Nashville to Florida

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Hello you lot, we thought we'd better give you all an update on our trip seeing as we go to Mexico tomorrow. This poxy computer doesn't allow me to get pictures from our camera onto this so you'll have to make do with my ramblings. Hopefully we'll be able to sort some pictures again further into the trip. So, we were in Philly last time we wrote, well we headed to Nashville after that for the epic 4th July celebrations. It was amazingly hot and humid so we spent the day trying to find anywhere with some shade. Being the 'music city' we weren't disappointed with the number of live bands playing throughout the day, we got quite into the yeeeehaaa country and western!!! Nashville had the 2nd biggest fireworks display in the USA so we were pretty excited for the evening and although they were awesome, you've never seen rain like it. From a beautiful sunny day the clouds arrived with nightfall and it was torrential. I don't think either of us has ever been that soaked, we actually walked back to the hotel wading through puddles, splashing eachother and being stared at by the locals in their nice dry cars. I'm sure they thought we were nutters but the great thing was the water was really warm!! What a fireworks display though, even through the rain.

Memphis was our next stop and Graceland has to be one of our favourite days of the whole trip. What an emotional place to visit. Elvis truly was the king, he had some wicked gizmos and gadgets and the house was just unreal. We spent a couple of hours looking around the house and the grounds and watching the documentaries. The number of awards he won and gold and platinum records on the walls was just jawdropping, as were some of his original costumes on display. Legend! Em even had her photo taken with him!!!!! It's weird how many songs that mention Elvis popped into our heads throughout the day......'there's a pretty little thing, waiting for the king....down in the jungle room!!'...can't remember who sang that but it's in my head right now. The cars and his planes!!! (yes plural, he had 2) were also full of gadgets.....just amazing the way it's all set up so you can see exactly what it was like. We watched a couple of Elvis films that night just to round of a great day, oh yeah, we also had a burger uh hu!! Awesome.

New Orleans was next and probably the place we were looking forwards to the most in America. Bourbon Street comes to life at night and just buzzes. For the cost of $5 for our 3 for 1 beers (which we impressively made last a couple of hours) we were treated to some of the best live music on earth (ok I may exaggerate slightly, but it was pretty great). 'Chucky C' was up there with our favourites over five straight evenings of musical enjoyment. He's a big old black guy who has his signature tune as 'I'm built for comfort not for speed'. Amazing voice and not bad moves for such a plump old dude. Anyone who loves music should come here, it was just fantastic. Everyday seemed to get better and better.

Now for the big one.....Orlando. I'd promised I'd take Em to see Mickey Mouse...well Ariel from the Little Mermaid really. It's true what they say, this place is just like a massive playground for adults as well as for kids. True to form we used our initiative to get some cheap tickets......a couple of hours being shown around a timeshare complex by the slick and funky Ishmael was well worth it for the half price tickets. Day one was Hollywood Studio's where we were scared witless by the 'Tower of Terror'. This is a lift that takes you up 13 floors then drops you down, takes you up, drops you down....you get the idea. Petrified doesn't cut it! One of the highlights of the day had to be the Little Mermaid production. For 20 minutes through the use of special effects (including getting the audience a bit wet) they actually made us feel like we were under water. Of course, Em sang her little heart out to all the songs too....it was very very cute 😊 Beauty and the Beast did it's best but Ariel won the day. The evening 'Fantasmic' light show and fireworks were also worth the entry fee alone. Disney don't do things by halves, it was absolutely spectacular.

Day two, we hit the main event, the Magic Kingdom. Throughout the day we went on the (not so scarey rides) Haunted Mansion and the Pirates of the Carribean three time each. They were great fun. We did venture into a bit of thrill seeking with the log flume but our highlights were the evening fireworks and the other kids type stuff, in particular I (Chris) got to have my photo taken with Goofy, the real one, not an imposter! It was brilliant to take the day off being such a pair of responsible adults for the day ( ha ha)...... Em managed to get an awesome picture of lightening striking with the fairytale castle in the foreground...yet another storm! Oh...and we were walking through 'Tomorrowland' when the spaceship was launched from down the road at Cape Canaveral...and we saw it go up..how cool is that.
After a day of chilling out we headed down the coast to Miami South Beach for some well deserved...er..chilling out, then on to the Florida Keys. We've just left there today and what an wonderfully beautiful place. Key West has the most going on by far and was our favourite but we drove through them all on the most amazing bridges you've ever imagined over the bluest of blue seas. It's like a dreamland, well it would have been if I (still Chris) wasn't such a wimp worrying about driving on the wrong side of the road all the time!! Still, we managed without incident and it was well worth it. Some of the Keys are brilliantly named, Little Duck Key and Little Torch Key inevitably being Em's favourites!! I decided that some should be changed to any of the following..... Door-key, Fun-key, Okeydo-key, kareyo-key or maybe even Key-key (d).

Well as I said, we are flying to Cancun tomorrow and have absolutely no clue where we're going next but that's the fun of it 😊 We hope you're all well and having a lovely summer.

Love Chris and Em xx

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