We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
A couple weeks ago I realized that I had a an upcoming Friday off work and that I live 3 hours away from Memphis, so I decided that if Elvismancer was in the editors’ hands by that Thursday, I would celebrate with a trip to Graceland. There were a few sections still unwritten when the time came, but they were all “extras”–I wanted to add more spells, artifacts, dumb tables, and that kind of stuff. The missing stuff not being there didn’t affect the flow of the book and the editors could skip them and circle back without missing any needed information. I decided that was close enough.
I got to Memphis between 1 and 2pm on Friday afternoon. Since Graceland closes at 4pm and most online sources recommended 3-4 hours if you plan to see everything, I decided that I’d wait until Saturday for the main event. From what I remembered from browsing around Google Maps, the Brooks Museum of Art was the closest spot I wanted to visit to where I was coming into town, so I started there. The next stop (after some good Catfish and amazing dirty rice at a place called Chef Tam’s) was Sun Studios. The Sun tour inspired a new artifact for the book, Mr. Phillips’ Microphone. On Saturday I went straight to Graceland when I got up and stayed until about 4:30. I had a vague plan to go to Beale Street that night, but by the time I got back to the hotel I was exhausted and decided to save that for my next trip to Memphis. Sunday I went to the Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Here are some photos I took on the trip.
There’s a lot of stuff in Memphis I didn’t have time to see, so I’ll definitely be going back, especially now that I’ve internalized the fact that it’s totally within driving range for a 3-day weekend. In the meantime, Elvismancer is in the hands of the editors except for a few little bits that I should finish this weekend. I’m still waiting on a few pieces of art, but plan on getting the layout started this week.
