Blogs from Tennessee, United States, North America - page 101

Torrents of rain came down until after midnight. Small streams coursed around the shelter piers, water drumming on a metal roof lulled us to sleep. 5AM the thunder clapped directly overhead echoing for what seemed five minutes or more. Rain came down by the inch. Time to roll over, pull the sleeping bag close around your neck and go back to sleep. Rain continued until almost 9AM. I got up about 8 and made a cup of hot joe and watched the water rearrange the pine needles and twigs in front of the shelter. There were three front steps with all but the last one dry, this made the perfect spot to perch with a morning cup of hot coffee. CC rolled out at 9 to hot cream of wheat for breakfast. After the rain ... read more

Early again! I have to say when we first thought of stopping by Graceland, we thought it would be a cheesy tour but felt that since it was on our way, we might as well visit. This year is actually the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. Even in the Philippines, Elvis was huge and his death was widely covered by the Philippine media. Graceland was actually smaller than I thought it would be. When we got there, we realized we didn't really know much about Elvis except for some of his songs and a few of his movies. And that, he has many, many impersonators (the movie Leaving Las Vegas comes to mind), which I think, in some way, has made a caricature of who he was as a person. Here's some things we ... read more

The Royce Adventure Father's Day in Memphis. The kids say that Dad is king today; not Elvis. We've driven the approximate 400 miles across Tennessee but it took us a day longer than planned. Some RV troubles -- a generator acting up and then a blown tire (one of eight on this thing) -- brought us to Mark's new favorite store -- Camping World outside of Knoxville and then a truck repair shop in Nashville. We were a little depressed last night, but a couple of drinks and a plan to get to Memphis and just hang out for the night instead of driving more made today pretty good. That, and staying at a campground near Bucher Hollar. The kids were great. Going to Graceland late on a Sunday was perfect with no crowds at all. ... read more

url='/Videos/3791.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3791.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Blues Hall Juke Joint After getting out of Alabama it was smooth sailing to Memphis (thank goodness!...Tennessee is much better). We arrived at the Smythe’s beautiful house, family friends of the LaGasse’s, in the evening and were ready to eat. After Mrs. Smythe suggested a few places around the city we could try, we headed out towards downtown Memphis. We made our way over to Beale Street, the most happening part of the city. Beale St. is shut off from all traffic, leaving people free to just walk down the street at their leisure. We were lucky enough to make it to Beale St. on a Saturday night, a party night of course, and the experience was just fantastic. For dinner, we made our way over to the Blues City Café, as the Smythe's ... read more

Blogger: DJ We just gassed up in Knoxville, TN, which is funny because we thought we had passed through knoxville about 15-20 minutes earlier. Though it's possible that Knoxville is just huge. Katie would like to point out that for all of the mix CDs that we've listened to, no one saw fi to include "On the Road again" and that she was disappointed. I pointed out that the song is about anticipation of being on the road again and escaping and that my friends that made the CD's would most likely not be trying to encourage such behavior. She then conceded that she's never actually listened to that song. Katie and I are trying to switch of on the driving more frequently so we don't hate our lives as much. I drove for the first ... read more