Day 5 - Arron and Steph have left the building....

After sampling a rank cup of tea in the motel breakfast area we trimmed our sideburns and headed off to the home of the King himself - Graceland. A brief stint in one of the 20 or so gift shops we then boarded the tour bus for the long drive to the house............1 minute later we were at the front door - yep, the bus drives you - over the road - I have never felt so lazy. To sum up Memphis as a whole it is a bit of a dump really. Even Elvis boulevard is a bit of a hole - but Graceland itself is pretty impressive. Its not as big as you might think but everything has been kept as it was when Elvis was there himself. You tour the entire house (apart from the upstairs which is out of bounds) and also the grounds and outer rooms. Some of the more memorable pictures of the tour are below...

The front of Graceland:

There were a cacophony of trophy rooms and wall after wall of golden/platinum discs. Here was just one of them (complete with dumb looking bloke in the bottom right corner):

The pool room which has some spaced out wallpaper going on:

His TV room - it had 3 TVs all playing at the same time, 24x7!

A huge car collection but my personal favourite a 1971 Stutz Blackhawk:

and the man himself in the ground:

With not much time left in the day we drove towards the border of Arkansas and Tennessee to get sight of the great Mississippi river. We had read in our Rough Guide to the US that there was a great view point to be had from a small town called Helena just over the border. Well - we are beginning to question the judgement of our guide books and GPS now! After the GPS sent us into the Memphis ghetto last night the town of Helena would not have looked out of place in a Mad Max movie! It was almost completely deserted and desolate. Below are a few images of the environment we found ourselves in....

After spending all of 5 mins admiring the Mississippi river we jumped back in the car and drove onto Tupelo - here Elvis was born. Just to add we are not huge Elvis fans but you cant help but admire the chap and try and soak yourself in the atmosphere whilst you are here. We didn't arrive until late, so its another motel and prepare ourselves for another day tomorrow! We are hoping to make it into Birmingham, Alabama tomorrow then get a good head start on the road towards New Orleans, Louisiana where we hope to spend a couple of nights. Au revoir all.