Carbon Copy

Graceland

I've never been a huge Elvis fan, but when I saw the pictures from Erica's tour of Graceland last March, it totally captured my fancy. I really wanted to see it for myself. Memphis is about 6 hours from New Orleans, but it was only 3 hours from Jackson, MS. We figured we'd never be that close again and since not much was going on during the evacuation, we made a day trip to visit the King.

We splurged for the Platinum passes, since they were kindly giving evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi discounts. I was pleased to find that the first thing you see upon arrival is a gift shop. And there were many more to be found on the entire Graceland compound, which is extensive. I perused the shop for a long time, debating about whether or not it was worth $25 to buy a cheesy t-shirt just to be ironic. My prudent side, for once, won, and I walked away with just some postcards that I have yet to mail and an Elvis tin with mints. It was hard, though. So much merchandise!

They handed out the audio guides and we waited in line for the shuttle up to the Graceland mansion.

And finally, there it was!

I know, I know. It doesn't seem like much by today's MTV Cribs standards, but just wait till you see inside. The glamor is all in the decor.

Here's the living room when you first walk in.

The elegant dining room, along with a painting of Elvis. There were many around the house, and some more that I will share.

And now for the creepiest room - the Jungle Room.

I loved the kitchen, exactly how Elvis left it.

The billiards room. I like to picture Elvis and his entourage shooting pool and everyone has sideburns.

And now for my favorite room in the house - the TV room.

Taking Care of Business!

Backyard:

And now for the best part - the memorabilia!

Gold records!

And updated to reflect the new technologies - a platinum tape.

I promised more paintings, and I always deliver.

If the memorabilia is the best part of Graceland, then the best part of the memorabilia is the costumes. Such amazing costumes!

This photo cannot capture the immensity of the racquetball court full of gold/platinum records. And the best part is that when you enter the room, the theme from 2001 Space Odyssey plays through your audio guide. It really sets the tone.

Our last stop at the house was the burial site. On the drive up, I had thought about what I could leave for Elvis, but since we didn't have much with us whilst evacuating, I couldn't come up with anything. Luckily there was no lack of other trinkets for Elvis.

Time for a quick snack, but there was still so much more to see!

Such as cars!

And more jumpsuits!

And private jets!

Phew! It was a lot to take in and very worth the trip, even for someone who had never really listened to Elvis. I guess I had this feeling before that Elvis was kind of a joke, someone that people do bad impersonations of in seedy lounges in Las Vegas. I left Graceland, though, completely overwhelmed by what a star he was. Pure and simple.

But there was one last thing we had to do in Memphis. Get some ribs! ChaCha told us the best place for ribs was Central Ribs, and I'm pretty inclined to agree. They had a sign posted that said any evacuees from Louisiana or Mississippi got half off their meal. Bonus, right! Except, it didn't count for ribs. Still, it was worth paying full price.

As I Am

A week or so ago, I spied an Alicia Keys cd on the math teacher's desk. I asked her at lunch if I could borrow it to play for my students while they did some creative writing. Confession: I've actually never listened to Alicia Keys. Don't act so surprised. Where would I have heard her? Seriously. I don't listen to the radio. I don't know anyone that really listens to Alicia Keys. At least, not when their with me. I just knew that many of my students liked her, so imagine my surprise when I put the music on and realized that it was good! And here I am on a Saturday listening to it by my own choice. Here's my favorite:

No One

Anyone have any other good recommendations for music my students might like to listen to that's not Lil Wayne?

Evacuation

I finally got the Internet connected and my laptop working. Even though Gustav was almost three weeks ago now, and I should really be planning for tomorrow, I figured I would reacquaint myself with my blog and finally post about evacuating.

As mentioned earlier, we had to move to a new apartment before we could evacuate. Luckily, there were enough people around to help us out. We thought about leaving in the middle of the night on Saturday/Sunday, but decided that we all just needed a really good night's sleep. Here's the new house. We have the top floor.

The night before we evacuated was lovely. It didn't feel like a hurricane was coming.

We had no idea what to expect. It seems silly now, since Gustav was definitely not the "mother of all storms" and Ike created so much more havoc in Texas. But at the time, the media was telling us all sorts of things, and I had panicked family members calling and telling us we had to get out. During Katrina, people had spent 15-16 hours on the highway, so we were settling in for the long haul. We had six gallons of water and whatever food we could find (there wasn't much because of the moving and all of the grocery stores and fast food restaurants had closed up shop already - I couldn't even buy gum at a gas station where we stopped so Amanda could plead with the owner to allow a pregnant lady to use the bathroom). We dropped my car off at the church because the ground is higher and it had a locked gate that we could close up.

And then headed out on the road. A lot of houses had boarded up their windows, although not as many as I had expected.

There were definitely more businesses boarded up. There was no one around on the morning we evacuated. Just police cars cruising the streets.

There were tons of buses lined up, waiting for further evacuations.

We decided to take the back roads up towards Baton Rouge. We were headed to a large Mormon church in Jackson, Mississippi. Normally Jackson is only about 3 hours away. But, like I said, we weren't sure what traffic would be like and everyone kept telling us that we had to avoid the contraflow at all costs. So the back roads. And it worked really well. We hardly saw any traffic.

I kept Pete entertained with my Nintendo. He doesn't know how to work it yet, really, so I would just start him at the beginning of Mario 64 where he could make Mario run around and listen to the birds. We stopped in Fayette, MS for lunch. We had basically thrown an assortment of random food into a big garbage sac before we left, so for lunch we stopped at a little park and pulled out our garbage sac. As we prepared a meal from its contents, a man stopped and asked us if we needed a place to stay. I guess we did look a little homeless.

Our scenic route took us on a part of the Natchez Trace Parkway, so I got all excited about byways. It was lovely.

We finally made it to Jackson, six hours later. We didn't know what to expect at the church. We had images of cots lined up in the cultural hall with screaming children running around at all hours. It was much better than that. They assigned us a classroom, so we had some privacy. Later, some members in the area brought us some airbeds.

It was pretty nice. We even had a shower. Of course, we had to share it with about 50 other women, so lines were long, but hey, a shower. So what did we do whilst evacuated? Basically sat around the church a lot. I read To Kill a Mockingbird and played Nintendo. Peter played with basketballs in the gym and would wake up in the morning saying "ball." It's all he wanted to do.

And we played an awesome boardgame called Ticket to Ride. One day we ventured in to the town (we were actually in a suburb of Jackson, called Clinton) and found a park for Peter. It was a little rainy, but it was so nice to be out of the church that we didn't mind. And it was a really cool park.

The trees were even painted with cute characters and kid-inspired themes, which was really cute, except for this smurf.

A little creepy. Other than our adventure at the park and an unsuccessful attempt to find the mall in Jackson, we didn't do much. Except for a short trip here:

But that will have to wait for another day.

Par for the Course

Lockdown for three hours today. Turns out, a student had a gun. The weird thing is, it didn't even phase me. Of course someone would have a gun, despite the metal detectors. Of course, he would slip it into a girl's purse. Of course, we'd be in lockdown with the same students for 3 hours today while the police and administration went from room to room searching for it. Of course, the students would be arrested and led off campus in handcuffs.

And of course, I'd let my students jump rope during the last half hour of lockdown. Double Dutch. They were really amazing.

MIA

Sorry I've been MIA for the last little while. The Internet hasn't been hooked up since we've moved to our new place, so all I can get is a faint little signal in one particular corner of the house. Just enough to look up lesson plans and check my email. Not enough to upload pictures. It was supposed to be hooked up today, but apparently the technician didn't notice the doorbell, so no one heard him, and now they tell us we have to wait another week. Bummer.

Suffice it to say, it's been a challenging week. It's going to continue to be challenging, and every day/night I have to recommit myself. Right now, I'm going from school break to school break. Only 13 more school days until Fall Break. I can do that.

I really do have some great pictures from evacuation and our sidetrip to Graceland that I want to post. Just as soon as we get the Internet.

And We're Back... For Now

Gustav has come and gone, but Ike is around the corner. Is it terrible that I'm hoping it will follow the same course as Gustav? Just close enough for a mandatory evacuation, but distant enough that only two window panes break in our apartment. It's safer than the hurricane I face daily at school.

I have pictures from our evacuation, which turned out to be more of a mini-vacation with a sidetrip to Graceland in Memphis. But for now, I have to face reality and prepare for class tomorrow. If I get my wish, I'll have plenty of time for blog-writing during our next evacuation.