Day 4: Memphis, TN to Big Stone Gap, VA

Day 4: Memphis, TN to Big Stone Gap, VA = 528.22 miles



What do a king, a greek god, and a minister all have in common?


Nothing...except they were all on our way to Virginia.

Day 4 started out with the most anticipated part of our roadtrip...a visit to Graceland!



Coming up to the house itself, I was surprised by the size of it. When I thought of Graceland, I thought of a huge mansion. It was still a nice sized house, but not a huge, opulent mansion. We were able to take a tour of the inside, but the downstairs only. The tour guide told us that Elvis always kept the upstairs his private space, only entertaining downstairs, so the upstairs was still kept off limits to visitors, out of respect for the King of Rock n' Roll. What we saw of downstairs was interesting enough.











Not really my style of decorating...but hey, to each their own. Some of it was pretty crazy, including shag carpeting on the wall, ceiling, etc.

We also got to tour the rest of the grounds, that included his dad's office, the trophy room and what used to be the racquetball court...which now holds all of his records, and costumes.







And we were able to pay our respects to the King. His gravesite rests there on the grounds of Graceland...



This has definitely been the highlight of our roadtrip across America.

We left Graceland, and continued our journey East toward Virginia. We spent most of the day just driving across the state of Tennessee. It was during this time that we had the most random thing happen to us on the journey. We've been using a GPS system to help us navigate, especially when we get off the beaten path to see some of the roadside distractions. As we neared Nashville, we had heard about a replica of the Parthenon in the city that we wanted to visit. We typed in the address into the GPS system, and it told us to get off the highway in just a few miles. Which was kind of weird, because we were still 30-40 miles away from Nashville. But we got off the road anyway, and followed the GPS unit.

Turn after turn we followed the directions of the GPS...not really knowing where it was taking us or why. We were in some small suburbs of Nashville, but no where close to Nashville itself. Then we realized that the GPS was taking us right back to the highway we had been on. Such a random, weird route with no reason at all for us taking it.

But if we hadn't taken it...we never would have seen some of the most beautiful countryside that we had seen all trip...or run across this neat little place:







After that fun little find on our weird detour, we made our way back onto the highway and into Nashville. There we found this replica of the Parthenon in the middle of a city park. It was built in 1897 for the Tennessee Centennial Expo. Why they chose the parthenon with a HUMONGOUS statue of Athena inside, I don't know...but it was interesting to see.





That was a neat place to take a brief pitstop at, but it was time to get back onto the road. We still had a long way to go, and it was getting late. But as we continued on past Nashville, we came to a little town called Crossville. I had heard of this place called the Ministers Treehouse and had directions to it. It was right off the highway, so even though the sun was beginning to go down, we decided to make a quick detour to see it.

I'm glad we did. It was definitely worth seeing.

But seriously, one of the most creepiest places I have ever been too...and it probably didn't help that we were there at sunset.









You could tell it had once been lived in. There were tell-tale signs. There was even a big room serving as a chapel, with pews, choir boxes, a pulpit and bible. But that just helped add to the creepiness of it all. Around every corner I kept expecting to see someone in a hockey mask jump out in front of us with a chainsaw.

But nothing like that happened. Katy & I made it safely out of there and continued on our way to Big Stone Gap, VA. It had been a very eventful day, but we were ready to hit the sack.

Tomorrow, I'll have more to tell, as we continued our trek across the USA. Until then...

~TT

P.S. Tennessee was SO beautiful! My favorite state, by far. Seriously, I want to move there...especially around the Nashville area. Loved it!