Sun Studios - Memphis

You can't really have the complete Elvis experience without visiting Sun Studios on Union Avenue in Memphis.  This is where Elvis first stepped in front of a microphone and recorded his very first song, "My Happiness" in 1953.  The song was not well received, and it seemed as though Elvis's music career was DOA.  But then, in 1954, as legend has it, Elvis was goofing around and started to sing "That's Alright (Mama)" when Sun Studios boss Sam Phillips overheard it and liked it.  A star was born.

But Sun Studios is more than just Elvis.  Many big name stars of the 50's recorded here as well:  Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis were just a few.  In more recent years, U2, Ringo Starr, John Mellencamp, Bonnie Raitt, and Def Leppard also recorded songs.

The Sun Studios tour is very brief, with only 2 rooms covered:  a room full of memorabilia, and the actual recording studio.  You even get a chance to hold Elvis's microphone at the end of the tour.  One particularly insane Elvis fan, as the tour guide told us, stuck out his tongue and licked the microphone, hoping to catch some Elvis DNA.  Oh, those wacky, wacky Elvis fans.

The tour is $12 per person, but probably should only be $6.  Parking is limited, and the surrounding area is kinda scary.  Still, it's worth it to see the "Birthplace of Rock N' Roll!"

  

Graceland

"I'm going to Graceland, for reasons I cannot explain
  There's some part of me that wants to see Graceland."  - Paul Simon

Like Paul Simon, I can't explain why I wanted to see Graceland either.  I just wanted to.  I'm not even a big Elvis Presley fan.  I own two Elvis CD's (30 #1 Hits, and 2nd to None), and up until recently, I rarely listened to them.  Since visiting Graceland, I went to my local library and checked out an Elvis Presley 5 CD box set called "The King of Rock N' Roll - The Complete 50's Masters."  This is the only period from Elvis that I particularly like.  I like the early Sun Studio recordings, and I like his early hits like "Hound Dog," "Heartbreak Hotel," and "Jailhouse Rock."  As he entered the 60's, and especially the 70's, he became the lounge-singing joke that most of the impersonators portray today.  However...when he was in his early 20's, the guy had talent.

As for the Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, it is the very definition of a tourist trap, but if you can resist all the many opportunities to buy Elvis memorabilia, it's fairly interesting.

Naturally, being the cheapskate that I am, I think that almost everything is overpriced.  After you pay $10 to park, tickets for Graceland are $32 (per person) just for the "Mansion Tour", which lasts about 45 minutes.  For $36 you can get the "Platinum Tour" which includes admission to about six other Elvis attractions, including his private jet.  Thankfully, kids were free, and I had a "Two For One" coupon which got all four of us in for $36.  We splurged that extra four dollars for the Platinum Tour, but you could easily do without it.  The other attractions (with the exception of the jet) are basically just gift-shops that have some of Elvis's costumes displayed.

The mansion is where the most interesting stuff is, even though they won't allow you to go upstairs to the infamous bathroom where he was found dead.  Inside the mansion is like a time capsule of 70's culture.  By that, I mean it's pretty dang ugly, yet somewhat fascinating.

Elvis, in his later years, was one pretty wacky dude.  If he were still alive today, I'm sure he'd still be touring, and the fanatics would still be flocking to his shows, no matter how obese or crazy he became.  He was a legend then, and still is today.

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis was our second stop after visiting Hope, Arkansas.  This was yet another city that seemed a bit run down.  I did a little research on the city before we left, and my online searches revealed a lot of articles like "Is Memphis safe?"  Most of the people who responded to the articles stated that the crime rate there was pretty bad, but as long as you stayed in "tourist friendly" areas, you would be fine.  I'm happy to say we made it out without any incidents, but then again, we mostly kept to those "tourist friendly" areas:  Beale Street, Graceland, and the area around Sun Studios.  I'll be writing separate blog entries for Graceland and Sun Studios next.

I had heard so much about Beale Street before we arrived in Memphis.  This was the "birthplace of the blues", after all.  I was kind of disappointed.  The "action" on Beale Street, meaning the music clubs, restaurants, and bars, was only about 4 blocks long.  Both Christy and I said to each other "This is it?"  I was expecting something that rivaled New Orleans, but sadly, it didn't.  6th Street in downtown Austin has a more vibrant music scene today than Beale Street does now.

Memphis has a great musical history, and you can really get the feeling that this was once a very exciting city.  Many music legends once walked these streets, and you can (arguably) say that rock & roll was born here at Sun Studios on Union Ave.  But..that was the 50's.  In 2012, it just didn't seem that exciting anymore.

Hope, Arkansas

We just returned from our big summer road trip.  As expected, it was very memorable, but also extremely exhausting, and expensive.  This year, just like our last road trip 2 years ago, we drove east.  We stopped at several cities, some for just a few hours, some for a day, and some for several days.  This year we visited:  Hope, Arkansas - Memphis, Tennessee (including Graceland) - Nashville, Tennessee, and finally, Washington D.C. (where we spent the bulk of our trip.)

I'll be posting pictures from each stop over the next few days, so I'll start with our first stop, which was Hope, Arkansas.

Hope, Arkansas is the birthplace of President Bill Clinton.  This town would just be a blip on the map if it wasn't for Clinton, as there was very little else to see there.  The town seemed pretty run down and depressing.  Many businesses and homes were boarded up, and the front window of Clinton's house looked like it had a bullet hole in it.  I guess the ideal place to go for the full Clinton experience would be Little Rock (which we missed this time.)  Little Rock has the presidential library, and lots of other Clinton related activities (hopefully none of them X rated.)

             (Picture above: Clinton's birthplace home)


After spending the night at the local Best Western (after about a 6 hour drive from Austin), we took a guided tour of the Clinton house, which was actually his grandparents house.  The house was nice, but I could easily see why someone would want to get out of that town as soon as possible.  We left pretty quickly after the tour, heading for Memphis.

Wednesday in the Park, I Think It Was the Fourth of July

The big thing to do in Austin on July 4th is to go downtown to Zilker Park to watch the big fireworks display.  With a crowd anticipated to be as large as 100,000 people, we decided not to go there yesterday.  Instead, we went to our new hangout, Lake Pflugerville, which has it's own, albeit smaller, fireworks show.  Rather than deal with crowds of a hundred thousand, this gathering seemed more like ten thousand, although it still took us an hour to get out of the parking lot.

Okay, it didn't have all the hipsters running around, and it didn't have the "Austin Symphony Orchestra."  Rather, Lake Pflugerville had the "Austin Civic Wind Ensemble" and drunken weirdos kissing live snakes.  Still, fun was had by all!

A Small Victory for Healthcare

Like most Democrats, I was surprised to see the Supreme Court uphold "Obamacare."  I was expecting it to fail by a 5-4 decision.  John Roberts decision to go along with the liberal judges, approving nearly every part of the health care law, and actually writing the majority opinion himself, was a real head-scratcher for me.  If it wasn't for him, this conservative judge, the Affordable Health Care Act would have been dead.  The other four justices wanted to kill the entire law.

Unlike most Democrats, however, I'm not jumping up and down in elation at this law being upheld.  The law still leaves control of healthcare in the hands of greedy insurance companies, and they will make millions off of this.  Ultimately what I'd like to see is universal healthcare, where everyone pays into the system (yes, a tax!), just like Taiwan and Canada and almost every other civilized country, and everyone is covered.   A snake bite should no longer cost someone $143,000 to treat.  A week in the hospital shouldn't make you go bankrupt.  If my daughter can spend a week in a hospital in Taiwan for about $35, why can't we do it here?

So, this law is far from perfect, but it's a small step in the right direction.  While most of the people who oppose it complain about the individual mandate, there are still several things to like about this law:  you can't be denied for a pre-existing condition, your kids can stay on your plan until they are 26, no lifetime limits on benefits, insurance companies must now spend 85 cents out of every dollar on actual reimbursement for your healthcare, not on "administrative costs."  How anyone could be opposed to these particular aspects of the law boggles the mind.

Mitt Romney, the author of "Obamacare" is of course out there promising to "repeal and replace" his own creation if he's elected president.  What will he replace it with?  Who knows.  He, nor anyone in the GOP has said.  I think we'd all like to know his plan, since we obviously can't continue down the "pre-Obamacare" path.

Personally, I don't really understand why the Republicans hate Obamacare so much.  This was designed to stop the uninsured freeloaders from going to the ER for simple aches and pains (which I see at my hospital a LOT) and then not pay a dime.  Who ends up paying?  We do.  Of course, this will still keep happening even after the law is implemented, but the percentage will go way down.  Just look at Massachusetts as an example:  the uninsured rate dropped from 6% to 2%, the majority of the people approve of "Romneycare", and the state is consistently rated one of the best in the country (for healthcare.)  Imagine that: Democrats supporting a law that supports personal responsibility and discourages freeloading off the system, and the Republicans opposing it.  I think the only reason they hate it now is because Obama supports it.

Some Republicans will shout and complain that this is one step further toward socialism, and they shouldn't be forced to buy something or else be taxed.  Oh please...you are already being taxed for stuff you may or may not be using.  Schools, parks, beaches, post offices, fire departments, police departments, etc., all being paid for by your tax dollars.  Why not health care as well?  And believe me, eventually, one day, you WILL need health care.

Sea World & San Antonio

I have to remind myself of something and never forget it:  Never go to an amusement park when the temperature outside is 110 degrees.

(Back at the Alamo in downtown San Antonio)


We were in San Antonio on Sunday and Monday.  We arrived late Sunday afternoon, visited the Alamo once again (my third time, the second time for Christy and the kids), and then had dinner at the famous "Riverwalk."  On Monday morning, Christy went to the USCIS office for her citizenship interview (detailed in my previous blog.)  After that, we decided to go to Sea World.

(Kyle tries to stay cool at the splash park in Sea World.)


Sea World, I should point out, has gotten insanely expensive.  Adults are $59.99, children are $49.99.  Parking is $15.  Had we paid full price for everything, we would have spent $235. Luckily, Christy was able to pick up 4 passes, plus parking for $50 (a perk from the company she works for.)

(From the Sea World aquarium, one of the few places to get relief from the heat.)


 I never went to the Sea World in San Antonio before, only the one in San Diego (when I was a kid.)  Things have certainly changed, and not just the price of admission.  It's no longer just whale and dolphin shows.  Now it's become Disneyland, with whale and dolphin shows.  The kids just wanted to spend their entire day going on rides and getting wet in the splash park, and we didn't catch any of the whale or dolphin shows.  The only show we did see was "Elmo Rocks!", which had nothing to do with the sea or sea animals.

(Christy poses withe kids inside the Sea World aquarium.)


I was perfectly content to let the kids do what they wanted, since I was in burning in an outdoor microwave the whole time.  I didn't want to spend my time walking around in the sun, or sitting in the sun watching an animal show.  We're currently in the middle of another crazy heat wave here in Texas.  In Austin, it's 106 degrees.  San Antonio was somewhere between 110 and 113.  It certainly felt like it too.  I spent most of my time just trying to stay hydrated and not suffering from sun stroke.

(The kids pose with the Penguin Man, who I imagine is very uncomfortable in that suit.)


Constantly running for shade and drinking endless amounts of water is no way to enjoy an amusement park.  Rather than having a nice memory of a family trip to Sea World, I'll only remember the heat and my fears of ending up in a hospital ER from heat stroke.  I think Sea World should offer 50% off admission on days that are over 100 degrees.  Anything over that temperature, and it's no longer an amusement park, it's a "survival park."