Tom Sawyers RV Park, West Memphis, Arkansas
They (the servants) served him (Joseph) by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because Egyptians could not eat with Hebrews, for that is detestable to Egyptians. The men had been seated before him in the order of their ages, from the firstborn to the youngest; and they looked at each other in astonishment. When portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as anyone else’s. So they feasted and drank freely with him. ~ Genesis 43:32-34 Wow! That must’ve set off some animated conversation amongst the brothers. How would this powerful man know their birth order? Why was he favoring Benjamin so much? Sounds like they warmed up to the party though, if they were feasting and drinking freely. For whatever reason, they must’ve relaxed. Are they relaxed? Or are they becoming arrogant because of the attention they were receiving? How often do we find ourselves edging toward arrogance whenever something good happens to/for us? Jesus calls us to be humble, but sometimes that’s a difficult order, isn’t it? It’s a fine line between genuine humbleness and self-recrimination. And don’t ignore the discrimination happening in the room. These days, people seem to think discrimination is something that only happens in America, but it’s been going on since nearly the beginning of time. It’s wrong. But it’s not new. And think of this. What do you think those Egyptians will think when they find out Joseph is, in fact, a Hebrew? After all, Pharaoh knows he’s Hebrew. Or maybe they already know but still refuse to eat with him? People get such unfounded crazy thoughts about each other, don’t we? God calls us to Love. Everyone.
Monday, the 25th brought torrential rain most of the day. We could see why the campground tells you to check and make sure your site isn’t under water when you’re due to arrive!
When it finally (or mostly) stopped raining, Blaine got to work on our water system. We’ve been having some flow problems, and he was eventually able to isolate the biggest problem. Yay!!!
Tuesday was reserved for a visit with the King of Rock and Roll himself, Elvis. Yes, we took the plunge and went to Graceland. It was quite interesting, but not quite what we’d envisioned in our mind’s eye. They talk about Graceland being a mansion, but based on today’s standards, it’s more like a large house. I suppose back when it was built in 1939, it may’ve been a mansion, and maybe even in the 1950s and 60s.
The original owners of the nearly 500-acre property were the S.E. Toof family, and still belonged to the family when Elvis came along. It was named Graceland after one of the family’s relatives, Grace. Grace’s niece, Ruth Brown Moore and her husband, Dr. Thomas Moore, built the mansion. Their daughter, Ruth Marie, was a harpist with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and often held classical recitals in the front formal rooms. Elvis bought the house in 1957 (only 13.8 acres remained), paying just over $103,000. He was 22 years old.
Another thing that surprised us was that it wasn’t, oh how shall I say it, I guess the best way to say it is, it wasn’t as classy as we’d imagined. Kinda reminded us of a cheap theme park? I don’t know. You’ll see what I mean when you look at the pictures.
We were also surprised that there weren’t as many people as we’d anticipated. Maybe too many balk at the price. Seems to me you’d get a lot more visitors if it wasn’t so expensive. Then again, maybe that’s the point.
Anyway, when your reservation time comes to tour the house, they hand you ear phones and a tablet, put you on a short bus and drive you from the entrance, across the street to the house. Once they let you in, you then have the freedom to tour the house at your leisure, listening to John Stamos tell you about each room. They say that everything is left exactly as it was the day Elvis died. No one is permitted upstairs where he died. There are some other interactive things you can do with your tablet, but we didn’t take the time to engage them like we should’ve in order to get our full money’s worth.
When you’re done, a bus takes you back over to the rest of the collection. And it was a LOT of collection! We walked through room (more like warehouse size than room size) after room taking in all (or at least most) of what they had to offer.
Some more surprises?
We didn’t realize he was so young when he died on August 16, 1977 – just 42!
We knew he’d been drafted during his popularity, but didn’t realize he actually served two years over in Germany. The only concession they made to his fame was that he didn’t room in the bunk house with the other men once he got through boot camp. They let him live with his family and report for duty in the morning.
We didn’t know he was originally a twin! His brother, Jesse, was stillborn.
He was a huge football fan (Cleveland and Pittsburgh if you can believe it 😊) and even had his own team and wrote out their plays himself.
Elvis’s long-time wife, Pricilla is the one responsible for forming Elvis Presley Enterprises and keeping the King and his stuff and life alive. When Elvis died, his estate was left to his father and Lisa Marie. She was nine. His father died two years later, leaving everything to Lisa Marie. That’s when ex-wife Pricilla (they divorced in 1974), took over and managed the estate.
Lisa Marie had a son, Benjamin, who grew up to look very much like his grandfather, at least based on the picture we saw. He died in 2020 at the age of 28, after committing suicide. She has three daughters, including a set of twins.
As of 2006, Graceland is now a National Historic Landmark, which means it will never be plowed under and made into a shopping mall or parking lot.
I’ve put all the pictures together, so you can scroll through them as fast or as slow as you desire – kinda like our house tour. 😊 Enjoy. Bad as some of the pictures are, it’s a whole lot cheaper than actually going!
We didn’t know what it was. Do you?
If not, it’ll come up later and I’ll fill you in then.
Gives ya some time to think about it. : )
This reminded us of when the Griswald’s arrived at Wally World and found it closed. lol
They wouldn’t let us take pictures when we arrived, and now, there are people everywhere.
He designed it to remind him of Hawaii.
Including both sides of the basement steps!
it took 350 yards of fabric to cover the walls and ceiling!
This is where we learned Elvis had a twin.
I just took this one to show you.
Note the phone number in the upper right corner. : )
They look like they don’t know which camera to look at, but Elvis sure does! : )
There were a whole lot more than you can see here!
These days, he’d probably get shot, right? : (
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say they brought it down from the lounge area upstairs.
and Jesus was set in front of it.
Want one? : )
The concert clips were blurry and jumped around a lot from performance to performance.
Evidently, it was used as a movie set about Elvis and Sun Records.
It’s Elvis’s logo: Taking Care of Business – in a Flash.
Did you know that?
Bet jet cockpits don’t look like this anymore. : )
You better love it! It’s covered in 24K gold!
This is why, despite all the money he made, he only left $5M when he died.
We spent nearly four hours at Graceland, and our ‘museum walk backache’ needed walked out, so we walked from Tennessee to Arkansas and back.
Oh now, come on, you didn’t really believe that did you?
You should’ve. It’s true. 😊
There’s an old bridge they’ve converted into a walking path that crosses the Mississippi River and the State Line goes right through the middle of the river. It was a nice day, but the concrete path was a wind tunnel and we were freezing until we got to the end, left the trail and got into the sunlight! The walk back wasn’t as bad because the wind was at our back.
An early dinner at one of the highest rated Memphis bbq joints in town, A&R. It was kind of a hole in the wall place, but the food was exceptional!
I promised you an update on my head. So here’s a brief sequence of events that led to my intermittent excruciating pain in the side of my head. It’s the same tale I shared during a video chat with a doctor who was actually sitting in California. It’s our first video conference and it was done through our insurance company. Dr. Lim was very nice and seemed to know what she was talking about. It’ll do in a pinch on the road, but I much prefer talking with my own, trustworthy doctor.
Anyway.
Two weeks ago, I was walking around the coach and looking at the ground to my left and slammed my head right into the bedroom slide. Not the corner, but the actual wall. It didn’t budge, but it knocked me back and dazed me a bit. It was surface sore for a few days, but nothing major and the pain went away within maybe 15 minutes.
Then, one day about a week later, I told you about my gastrointestinal issue. Pardon my grossness, but it goes along with my tale of woe. The vomiting jarred my head pretty badly as you can imagine. But still, I felt no pain – at least not in my head.
And then a few days later, the violent sneeze that sealed the deal. It was the last straw. Apparently, I’d reached the limit of what my old head could take.
The doc listened to my story and determined that since I had no other issues that would accompany brain trauma of some sort, that the muscles on the right side of my head weren’t completely healed after my blunt force trauma, and the other two things aggravated it and now I have inflammation that needs to be addressed. So I’m on low activity, as little head jarring as possible, ibuprofen every four hours and ice packs three times a day. Possibly for the next week or two!
Do you have any idea how many things you do that affect the muscles in your head? I have a good idea now. They do more than wiggle your eyebrows and help you chew. 😊
I warned this doctor, who knows absolutely nothing about me, up front that I seem to only get weird stuff. Poor Blaine.