled for you). The price tag: $9,000 to $12,000. Each barrel yields about 240 bottles. Each decanter is labeled with the barrel number, the "Rick" from its location in the barrelhouse, and the date it was bottled. A medallion is placed around the neck of the bottle stating it was selected and bottled just for you. Oh yeah - you get the barrel, too.


One question we did have during the tour concerned the origin of the "proof" system of alcohol. Unfortunately our tour guide didn't know, so afterwards we looked it up. During the 18th century, a common form of payment for British sailors was rum. To insure that the rum was not watered down, it would be doused with gunpowder and if it ignited then it was "proofed." It was later found that 100 proof alcohol was about 57.15% alcohol by volume.

Memphis, TN

Memphis - Wow! It has a little bit of everything.

As suggested by a friend, we splurged on a night at The Peabody Hotel. They are famous for their genuine hospitality, but we went for the ducks. Yes, ducks.



At 11am every morning, the Peabody ducks ride down the elevator from their Penthouse (Yes, ducks in a Penthouse!) to the hotel lobby where a fountain awaits them. It is quite a luxurious lifestyle... spending all day in the hotel's lobby - where there is a new flower arrangement daily, a mahogony bar, and comfortable chairs.

The ducks bathe all day in the fountain until 5pm when the Duck Master (wearing a red coat with gold embroidery on the sleeves) lines them up to walk the red carpet (Yes, a red carpet!) back to the elevator to their Penthouse.

It is quite the event. Read about the Peabody Ducks by clicking here.

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The Peabody Hotel offered a special called Elvis' Blue Suede Birthday. It not only included an Elvis Presley "Celebriduck," but tickets for 2 to Graceland. We couldn't pass it up.

We have good luck in beating or just missing the crowds. And we found ourselves very luck in our visit to Graceland - just a week after Elvis' birthday. Whew! He would have been 75 years old on Jan 8, 2010.

You can even buy a replica of one of Elvis' jumpsuits. Each suit comes with a "Certificate of Authenticity." This red Burning Love jumpsuit (with cape and belt) can be yours for $2,000.

It was a day of Elvis - in every nook and cranny, in every turn and corner! There are 14 specialty stores selling Elvis stuff - a deck of cards, ink pens, mugs, ties, shirts, cuff-links, frisbees - you name it - it was there! There are 3 Elvis themed restaurants, a wedding chapel, a Heartbreak Hotel, and a campground in Graceland. Talk about Elvis overload, but we enjoyed every minute of it.


From Private Presley...

• Drafted to the US Army, 1958-1960
• His assigned serial number: 53310761
• Assigned to the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, TX

The Lisa Marie...

• Convair 880 Jet, formerly a Delta Airlines airplane
• Purchased in 1975 for $250,000
• Refurbished for over $600,000 and features a seating area, conference room, private bedroom and bathroom with gold faucets and a gold washbasin.

Do you know what the TCB on the airplane's tail stands for? The answer: "Taking Care of Business" which was the name of his band (formed after the '68 Comeback broadcast). There are various interpretations on the lightning bolt, but our audio tour mentioned it represented getting things done "lightning fast."

Elvis' automobile collection - 33 total, including a John Deere tractor and the 1955 pink Cadillac.


Priscilla and Elvis wedding attire (married May 1, 1967 in Las Vegas)


And Elvis' '68 Comeback Special.
Keep in mind that 1968 was quite a year for the United States... the Vietnam War, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated, the Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum... and Elvis brought some stability with his first television special.


Below are photos from the Presley Mansion. It was built in 1939 and purchased by Elvis in 1957 for $100,000. It is a humble-looking home, unlike many celebrity homes we see today.

The official address: 3734 Elvis Presley Boulevard. Graceland is the second most visited private home in America - after the White House.

The Dining Room

The Living Room with the Music Room in the back.
Notice the stained-glass peacocks. The 15-foot white couch is on the right.
Elvis' casket was placed in this room for the funeral.

The upstairs - closed to visitors.

I fell in love with this little monkey statue.

The Jungle Room (Yes - that is the waterfall)

He was always up to something, shooting off firecrackers or guns, running around, driving golfcarts and snowmobiles. He'd pull me in a sled and scare me to death. On that long, steep driveway that goes up to Graceland he'd be pulling me up and falling at the same time. He called me Buttonhead or Yisa. He'd never call me Lisa unless he was mad at me.
-Lisa Presley from a 1988 LIFE Magazine interview

The Farm

Some Elvis Facts:

• Sold over 1 billion "record units"
• Received 14 Grammy nominations, won 3
• Received the Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36
• His Bloch Arena benefit concert in Hawaii raised over $65,000 towards construction of the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor
• The Elvis stamp (released in 1993 and over 500 million printed) is the most widely publicized and top-selling commemorative stamp put out by the United State Post Office.
• Has had 68 Top 20 Billboard Singles
• And acted in 31 films
  

I could go on and on and on!

The Meditation Garden

Being at Graceland made me realize that everyone - no matter what age, race, or musical preference - knows about "The King of Rock 'N' Roll" - Elvis. Everybody. And just about everybody loves his music. He brought a new dimension to our lives.

75th Birthday celebration flowers flooded the Meditation Garden and gravesites. And a sign from the estate said:

Our policy is to accept these floral remembrances whether they are fresh, silk or plastic. Arrangements of real flowers are sometimes placed in the racquetball building so they will last longer, but most are placed here in the garden, and remain until they wilt. Silk and plastic arrangements remain until they begin to show the effects of weather.

It was great to see the hundreds of mementos and arrangements for Elvis.

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Sun Studios was next - "Birthplace of Rock-N-Roll"

Some famous names got their start here. Let's see if you recognize any of them: Elvis Presley, BB King, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, the Howlin' Wolf, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich. The tradition lives on with today's artists recording in this historic studio.



A quick fact: Elvis was 18 years old when he walked into Sun Studios for the first time. His first recording - "That's All Right."

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The National Civil Rights Museum was built around the former Lorraine Motel.

What is the significance of the Lorraine Motel?
It is where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. (Note: The motel stayed open until it foreclosed in 1982.)



Some facts about the Lorraine Motel (from civilrightsmuseum.org):

• Originally named the Windsor Hotel c. 1925
• Renamed Marquette Hotel in 1945 and offered for sale
• Purchased by Walter Bailey in 1945 and renamed the Lorraine, after his wife Loree and a song titled “Sweet Lorraine.” At the time of purchase the Lorraine included 16 rooms, a café, and living quarters for the Baileys.
• The Lorraine became one of only a few hotels to which African American travelers could enjoy overnight accommodations while traveling during this segregated period leading up to the late 1960s in America.
• Under the Bailey’s ownership there were at least two major additions to the hotel. The first addition added a second floor and 12 rooms to the hotel while the next addition created even more guest rooms and drive up access. This change converted the Lorraine Hotel into a motel.
• Guests of the Lorraine, both black and white, returned time and again for its upscale atmosphere, home cooked meals, including bar-b-que, affordable prices, and its reputation as a clean and safe environment.
• Song writers and musicians working with the Stax Records Company were frequent residents of the Lorraine. Recording stars Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Aretha Franklin, Ethel Waters, Otis Redding, The Staple Singers and Wilson Picket were among the many that stayed in the Lorraine during the heyday of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stayed at the Lorraine Motel numerous times. He was a guest of the Lorraine when he came to Memphis in 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.
• The Lorraine Motel is designated an historic site by the Tennessee Historical Commission.

The National Civil Rrights Museum Mission:

The National Civil Rights Museum located at the Lorraine Motel, the assassination site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., chronicles key episodes of the American civil rights movement and the legacy of this movement to inspire participation in civil and human rights efforts globally, through our collections, exhibitions and educational programs.

The museum not only tells the story of the struggle for African American civil rights in the United States, but it also does an incredible job of representing people's national and international struggle for basic human and civil rights.


The marker in front of the balcony where MLK was shot reads:

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
JAN. 15, 1929 - APR. 4, 1968
FOUNDING PRESIDENT
SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
THEY SAID ONE TO ANOTHER,
BEHOLD , HERE COMETH THE DREAMER...
LET US SLAY HIM...
AND WE SHALL SEE WHAT WILL BECOME OF HIS DREAM
-GENESIS 37, 19-20

So what happened on April 4, 1968? Dr. King spent the day at the Lorraine Motel working and meeting with local leaders on his plans for the Poor People's March on Washington (planned for late April). At 6pm, as he exited his hotel room, King was shot with one round from a rifle. He was declared dead just an hour later at St. Joseph's hospital.

The former rooming house (across the street from the Lorraine Motel)
where the shots were fired that killed MLK.

We were surprised to see a protester outside of the NCRM.

Her name is Jacqueline Smith, and it turns out that she was a resident and worked as a housekeeper at the motel since 1973. She was evicted from the motel for the museum project, but barricaded herself in her room and had to be forcibly evicted.

The neighborhood surrounding the Lorraine Motel was a lower-income, predominately black area. Rent was cheap, but a downtown renovation demolished old homes and replaced them with new and expensive apartments and condos.

Smith stated that the Lorraine Motel "should be put to better uses, such as housing, job training, free college, clinic, or other services for the poor...the area surrounding the Lorraine should be rejuvenated and made decent and kept affordable, not gentrified with expensive condominiums that price the people out of their community."

She has also stated that Dr. King would not have wanted $9 million spent on a building for him, and would not have wanted Lorraine Motel residents to be evicted.

She is following Dr. King's peaceful protest ways and has been across the street from the NCRM for over 22 years. The NCRM states that she has never been inside the museum.

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And what is a visit to Memphis without some BBQ?!?!?

With TUMS in hand, we tried 3 different BBQ hot spots. And we've met our BBQ quota for the next 3 years!

Before

After

The ville's of Tennessee

Knoxville and Nashville, that is!

We stayed at the Hotel St. Oliver, right next to Market Square in downtown Knoxville. It's a great place to stay to get a feel for the downtown. It's surrounded by places to eat, shop, and get a cup of coffee (we took advantage of all three). The first night we decided to see the movie Sherlock Holmes. It was closed captioned, which we were thankful for - considering the actors spoke very quickly and with British accents!


The next day was spent wandering around the downtown area. We happened upon funky statues...



braved the icy walkways along the Tennessee River, walked down Gay Street...



And saw some historic landmarks.


Some 1982 Knoxville, TN World's Fair Facts:

• This was the last successful World's Fair held in America
• The theme: Energy Turns The World
• Attendance: 11,127,786 visitors
• Knoxville was the smallest city to ever host an International Exposition
• The first touch-screen computer displays were demonstrated
• And the 75-foot Sunsphere was built specifically for the 1982 World's Fair. It has come to be a symbol for Knoxville - not to mention serve as a landmark for navigation. Except when you're on foot. It's kind of like the Space Needle in Seattle. You keep looking up expecting to find it, and it's always hiding behind some building. Then next thing you know - WHAM, there it is !

The Sunsphere

And just in case you didn't read enough facts, here are a few more facts about Knoxville (courtesy of the Knoxville tourism site):

• Settled in 1791, established in 1792, and incorporated in 1815.
• Named after Henry Knox, President Washington's War Secretary.
• Due to Knoxville being a major center of marble distribution in the early 1900s, its nickname soon become "The Marble City."
• Indians were the first settlers of Knoxville and East Tennessee. By the time the first European settlers appeared, the Cherokees dominated the region.
• James White was the first known settler of Knoxville.
• The first train arrived in Knoxville in 1855.
• The City of Knoxville shares its name with Knoxville, Georgia - Knoxville, Iowa - Knoxville, Maryland - Knoxville, Pennsylvania - and New Knoxville, Ohio.
• The soft drink Mountain Dew had its beginnings with Hartman Beverages in Knoxville in the late 1940's. That's a great fact for our favorite Missourians: Dolores and Virgil.
• In 1974 Walter Cronkite designated Knoxville as the "Streaking Capital of the World." It was in the spring of that year that an estimated 5,000 people on Cumberland Avenue took their clothes off... stripping on the "strip."
• It is illegal to lasso fish in Knoxville, TN.
• All businesses must have a "hitching post" in front of their buildings in Knoxville, TN.

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After a short 3-hour drive we found ourselves in the second great 'ville of Tennessee: Nashville. A quick note... There's also: Adamsville, Brownsville, Caryville, Centerville, Clarksville, Collierville, Cookeville, Cornersville, Crossville... and that's just through the C's!

We stayed at a KOA on the northern side of the city, nearly on the doorsteps of Opryland. One night we treated ourselves to dinner there - successfully navigating the halls and only getting lost once.

We spent a full day touring the capitol and the surrounding grounds.


The State Capitol of Tennessee was completed in 1859 and is one of the oldest original capitols in the U.S. that's still in active use. The architect, William Strickland, considered this building to be the crowning achievement of his career. So much so that he is buried in a tomb of his own design in the northeast corner. Guess he wanted to keep an eye on the place.

We thought it particularly interesting that the capitol is built of bigby limestone from a quarry only a few blocks away! Also, the interior marble was local - coming from around Rogersville and Knoxville. Unfortunately in the 1950s some of the exterior limestone had to be replaced with stone from Indiana. And in the 1980s several areas were restored to their original design - a common theme we've seen across the U.S.

The House of Representatives

Over many years of development, skyscrapers have blocked the view of the Capitol from all sides but the north, since that land was swampy and not good for large buildings to sit on. In order to commemorate Tennessee's 200th birthday, this bit of land was set aside to construct the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park - modeled after the idea of the Mall in Washington, D.C. The Mall consists of several small monuments, historical markers, fountains, and memorials.


On the west side of the Bicentennial Mall State Park is a 1400-foot long granite wall called the Wall of History. It lists quotes from famous Tennesseans and important events in the state's history such as:

• In 1848, "Volunteer" nickname became popular as a result of the more than 30,000 men who responded to a Mexican War troop call for 2,800.
• First self-service grocery store, Clarence Saunder's "Piggly Wiggly," opened in Memphis in 1916.
• "Moon Pies" originated at Chattanooga in 1918-1919.
• James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States, died in Nashville in 1849.
• Copper discovered in 1849 in Ducktown Basin in the southeastern corner of the state.

At the northern extreme of the mall lies a 95-bell carillon (basically a large collection of bells designed to be played together to create a melody). The carillon echoes Tennessee's musical heritage and represents the people of Tennessee having one bell per county. A melody is played each hour, and an answer comes from the 96th bell located on the grounds of the Capitol, thus representing government's answer to the people. Am I the only one that finds it ironic that a single bell can only give one answer? GONNGG!

The 95-bell carillon

The 96th bell often referred to as the "answer bell"

Remnants of the original Capitol columns in honor of the
late 1980s renovation architect, Charles Warterfield.

After visiting the Capitol we headed over to the Tennessee State Museum just one block south. It had 60,000 square feet of exhibits, split over three levels, with everything you could imagine from Paleolithic artifacts, to really old furniture, to Antebellum paintings. There was even a 3,500 year-old Egyptian mummy that was brought to Tennessee in 1859.


We had to leave our bags with an attendant while in the museum. On our way out, while retrieving our bags, we chatted with the attendant for a few minutes. After he found out we were from Louisiana, he went on to talk about how much he admired Jimmy Swaggart and how he wanted to go to Swaggart's school in Baton Rouge. He asked us what we thought of him - we bit our tongues and said we didn't know him personally... We didn't feel it was appropriate to share our favorite quote from Jimmy. After being caught with a prostitute for the second time, he told his congregation, "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business." So there.

We spent an evening at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, where after enjoying the buffet we ordered dessert and sat back to watch a play entitled Rumors. Directed by Bobby Wyckoff, it has an updated script after being shown on Broadway in the 1990s. It was hi-lar-ious. Oh, and the funny story about this visit... When we arrived in Huntsville, Alabama, to visit Grandad and Doris, we found out that they had driven to Nashville to see the exact same show just the day before! It was fun to share the memories with them.

Our final evening in Nashville was spent at the 28th Annual Colgate Country Showdown, hosted by Leann Rimes.

The Showdown was held in the historic Ryman Auditorium established in 1892. The auditorium has been put to many uses, but possibly the most notable is when it served as the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974. A cool bit of trivia is that a five foot circle of the original Ryman stage was removed and inlaid into the stage floor in the newly built Opry House theater, where it's located just behind the lead singer's microphone. Do'h - so that's where the singers kept falling!

It was neat to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on to film a competition like this. Before the show even started, they did several takes of the audience hooping and hollering. Then we did a short calm applause. Then a longer calm applause. Then a chuckle. Then a longer chuckle. It was all quite silly. I was waiting for them to ask us to all sneeze at the same time.