Friday, 12th October 2018
Our alarm went off at 8a.m and today we were continuing our road trip with some deviation to the original plan as we cut short our stay in Memphis by one day to visit my friend Carolyn and her husband Aad in Antioch, Nashville. And then we were cutting short our stay in Nashville to fly out to Raleigh to spend the weekend with my friend Ruth and her husband Jay.
So after breakfast we were ready to start our drive which was well over 220 miles to be accomplished in 3hr.15 mins.
However, we decided that we should first take a look at Graceland, Elvis Presley’s home turned into museum and showing most of his memorabilia such as his mansion, planes, motorcycles, clothes, films and clothes. While it was a short drive to this museum, we got into a traffic jam as there were quite a number of cars driving towards Graceland. We bought our parking ticket and made our way towards the entrance, however there were such long queues, that we gave up trying to visit Graceland – instead we took a look around the grounds and by 10.30 we were on our way as we wanted to reach Nashville by 3 pm.
The weather was great however perhaps because it was Friday, we had quite a bit of traffic on the way and indeed as we stopped for a coffee break on the way, we only reached Carolyn’s and Aad’s home at 4pm.
It was good to meet up with old friends and while we sat out on the porch, we found out that both Gerry and Aad came from the same neighbourhood in Rotterdam and spent some time reminiscing over the old days.
Carolyn had made reservations for the evening at the Aquarium restaurant which was close tot the Grand Ole Opry where we had also reservations for the Friday evening show. This was quite an experience to watch the audience entering the big hall ( it actually takes in some 4,500 spectators and the various singers who took part this Friday evening included some dinosaurs from the country and Western music as well as newcomers and also what’s interesting is that the show is transmitted live over the radio……..The public was very enthiusiastic and applauded and sang along. Also we were lucky to be present on the Grand Ole Opry’s 93rd birthday.
Well once the performance of country and western as well as blues was over, it was time to return to our friends’ home and get a good night sleep as we had to have an early start tomorrow – flying out to Raleigh to meet up with Ruth and Jay.
