We stayed parked in Memphis til April 13 but from April 1st to the 7th we were crazy enough to bring our two granddaughters and their 2 cousins, ages 2-11 to Disney World for a week. It turned out to be a great trip. It was the first time for Gigi meeting her cousins and everyone got along great and had a wonderful time. We did two character breakfasts, 3 days at Disney, a day at Universal Studios and a…
Another tour of Memphis was to the Lorraine hotel, where Martin Luther king was shot, and the civil rights museum. It was definitely a somber tour reminding us all of the terrible days of segregation. We toured the museum and the hotel room King stayed in. From there we went to another recording studio called Stax records. This studio was started by Jim Stewart and his sister Estelle in Jim’s father-in-law’s garage in the late 50’s. After he started getting…
The Graceland house was the first house Elvis bought at age 22. The house was named after the previous owner’s daughter and he kept the name. He wanted his parents to be comfortable after growing up very poor so he purchased this large home and property and they lived with him. They all stayed in this house till they died and it now belongs to Lisa Marie who still uses it on occasion but when she’s not using it she…
There are two parts to Graceland, the house and the museum. The museum section contains all kinds of artifacts, picture and history of Elvis from childhood till his death. Oh, and plenty of gift shops. We started off here in his auto museum room. He was definitely into things that you rode in with a large collection of cars, motorcycles, golf carts, snow mobiles, planes and other interesting vehicles. Oh, and horses, too. The museum was fairly large and took…
One of our tours in Memphis was to Sun studios which was started in the 50’s by Sam Phillips. He turned out many great artists and recordings including Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison. I’ll stop there, the picture below gives a nice sampling of past and present artists that have found their way through Sun studios. They even have a drum set that was used by U2 to record a fairly recent album. The beginning of Elvis’…
After one day in Tupelo (which was plenty) we headed for Memphis and parked at an rv park that is part of the Graceland property. We were able to walk right across the parking lot to the Graceland museum. Some interesting street names in the campground. Unfortunately, we both had to go to work the next day but when we got back we began our touring of Memphis. We started downtown with an attraction that was recommended to me, the…
We left Alabama the next day on our way to Memphis but on the way we passed through Tupelo, Ms, birthplace of Elvis Presley. They have his original home and church he attended available to tour so we thought that might be a interesting stop. As expected it was nothing spectacular but it was a very nice tribute. They had the original two room house (complete with outhouse) he lived in until he was 13 when they left for Memphis…
The next day Jamie said she needed a break. Of course I don’t know how to do that so I headed to the Dick Barber Motorsport Museum. It was another place that was recommended to me and I wasn’t sure what to expect but, as usual, it was another great find. The whole complex sits on an 880 acre property and includes 2.38 mile indy track, the motorsport museum and a park. They’ve been holding the IndyCar Series’ Grand Prix…
On our way home we decided to stop at the National Space Museum in Huntsville, Al. I probably wouldn’t have even known about it but I remember a couple of years ago Jamie mentioning they had a space camp their and at the time our granddaughter, Cadence, was saying she wanted to be an astronaut and it turns out this is where that space camp is held. Kinda neat in that it has summer camps for kids from 9 years old…
Friday we took a ride trip to Muscle Shoals, AL. It was a suggested stop by one of Jim’s colleagues at work. I’ve heard of it but didn’t really know much it. Turns out this middle of nowhere place was started by a guy named Rick Hall back in the 50’s and his story is amazing. He basically grew up having nothing and living in a shack with dirt floors. As a teenager he learned how to play the guitar…
With Jamie’s back and Jim’s mom on the mend we left Jacksonville to start our trek north as summer was on it’s way. First stop was supposed to be Montgomery, AL but our delay had us bypassing that stop. Maybe we’ll be back when we head south for the fall. So our first, and only stop in Alabama this spring was Birmingham. This also happened to be where Jim’s college roommate and his wife, Brenda live. So Jim was excited…
As I said, won’t be posting much during our stay in Jacksonville as most of our time here will be spent either working or visiting friends. But just to keep it updated we flew up to New Jersey for a few days to attend our granddaughter, Gigi’s, second birthday party. She was very excited to see us and to have a party and she had a great time. These pictures will be boring to anyone but family but here they…
Well, after 3 years away we finally made it “home” to Jacksonville. The rv park we wanted was booked full so we found an alternative but we’re very pleased with the one we ended up in. Of course, one day after arriving we both had to go to work. Then straight from work we went to St. Croix to check up on our place and join a few of our friends that decided to vacation there for a week. But…
The next day we took a ride down historic Route 30 at the recommendation of some friends. It basically goes from Destin to Panama City right along the beach. I’d call it more of a beach drive. That being said it was a beautiful drive through a bunch of quaint beach towns with lots of touristy stuff like shops, restaurants, bars, etc. We wanted to visit Panama City, as well, because it seems we were always hearing about that town…
This is the continuation of the last post. As I said, I took so many pictures of the ship and sub that I had to divide them into two posts so this post contains the pictures of the sub. Like the battleship this was also a self guided tours and it was also very fascinating. I forget how many crew were aboard the sub but I can tell you, it’s tight quarters. After the sub we walked around and looked…
Before I start this post I need to explain. I took so many pictures of the ship and sub that I have to divide them into two posts so this post contains the pictures of the battleship and the next post will be of the sub. We drove to a place that we passed on the way from Biloxi to Florida called The USS Alabama Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama. We saw this huge battleship on the drive along Highway…
We decided to spend the rest of our winter in Jacksonville visiting home and our friends. On the way we spent a week in Destin, Fl since we’ve never been there and had heard good things about it. We got a campground right across the street from the beach and we loved both the campground and Destin. Although the temperatures were kind of cold (well, cold for us in the low 60’s), we did check out the beaches and the…
Our next four days were spent financing our trip. We both headed off to work. Jamie to Tel Aviv and me to Mumbai. We got back and had one more day to explore Biloxi so we started out at the George Ohr art museum. George Ohr was nicknamed the mad potter of Biloxi. He was a ceramic artist that was born in the 1857 and spent his life creating unique pottery. When he died in 1918 he told his kids…
The visitor center set us up with a woman who runs a tour of Biloxi in a trolley pulled by her jeep. It was off season so we were the only ones on the big trolley. Was a little odd but we definitely got VIP treatment. The tour lasted a couple of hours and we learned allot about the city and the impact of hurricane Katrina back in 2005. You can still see signs of the destruction caused by Katrina….
From Houston we left for Biloxi, Mississippi. We’d been through Mississippi when we first started our trip but didn’t spend any time there because we were making a mad dash for New Orleans to make it there for Mardi Gras. So we consider this our first time in Mississippi. We’ll be hitting some of northern parts of the state later in the spring so for now we were just visiting Biloxi. It was about a 6-7 hour drive and we…