Finally! We visit Elvis

It took us five days in Tupelo before we found time to visit the Elvis complex.  Located here is the house he was born in, the church he attended where he heard black spirituals that influenced his singing style and a new modern building housing a museum, event center and chapel.  

Things were very sparse for the Presley family.  The house was built with a $180 loan for lumber.  His father Vernon later on altered a $4 check into $40 and ended up in prison.  Gladys lost the house in his absence.  Elvis’s first guitar was a $7.50 guitar bought as a birthday gift at Tupelo Hardware, a store still in business in Tupelo.  The rest is history.

This is the front room of the two room house and the room where Elvis was born.  His twin brother was stillborn at 4 am and Elvis was born alive at 4:25 am.  The wall paper in both rooms is original, or so they tell me.

The kitchen is a real throwback.  The icebox, stove and wall paper are original.  Notice the white high chair and pie safe.  I am old enough to remember both.

Outside there is a fountain, a statue and the entire house circled with markers for each year of his life.

It was interesting but we knew a lot about the King of Rock and Roll.  It saddens me that his career was cut so short by self destruction.  I am sure there were many songs left unsung in his heart.  

Serendipity Again!

We moved to Tupelo, MS on Friday.  Other than construction and a U Turn detour in Jackson, TN, things went ok.  We have a nice big site in the trees and horses a few sites away.  Ted has been feeding them apples and carrots.

On Saturday, we settled in and drove a bit on the Natchez Trace stopping to see some Chickasaw mounds and listen to an audio about their life and friendship with the Natchez Indians plus English and French traders. We went to Mass at 4:30.  There weren’t more than two dozen people in attendance.  

We have friends that have moved to Ramer, TN which is less than an hour away.  We went there on Sunday and visited all afternoon and had lunch.  On Monday they drove to us and we continued with our visit and had lunch at Rib City.  A good choice by Ted!

So today we drove north on the Natchez Trace for about 50 miles before getting off and traveling into Alabama.  Our destination was Helen Keller’s birthplace in Tuscumbia.  What a delightful, informative and beautiful place and tribute to an outstanding woman.  

We learned Helen was born healthy but lost sight and hearing from a high fever illness called, at the time, “brain fever.”  Anne Sullivan was hired as a teacher for her at age 7.  They recounted the food fight depicted in the movie and said it really happened.  And Ms. Sullivan taught her in one day what her family had been unable to do in 7 years.

Anne finger spelled names of things into Helen’s hand all day long.  The water pump breakthrough did happen too.  As Helen had water running into one hand, Anne was spelling W A T E R in her other hand.  A word Helen had learned by 19 months old was wawa.  She put it all together and finally Anne had her attention.  She was extremely bright and learned 30 words that day.  

A sculpture of Anne and Helen at the pump.  The second is a bronze sculpture that sits center stage in the museum room.  The other photo is the actual, real pump where Helen made her learning breakthrough.  

In 1925 Helen attended a Lions Convention and was able, in her own voice she could not hear, challenged the organization to make their mission help for those with sight problems.  To this day they continue their mission.  She traveled all over the world and met every president from Calvin Coolidge to John Kennedy.  

We so enjoyed our visit to a place we had no idea even existed.  Sometimes these are the best surprises.  

On our way we saw a sign that Red Bay, where we are to meet Tommy and Susan a week from Friday, was only about 45 minutes away.  We needed a new drawer lock where the spring had sprung so Ted decided we would drive to Tiffin service to buy one.  We drove through the park we are booked into.  The restaurant was closed for 14 days starting 8/8 so we assume someone had tested positive.  They will reopen the day after we check in if Tommy is a go after his blood test results.  We bought our new drawer lock and drove back to Tupelo stopping in town for an early dinner since we had no lunch.

It has been storming tonight so it should be extremely good sleeping.  

Last Day in Kentucky

 We decided to visit The Railroad Museum in Bowling Green before leaving.  I have never ridden overnight on a train.  When we lived in Detroit we would take the train from Windsor to Toronto and there have been trips in Europe most notably Cologne to Dusseldorf and Paris to Normandy.  But I never went to sleep to the clickity-clack of the wheels.

I lost my flyer so I will be short on some information.  But I took photos and they will have to tell the story but here goes.

This line started as the Louisville to Bowling Green line and eventually expanded to Nashville.  It was doing well until the Civil War when one city ended up in the Union, the other in the Confederacy.  Eventually they were both in the Confederacy but the quarreling had taken its toll.  Today the tracks are used by the CRX line and they make no stops at the station anymore.  

The outside of the station.

We walked through First, Second and Third class cars.  I could travel in any of them but the beds make RVs look like the Ritz in size.  

The Dining Car has separate classes but the tables were all the same, but the food was different.

Of interest to me was the mail car.  We learned about the hooks the mail was hung on outside and would be grabbed by hooks as the train sped by.  When it didn’t work and shredded mail went floating, they reported they had a snowstorm!  

There were pigeon holes and bins, with all the mail being sorted by hand.  Guards would travel in the mail car because there really were train robberies.  

Ttt

Moving to Kentucky

We left bright and early on Thursday heading to Kentucky with an overnight stop in Angola, IN.  It turned out to be a very nice KOA park and we got out and walked around, but avoided others.

We had a reservation at the KOA in Shepherdsville KY.  What a difference.  First, the GPS took us the wrong way and we had to keep going until we found a place to turn around.  That was no fun!!  When we arrived, they parked us in such a way that our slides would not clear.  I told Ted to just take the car off and I will direct him myself.  I moved him over and all was ok.  It was the most we have ever paid for a site and in our estimation certainly not worth it.

Once that was all settled, we took off for the Zappo outlet.  They have such a great selection of quality shoes.  Ted found a new pair of white gym shoes and I got black dress shoes and black dress boots.  It was my vote of confidence that by winter we all will be back in our uniform of black slacks and colorful tops!

Saturday we visited Locust Grove, the antebellum home of  the sister of William Rogers Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition team.  It was self guided to keep people apart.  We were the only ones there!  Then we finally went to church in Mount Washington, KY.  It is only the third time since early March that we have attended in person.  We wore masks and were socially distanced from all others.  Afterwards we went to the Cattlemen’s Club for dinner and sat outside on the patio.

Sunday was a mass exodus of all the poor souls who had somewhere to be on Monday morning.  That is the definition of happiness for a retired RVer - watching people leave on Sunday!  We just took it easy with a walk to the pool in the evening.

Monday went so smoothly!  We pulled out easily despite our parking guide’s insistence if we didn’t stay where he parked us we couldn’t make the turn.  Ted pulled out and went around, stopped behind our site, we hooked up the car and took off.  It was just a few hours to Franklin and we pulled into the park, were directed to take the second spot and I guided Ted right in.  When the guy brought our paperwork he said Ted did a great job of parking and he would not have a job if everyone could do that.  Ted told him “my wife parks me!”  

Ted had a conference call, we had lunch, then drove back to Bowling Green to the Russell outlet.  Ted buys his underwear there along with shirts.  I bought underwear and a cover up.  There was a nail salon in the same area so Ted told me to have my nails done and he would find something to do.  It was close to dinner time when we returned.

Then Ted banged his leg on a pipe coming from the ground next to the water outside.  I wanted him to get stitches but he wouldn’t.  Men!  It was more of a scraping the skin aside so stitches probably wouldn’t have helped.  I cleaned it, put antibiotic cream on it, bandaged it and gave him a starter dose of amoxicillin.  I will keep him off it for at least a day and watch it closely.

Tuesday we stayed home to keep Ted’s leg up.  It is doing well.  No bleeding, no pain, no signs of infection.  By a Wednesday we were more than ready to go to Nashville.  First up was the Parthenon.  We have been to Nashville many times but just have never stopped to visit Centennial Park.

• “The Parthenon in Centennial Park, in Nashville, Tennessee, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. It was designed by Confederate veteran William Crawford Smith and built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.”

This is the Athens, Greece Parthenon that we visited in 2018.

From there we traveled through the Belle Meade upscale area to Cheekwood Park.  There are gardens, a mansion and a golf course.  A Chihuly exhibition was being shown in the gardens but we did not have time to visit the mansion.  

Here is the statue of Athena and her shield for perspective.  The 24 foot high doors were at the entrance to the temple with Ted for perspective.

From there we traveled through the upscale area of Belle Meade to Cheekwood a park of gardens, a mansion and a golf course.  A Chihuly exhibition was being displayed in the gardens.  The photos will give you an idea of the beauty we enjoyed.