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Published: December 25th 2005
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NBA Playoffs...
Natalie & I before going down to centre court! Well just thought that I would do a quick update on what's been going on...
Anyways, can't quiet remember where I left off so I will just start with our arrival in Dallas.
Then we got tickets to the Play offs game like I think I mentioned. Natalie and I got No 41 - Dirk's singlet so that we looked the part and I swear to god the atmosphere was amazing - and just went Nat and I thought that we'd died and gone to heaven and that things couldn't get any better we got to go down to centre court with about 13 other ladies to be 1/2 time entertainment in front of everyone!!!!! What are the chances of two Aussies getting to be amongst that!!! The stadium was packed and we were nervous and excited - we ended up having to play Simon says!! Which we both suck at!!! And we were on the big screen baby!!!! Not sure if they show that on fox or not but we were almost famous!! The Mav’s won 119-109!!
Nat and I decided to stay at the stadium bar for a few beers and frozen Jack Daniels!! We so
weren’t ready to go home!
Took us a while to calm down from there!
We stopped at the state line between Texas and Arkansas. They call it Texarkana - one side of the street is in Texas, the other in Arkansas. They had to change the laws a few years ago, because literally if you robbed a bank in Texas you could walk across the road into Arkansas and the Texas police couldn’t touch you!! We had lunch there.
We then went to Little Rock, were President Clinton served on the Senate in the early 90’s so we looked at the State Building where it all happens and then on to Memphis.
Scott, my brother, kept telling me he wanted me to bring him back a Mac 1 so I happened to see a 69 convertible mustang which I posed for a picture in front of and sent it back to my brother - sorry it’s the best I could do!!!!
We crossed the Mississippi River which runs for 2,962km right down to the Gulf of Mexico making it the third largest water system in the world.
We arrived in Memphis and got changed
and headed out to the famous Beale Street, home of Blues music.
Went out and had dinner at BB King's place and watched some live blues - it had a great sound! We took a walk along Beale Street and ended up at Alfred’s Karaoke bar where some of our guys ended up doing a few songs before the machine broke. Travis’ ‘Like a Virgin’ was my favourite - Those of you that have heard me sing will be please to know that I didn't sing!!
We boarded the bus and headed to Graceland’s. We took an audio tour which was a moving tribute to a very humble person. His house was styled in the 60-70’s and was extravagant. There are portraits and all the memorabilia and you get to listen to interviews with him. Elvis’s house was bought for $100,000 and was set on 13.8 acres. It was close to the road, which I was surprised about. You aren’t allowed to go upstairs, they said that was his private space and remains so out of respect. You aren’t allowed to video tape which was unfortunate as mum would have liked it. I felt such sorrow standing by
Elvis’ grave and eternal flame - they moved his body back to Graceland’s for security reasons.
From there we went to the Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King was shot. We herd his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech. It was a massive loss for the African American Community. Martin used non violent methods of demonstrations and marches etc to deliver his message.
Robbie Kennedy delivered the message in California and where riots broke out all over the US, where Robbie was, was the only place it didn’t as a result of his moving speech.
Outside the hotel is a lady by the name of Jacqueline Smith. She sits outside the hotel everyday and has done for the past 17 years and 75 days. She was living in the hotel at the time Martin L King was shot. She was kicked out and a massive museum was built. She believes it wasn’t what he would have wanted and dedicated her time to telling the story.
We headed off to Sun Studios. Elvis walked in off the street to record a song for his mum for her birthday. The receptionist thought he was something special but the
producer didn’t agree and it took her another year to convince him and they teamed him up with some local musicians and within 3 years of first walking through the doors he had a single out. When they first played it, they got so many calls about it they played it 46 times in 3 hours. It was very interesting. There were some lovely pictures there and we heard his original recoding for his mum. I got a picture with one of the microphones Elvis originally used for his studio time.
We made our way to the Peabody Hotel to watch their famous ducks that live in their fountain in the main fountains till 5pm then they exit from the fountain and walk the red carpet to the elevator then go up to Duck Palace. They can only be a Peabody Duck once in their lives and they train a new group of ducks every three months.
We are going to look for some Thai tonight as we haven't found any yet and it's driving the most of us crazy!!
Nat and I decided not to go to dinner with the others and went to this Thai place.
It was amazing and the service was excellent. We had a good drink and just chilled out.
We are off to New Orleans tomorrow.
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