Author: MikeB

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The plane.

Pictures from the exhibit.

Pictures from the Ultimate VIP area.

Cars and other vehicles.

Of course KISS was influenced by Elvis.

Bigger Pics from the first post.

We arrive in Memphis Thursday afternoon. Went to Beale street and ate at the Pig on Beale for some real Memphis BBQ. Pig on Beale is the only place that has the pits that cook the meat on Beale Street. The other restaurants drive the meat to Beale Street and just keep it warm.

No food pictures from Beale Street. My Phone finally died. Clearing the cache and factory reset did not work. Time for a new phone. No tracking for the way home.

Graceland tours has changed a lot since I was last there in the mid 90’s. They now have a mega complex with restaurants and a lot more things on display.

Main living room and stairs going up which you can’t tour.

The pool room with fabric walls and ceiling.

A 1970’s Kitchen with one of the first Microwave ovens and his TV room with 3 TVs. Same number of TVs as president Kennedy.

And the Jungle room.

Being on the Ultimate VIP tour we got to hold one of Elvis’ rings with a 11.5 carat diamond. It also has the Taking Care of Business (TCB) logo with lightning bolts of each side of the ring. It cost Elvis $35,000.00 to have the ring made.

The last piano Elvis played and the racquetball court. The racquetball court use to have all the gold records on display in the 90s.

The horses of Graceland.

Elvis’ resting place.

One of the first records and the wall of gold records.

One of his jump suits and a Zenith TV remote control.

Some of the cars he owned including the pink caddie.

We also got access to the Elvis Archives. A picture when Elvis got married, tickets to his show and an invitation to a New Years party.

 

 

We started off the day with a boat ride through the Lost River Cave. This is one of the few caves with a natural river running through the cave.

We then went to the National Corvette Museum. It was rainy outside so they didn’t have any of the corvette rides available.

Some pictures from the sink hole.

And a picture of my new car.

We went to the Kentucky Historic RailPark and Train Museum. We are loading up the train and I’m driving it back to Texas.

We got to go inside a real historic mail train car and see Pullman passenger cars.

The food of the day is….The Hot Brown…yes….again…from Mariah’s in downtown Bowling Green. Not as good as the original at The Brown Hotel.

And the snack of the day was my first White Castle slider!

 

 

Arrived in Gettysburg Sunday afternoon to light rain. We toured the Jennie Wade house. She was the only civilian casualty of The Battle of Gettysburg. She was shot by a stray bullet in the kitchen of her sisters house.

They believe the bullet came from snipers in the Farnworth House down the road. Bullets in the brick of the house can still be seen.

The snipers where shooting from the attic on the left side of the house.

We did the National Parks guided tour of the Battlefield which is basically the whole town of Gettysburg. The tour was 2 hours long and traced the battle from July 1st to the 3rd of 1863.

It was cloudy and rainy but still a fun tour. Below is Devil’s Den and a canon.

We arrive in Hackettstown NJ on Sunday! Home of M&M’s / Mars Candy!

We visited the Sterling Hill Mineral Mine. Zinc was the main mineral that was mined here which started in the 1830’s and closed in 1986.

The mine is one of the few in the world with Fluorescent minerals and a large 4 room museum area with rocks on display. They only have a few rooms in the mine with UV lights but all the mine shafts would glow with more UV lighting. Very cool.

 

The rainbow room above is part of the mine that is natural. The bottom picture is from the Museum.

We went on a lunch cruise on lake Hopatcong the largest lake in New Jersey. 2 miles wide by 9 miles long.

And from a small diner we had the famous “Disco Fries”. French fries with brown gravy and mozzarella cheese. Very tastie!

Sunday we leave for Gettysburg, PA.

We left Beckley Wv and headed for Lancaster PA to the Amish country. We rode the Strasburg Railroad on Saturday in the First Class car with snacks.

 

Little did we know it was also Thomas the Train Day! Thousands of kids! Wow.

Then it was off to the first commercial hard pretzel company in the U.S.

And we learned how to make a pretzel!

 

We arrived in Beckley with zero cell phone service! T-Mobile map says we have service but in reality it doesn’t work.

We toured the Exhibition Coal mine riding in a coal car. The tour was very informative.

After the Coal mine we went to the New River Gorge Bridge to get some pictures from the overlook. It is the longest single span steel arch bridge in the western hemisphere.

The food of the day is the official state food of West Virginia. Which is…. The Pepperoni Roll!

Tomorrow we are heading to Lancaster PA for the Amish county and Strasburg Railroad. I’m hoping the GPS tracker will work at some point during the trip to Lancaster.

 

 

Toured the Louisville Slugger Baseball Bat Factory.

Spent over night in the Historic Brown Hotel in downtown. Had dinner in the hotel restaurant and ate the Famous “Hot Brown Turkey Sandwich”.

The hotel is from 1923 and beautifully restored.

 

 

Today was Arch day. Below are pictures of the Arch and the inside of the pod you ride in to get to the top.

In the past you would enter the Arch from the north our south sides. Now, since the 4 year renovation by the national park service you enter from the west side of the Arch and go underground to the Museum and then to the North or South pods to ride up to the top.

We toured the old Court House building from the 1830’s. The flag is hanging in the middle of the Court House.

We also did a Trolley tour and found out that St Louis has a lot of “Free” (As in Beer) Museums, Zoo and parking for an area called Forest Park that is bigger than Central Park in New York City.

We ended the day with a Burger from “The Lou” and a St Louis original of toasted ravioli.

Tomorrow we are off to Louisville, Ky and the Brown Hotel.

 

Before leaving for St Louis we had breakfast in the Fish Bowl at Bass Pro Shops. Breakfast was average but the price was a little high.

We arrived at the Four Seasons hotel after driving through a bit of rain. The view from the room of the Arch and the service at the Hotel is worth it.

Will post more pictures tomorrow when we visit the Arch and take a trolley tour of downtown St Louis.