Day 4 - Going 'Up' anyone?

After the excitement of last night we managed to haul ourselves out of the hotel at around 10am and then took a drive down to the Grand Ole Opry House (Where country music was born). We stopped on the way at a Nike Outlet and I was quite surprised to see few clothes sizes above the XL status - this is not the Southern America I have been told about! The building is below...

After this we wandered over to the adjoining Grand Ole Opry Hotel - which is very American - massive and jaw droppingly extravagant. They have waterfalls and a boat ride around a river - inside the hotel!!! Very impressive.

Something which caught my eye though and I hope it isn't a reflection on the mental capacity of southern people - but a sign to tell you which way an escalator is going?? C'mon!

After this we took a long drive down to Memphis and managed to luck out and book ourselves into a motel about a 100 yards from the entrance to Graceland - Home of the King. We chucked all our stuff in the motel room and jumped back into the car and drove into town to check out the night life - it was pretty mad! There was a game on at the local stadium so the streets were pretty full. The main drag for all the music clubs is called "Beale Street". Funny as the first time we programmed Beale street into the GPS (Sat Nav) it took us to this very run down part of town in the middle of the ghetto - we soon legged it outta there without a second invite ;o). Anyway below is a montage of some of the clubs/bars we visited.

When we got back to the hotel it was pretty late but we took a quick stroll up to Graceland to see how it looked at night - well if it wasn't for the 8 foot brick wall outside we might have seen it! Never the less here was a pic I managed to get from holding the camera above the wall - not bad.

Were going to do the official tour of Graceland tomorrow morning then were going to head over the Mississippi River to Helena, Arkansas - there are apparently some great views of the river from there. After that if we get time we will be heading back over the river and into Alabama heading towards Birmingham. Over and Out.