Tour of the Tennessee Capitol

Thursday started with a tour of the Capitol of Tennessee.  This one was just a tad better as the docent was full of info and she was willing to share.  However, it was still not a full guided tour and so a lot of it was just looking and not really knowing what we were looking at despite having our handy dandy self-guided walking tour brochure.

Here are some pics of the surrounding buildings.

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So here's the Capitol

Now the really cool part of this was the hallway you had to go down to get to the building.  I thought this was totally awesome and very movie like.

When I go back and sort the photos that I'm going to include in my blog I notice that I take a lot of pics of the ceiling / light fixtures.  Not sure why but most times I think they are pretty.

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Like I said earlier, if I had paid attention I might have remembered what room this is a pic of but I don't.

I found myself in the middle of a press interview and I'll be honest I wasn't prepared but I did my best.

We were able to tour the chamber area.  I'm not entirely sure if we were allowed on the actual floor but no one stopped us.  They looked at us like we probably weren't supposed to be there but hey...try and stop us.

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We did go out a door that was cracked open and led to a balcony.  It was not clearly marked that we weren't allowed out there but it had a really great view and we couldn't resist.

 

Tour was over...not much to look at to be honest but we enjoyed it just the same.

Of course we had to go back through the tunnel. 

We walked back to our car and headed off to our next adventure.

<3

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The rest of our Nashville tour

So while we did enjoy the whole tour I will say it really does feel rushed and like you don't have enough time to enjoy and browse at the places you visit.  But we did get to see many things so that was good. On the tour and an expected stop was to a local Nashville honky tonk. 

We ended up at Legends Corner.

And true to form there was a guy playing hoping to make it big. 

He did let us know that any tips received that day were going towards his dental work.  Gotta love a singer who's keeping it real.

The walls were covered with various memorabilia and other items which of course I found very interesting.  Could've stayed longer but again, we were on a time budget on this tour.

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On the way out I did run into my famous friend and he graciously posed for a pic.

Fun, fun times and yet there was more to come...

Technorati Tags: Legends Corner,honky tonk,Nashville,tour,road trip,Elvis

Our Nashville Tour

After a fun filled day touring Graceland we headed toward Nashville and just relaxed for the rest of the evening.  We planned on taking a Gray Line tour of Nashville the next day.  We had no idea how much they pack into one tour but we would soon find out.

 

Our first stop was the Ryman Auditorium which is known as the birthplace of country music. 

 

Lots of cool and interesting stuff to see but we really didn't have very much time to enjoy and browse at our leisure.

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It's always interesting and fun to tour a historic place.  Next time we travel there we'll plan on spending more time.

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Here's the two of us having a blast onstage.  The paparazzi went wild and the audience clamored for our autograph when it was over. 

So after the really quick tour we were shuttled off to tour the Country Music Hall Of Fame.  Now this place is big and again, we really needed more time to enjoy it.  Just another excuse to go back! :)

The building itself has meaning. The windows are like keys on a piano, the hand rails are shaped like treble clefs just to name a few.

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My favorite things to look at are the vintage things at an exhibit.  I just think they are really cool and interesting.

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One of my favorite pics.  It's somebody's jewelry...I've already forgotten who it belongs to but I thought it was pretty.

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My Reese's Puffs DJ Name Mixer

So I eat Reese's Puffs cereal and on the back was the info on how to get my DJ Name Mixer which was an opportunity I just could not pass up.  There are actually two ways to create your own DJ name:

1.  Take the street you grew up on and the name of your first pet, then change all the "i's" to "y's"!

2.  Take the name of your favorite movie or Superhero villain, then add the first letter of your middle name!

So Option 1 for me resulted in this name:

 

Kyle Cyrcle Fonzye

Say whaaattt????  On to option 2.

Option 2:  I couldn't think of my favorite villain or Superhero.  I kept think of Cruella Deville but that really isn't my favorite.  It's just all I could think of.  I am not sure how awesome my Option 1 name is but that's all I've got to work with.  So from now on please refer to me as Kyle Cyrcle Fonzye otherwise I may not answer.

They (and by they I mean the folks at Reese's Puffs Cereal) also offered me a chance to make "My Reese's Puffs Rap" and of course I had to do that as well.  Feel free to add a bebop beat behind these amazing lyrics.

That peanut butter chocolate I must possess

Is the combo that I savor that I will address

Reese's Puffs, Reese's Puffs, in your bowl, in your bowl!

Recognize the taste that I craver

Reese's Puffs, Reese's Puffs

Wow peanut butter chocolate flavor

So crucial to my chomping vernacular

That peanut butter hookup is oh so spectacular

Reese's Puffs, Reese's Puffs

My Reese's Puffs are l-l-lyrical

Each peanut butter orb is oh so spherical

Reese's Puffs, Reese's Puffs, in your bowl, in your bowl!

But WAIT!!  There's more...

I then used my online code to unlock some AMAZING stuff!

After I went to reesespuffs.com and entered in my now not so secret code I received the following message:

Congrats!

You just unlocked THE MOTORCYCLE DANCE AND THE GUITAR LEG FLAIR MOVE.  This means you are one of the few who can do these special

Close X

So I think there was supposed to be more to the message but that's all I got. So this is DJ Kyle Cyrcle Fonzye signing off until next time!

Graceland!

After enjoying breakfast at The Blue Plate Cafe and enjoying the Duck Parade at The Peabody we were headed to see and tour Graceland.  Our hotel package was called the "Elvis package" and included the Graceland Platinum Tour, includes admission to: Graceland Mansion, airplanes, Automobile Museum, Sincerely Elvis Museum, and Elvis After Dark.  It also included an Elvis Presley Celebriduck™ and we will treasure it always. ;)

The parking and museums are to the right and the actual mansion is to the left.  All I can say is WOW!  We are not huge Elvis fans by any stretch of the imagination and we were there for over 4 hours!  We were even rushing through the last bit because we were so tired.  As you can imagine you can buy anything and everything Elvis there. 

Because we checked in using our iPhones, we got an extra treat.  These two amazing stickers.  The nice lady let us know if we had checked in using four-square we would have received a poster. 

I know you're jealous but try to control yourself.  So we traded in our voucher for our tour and museum tickets.

We had a photo op right off the bat!  You gotta love that for sure!

So we got our tickets, our headphones and got on the bus to head across the street to tour the house.

Graceland is a National Historic Landmark in case you didn't know.

I looked up at the wrought iron chandelier and there appears to be a birds nest there. 

So we enter the home and we immediately see the living room with it's massive white couch.  We also were treated to a view of the dining room and one of the bedrooms.

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We also were able to see the tv room, the famous jungle room and the kitchen to name a few more.

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You gotta love this sign.  I may make one for my job.

So there was still lots more to see. 

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Now I don't know if you would necessarily say it's the "highlight" of the tour but I think a lot of folks go to primarily pay their respects at the gravesite. 

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We got back on the bus and headed back across the street to tour the museums and go through all the shops.  Here's M signing the guest registry. 

I am still wondering if I was somehow, inadvertently caught on tape...I hope I wasn't embarrassing myself.

Tons of cars to look at in the car museum.

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Here's what I ate while at Graceland.  Let me just say it was...alright.

Elvis also had some planes and those were on display as well. 

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Of course this one was my favorite.  Bet you can't guess why.

We had a super fun time and spent a lot more time there than I thought we would.  If you're going near Memphis, you need to stop by. 

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