Neither of us is a big Elvis fan, but we just couldn’t come to Memphis without seeing Graceland. The King himself greeted us in the ticket lobby.

The Elvis Experience started with a short movie about Elvis, then a van ride across Elvis Presley Boulevard that took us to the mansion itself. We had to wait for two other groups to go into the mansion, but then it was our turn.

The mansion tour only included the ground floor and basement; the family living quarters upstairs was off limits. The house reminded me of my house in the ’70s, except that Elvis had a lot more room and money for decor than we did.

Even a family with the resources of the Presleys couldn’t escape the clutches of Harvest Gold and Avocado Green.

Elvis had TVs all over the house, but his TV Room had three (just like the White House). He also had a great sound system. And, of course, a bar.

I could see myself spending time in the Pool Room.

The Den (which the press renamed as the “Jungle Room”) was interesting. And dark.

And that finished our tour of the Mansion. But there was much more to see before we boarded the van to return to the other side, like this model of Elvis’s birthplace.

Our next stop was the Trophy Room, loaded with memorabilia, like his first bike.

Elvis sold 50 million records for RCA between 1956 and 1960, and they gave him this TV as a thank you. It’s not even HD!

Elvis was a big supporter of law enforcement and collected badges and patches from all over. He actually was appointed a captain in the Memphis and Denver Police Departments.

We left the Trophy Room and walked over to the Racquetball Court building; besides the court, it had dressing rooms, a Jacuzzi, and a great room to sit and relax.

Elvis loved horses, and Graceland still has quite a few.

Our final stop before leaving the complex was the Meditation Garden, where Elvis and much of his family is buried. I was surprised to see a Star of David on his mother’s original headstone.

That finished our tour of Graceland…but Elvis Presley’s Memphis awaited at the other end of our van ride. We started by seeing the Presley Motors Automobile Museum with some of Elvis’s favorite cars like this pink Cadillac.

There was much much more to see throughout the property (including many videos of Elvis performing). I’m only going to show a few highlights from the various exhibits, like his 1956 Gibson guitar.

And these buttons (and other merch). Oy!

Elvis sometimes wore this Chai necklace (on and off stage).

And what Elvis experience would be complete without walls and walls of jumpsuits?

We ended our day by visiting Elvis’s airplanes; he had a small business jet that his manager, Col. Tom Parker, often used to go to cities and ensure everything was OK before Elvis arrived for a tour date. But his pride and joy was the Lisa Marie, a Convair 880 which Delta Airlines used to fly.

Naturally, the interior of the plane was over the top. The seatbelt buckles were gold-plated, and not only was the guest lavatory lavishly decorated, but it was huge (by airplane standards).

As we left Graceland, I had only two regrets. I wished I’d brought along a USB-C cable so I could charge my phone (I was nursing it the last couple of hours we were there so I’d have enough juice to call a Lyft to get us back to the Peabody) and I wished we hadn’t had a very indifferent pizza for lunch at Gladys’s Diner.

We docked in Memphis early this morning and said goodbye to the American Splendor. There was one final excursion included in our tour, a trip to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.

The Lorraine Motel, of course, is where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated; there is a memorial plaque outside, and a wreath is always hung on the door of Room 306. He was shot on the balcony just outside the room.

The bullet came from the rooming house across the street; the small window is where the killer shot King. James Earl Ray was convicted for the murder and died in prison, but there are those (including the King family) who have other theories about the identity of the murderer.

I wasn’t surprised that we had to go through metal detectors to get into the museum. We saw a short film about the history of slavery and discrimination in North America, and then we were able to tour the collections. There was a lot of information, with many news videos from the 1960s, and recreations of scenes like Rosa Parks on the bus, the Woolworth Sit-in, and the “I AM A MAN” march of the striking Memphis sanitation workers. King made several trips to Memphis to support the sanitation workers before being killed.

There were also reproductions of significant documents related to the Civil Rights Movement, like this one urging compliance with the Birmingham Campaign’s boycott of merchants who supported segregation.

Our excursion included lunch at Central BBQ; it was quite tasty. During lunch, our guest speaker, Charles McKinney of Rhodes College here in Memphis answered questions about the Civil Rights movement, discrimination, and the current state of affairs. After lunch, they took us to the Peabody Hotel where we’ll be spending the next two nights. We checked in and looked around.

We walked back to the museum, passing MLK Reflection Park with its mountaintop statue and the old signs for the hotel along the way.

Most of the rooms in the hotel have been remodeled and turned into modern exhibit space; they recreated Room 306 to match its appearance when King went out on the balcony that last time.

When we left the museum, we saw a protest table across the street; the protestor, Jacqueline Smith, lived at the Lorraine until 1988, when the hotel was closed to be converted into the museum. She thinks that the space used by the museum would be better if it housed people like it did before the conversion.

The museum disagrees.

We returned to the Peabody to see the afternoon Duck Parade, which features the Duckmaster appointing some kids to be temporary Duckmasters to help him get the ducks out of the fountain, onto the red carpet, and into the elevator which takes them up to the Duck Palace. It was a lot of fun, but hard to photograph because of the huge crowd!

We had dinner at Kooky Canuck across the street from the hotel.

Soon after we sat down, there was a commotion as they brought a 7-pound hamburger to a guest who had accepted the Kookamonga Challenge.

To win the challenge (and get the burger for free), he had to finish it within one hour.

He failed. Our server told us that he hadn’t quite finished half the burger before giving up.

Dinner was good; we had ordered salads with fish. Diane had salmon atop her salad. I felt hungry and ordered fish and chips to go with mine. My portion wasn’t as big as the burger we saw, but half of what they brought out filled me up nicely and I stopped.

We walked down to Beale Street to enjoy the atmosphere.

We came back to the hotel and explored for a while; we even went up to the skywalk level to see the ducks.