Southern States Road Trip Day 1: Memphis

It's spring break for me, so we decided to take a little road trip to get some states checked off of Ryan's list. I have all of the states we're going to already, but we're seeing some neat things so I don't mind.

We got up super early and got to Memphis around 10:30am central time. We first went to the Civil Rights Museum which is where MLK was assassinated. It was a pretty big museum with lots of new information about the history of civil rights in the U.S. The hotel portion was really interesting and haunting. I was disappointed the room was reconstructed, I had it in my mind that it was original from the day he was shot. We also got to go across the street to see the boarding house where the shooter was located.

Outside the hotel where MLK was shot

We ate lunch next, Ryan's job is to blog about the food today (it was AMAZING). We finally got to eat at the burger place Ryan had been talking about since we met. Then on to Graceland.

As we were walking in, I felt like the biggest tourist ever but was quickly sucked into the Elvis experience and ended up having a really good time. We went b/c we thought we should, but it was really cool and definitely exceeded our expectations. The house was awesome, very Elvis, and looked like it did when he lived there. We also went to the car museum, the army exhibit and went through his airplanes. He lived a very extravagant lifestyle and it was really cool to be able to see that in person. We got our usual magnets and small token Elvis items and ended up spending about 3 hours there. It's a little expensive, but very unique and fun, well worth it I think.

Outside Graceland (pronounced Grace-lund)

One of my favorite shots from inside the Mansion

We ate dinner at Gus's chicken (again Ryan will blog) but I just need to say everyone has to go there! I was literally speechless during one point during dinner b/c the chicken was THAT good, seriously.

The most amazing piece of chicken in the history of man, ever.

We drove a couple of hours to Little Rock, AR (a new state for Ryan) and are spending the night here to do LRCHS and the Clinton Library tomorrow, then back to Memphis! Day one was a success I would say. I'll post all the pics once we get back.