After Bonnaroo we decided to embark on a mini adventure even further West: Graceland, home of the King. Last year we wanted to but time just didn’t allow. Memphis is about five hours West of where Bonnaroo is….which in turn is five hours further away from home.
Graceland wasn’t what I expected. I mean, it is the home of Elvis Presley. It’s in the middle of a small town (or what at least seems like a small town). Memphis is a pretty glum area to be honest…Beale Street was alive and colorful, an oasis in the middle of fast food restaurants and used tired shops. The house itself wasn’t insanely huge either but it was beautiful. You enter the house and they give you headphones and a tape and when you enter each room it gives you the history of it. Pretty cool, I learned a lot of neat things I hadn’t otherwise known.
Ticket to Graceland, $37
Front of Graceland, they drive you in on a shuttle bus
Living Room
Portrait leading to the mysterious upstairs
Kitchen (please ignore my shitty scanning job)
Basement was super 1970’s
More basement
Pool table
Awards room
So many records
All of his awesome jumpsuits were there. Most of them were underneath hardly any lighting 😦
Back view
Outside pool
Grave, strangely enough I had no idea he was buried here.
The creepiest part, when you walk into the foyer in the front of the house, is that you are standing underneath where Elvis was found (apparently). I read from a lot of sources online but of course, you can never know for sure. They don’t tell you that on the tour. All they say to you is that you are not allowed upstairs because it is a private area to Elvis and it always was so they wish to continue to respect his wishes. Upon further research I found out that no one has been upstairs since then. There’s a guard at the bottom of the stairs and at the top and the doors to his bedroom are locked. Employees that have been there for 20+ years haven’t even seen inside his room. The only people that have had access are the museum curator, Lisa Marie (daughter), Priscilla (wife) and Nicholas Cage (because he married Lisa many moons ago). Many celebrities have put in requests to see it but they’ve all been denied…they’ve even denied presidential requests. Really mysterious.
Since I was only using 400 speed film, a 50mm lens, and we weren’t allowed to use flash inside, I also took some photos with my iPhone and Ollo Clip.
Meditation Garden
Angels
Upstairs were no one is allowed.
Andrew and I out front of Graceland
Living Room
Billards Room
Billards
Kitchen
Jungle Room
Dining Room
Down to the Basement
Records
More
MORE
Basement
The Lisa Marie
On board the Lisa Marie
Pink Caddy
You also got to see his cars in the car museum across the street.
🙂
Backyard
Official Historic Place
Panoramic
Graceland
So that’s that. Hope you enjoyed my photos! This was definitely an amazing tour and place to visit and I highly recommend it even if you aren’t an Elvis fan…it’s still really mind blowing to see his house exactly the way he left it. They haven’t changed anything inside. Everything is authentic. 🙂
Visual Individual 
Awesome post! I didn’t know that it was still as he left it…
Thank you! So much info that I didn’t know. Love all the photo’s , the one of you going down the basement is eerie LOL….. and the idea that no one has been upstairs is really mind boggling, makes me want to see it, if just for curiosities sake 🙂 Awesome article!
Hey thanks for all this info. Way cool
Omg I loved this. Loved Elvis since I was little. My first crush! Graceland always seemed so much larger then it actually was. The photos are treasures. I still can’ t help but get emotional that he is gone & the tragic way in which it occurred. Still makes me sad. If I don’t ever get there at least I got to see inside & outside. Thank you!,