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Winter Trip - January-March 2019
Tupelo, MS
We went to Tupelo, MS to visit Elvis Presley's birthplace and see what else there was to do. The first thing we need to say about Tupelo is we met the friendliest people we have ever met anywhere. Everyone we met in Tupelo was smiling and ready to talk with us for as long as we wanted.
Tupelo Itinerary
Captain Marvel
Elvis Presley Sites
Oren Dunn City Museum
Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo
Captain Marvel
We had been doing things everyday for awhile and decided to take it easy and go to the latest Marvel movie. We may have not even mentioned doing this, but the theater where we saw the movie was a totally new experience for each of us. The tickets are for reserved seats, we were able to choose the seats we wanted from a chart. The seats are reclining chairs, not just the back going down, but also the leg rest coming up. There is enough room between rows that even with the chairs fully reclined there was plenty of room for people to walk by. The reclining and raising is powered. When action scenes occurred we could feel the vibrations of roaring engines and explosions coming through the seats. The movie was OK, the story was decent and the acting fair, but in our opinion it was the funniest Marvel movie.
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Elvis Presley Sites
We decided that Sunday was a good day to go to some of the Elvis Presley sites in town. Of course almost everywhere in Tupelo is an Elvis site, as there is at least a picture or life size cutout of Elvis in just about every public building in Tupelo. Everyone we met in Tupelo was smiling and ready to talk with you for as long as you wanted.
We started the day by attending the service at a local church. As we walked up to the entrance there were three men standing on the landing at the top of the stairs. One of the men came over to Ernie, who was wearing the hat
he usually wears, and asked Ernie if he knew one of the other men that was there. After the man asked Ernie three times and Ernie saying no each time, Ernie shook hands with the man he was suppose to know. After the service was over the man who kept asking Ernie if he knew the other man, told him, what Ernie had expected, that the other man works for the FBI. He said he had not noticed the small print on the hat, Ernie thought, but did not say, wasn't the large word under FBI an indication that this was not a Federal Bureau of Investigation hat? Ernie told him he should probably not spread around that the other man works for the FBI.
We went to Fair Park where the "Elvis Home Coming
" statue is. This is at the site of Elvis' 1956 Home Coming tour. It is a larger than life statue of Elvis singing bending over reaching out to allow fans to touch his hand. It is in a nice park where there are other tributes. The "Alzheimer's Tree
" a 7-foot-tall welded metal tree covered in dog tags to inspire people to help in the fight to alleviate alzheimer's disease. Statue of "Piomingo
", an influential Chickasaw chief.
We walked across Main St to have lunch at the Fairpark Grill. The food and service were excellent, we tell more about the grill on the page about restaurants we found especially good, the link to the page is on the trip itinerary page.
We visited Elvis Presley's Birthplace. There is a museum on the property as well as the house
where Elvis' was born and the Assembly of God Church
that Elvis attend until he was 13. The museum is small in the building that also contains the ticket booth and gift shop. They say the house is the actual house where he lived and is in the same location, we heard this may not be totally accurate (see Oren Dunn City Museum). There was a lady in the house that knew Elvis growing up, she was very interesting to talk with. The church was moved about three blocks to the grounds of the birthplace park. In the church we watched a video with highlights of what a service at the church would have been like at the time Elvis attended it. There is a chapel on the property where we sat and listened to some Elvis Gospel music. At the top of the hill on which Elvis is said to go up on with his guitar, is a dual statue, titled "Becoming
" made up of a life-size statue of Elvis at 13 and a larger-than-life statue of Elvis toward the end of his life. The statue represents the boy's dream becoming a larger-than-life reality. There is also an "Elvis at 13
" statue in the walk way between the house and the church.
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Oren Dunn City Museum
The Oren Dunn City Museum is a small museum with displays about the history of Tupelo and the area. At the back of the museum is a Veteran's Museum, which is a collection of military memorabilia. The Veteran's Museum can be entered from the Oren Dunn City Museum, but is not part of it. There is a minimal fee for the Oren Dunn City Museum, the Veteran's Museum is free, there is a donations box in the Veteran's Museum.
There are interesting displays in both museums, the most interesting to Ernie is a picture of the "Desert Training Center
" in Death Valley, where equipment was tested for fighting Rommel's desert troops during WWII. This was interesting to Ernie, because his Dad was amongst the original 100 troops sent there to test equipment. The picture is obviously from after his Dad was there since the setup is much larger than would have been necessary for 100 troops.
The best part of the visit was talking with the people working in the museums. Two men were in the Oren Dunn City Museum. One of these men is 8 years younger than Elvis. He told us that when he was in junior high school he was in the same homeroom with the same teacher as Elvis. The teacher told him that the seat he used was the same one Elvis had sat in when he was a student. When Elvis came to town for the "Home Coming" tour, he had the opportunity to talk with Elvis. When he mentioned that they had sat in the same seat, Elvis asked if it was the one by the radiator. He said yes and Elvis told him he used to bring a crystal radio to school and would use the radiator as an antenna. He told Elvis he had done the same. Both men told us, that though the story is that Elvis' father and uncle built the house where he was born, it was a father/son contracting company that built it and the company was still around being run by later generations of the same family. The man who is 8 years younger than Elvis is doubtful that the house in the birth place is actually the correct house. There were four houses in a row at the location, Elvis was born in the second house from the left. According to this man, the house that remains is in the location of the third house from the left. There are a lot of displays about the tornado that destroyed a large part of Tupelo April 5, 1936. A local song writer/singer, Cleelon Hobson, wrote "Tupelo Destruction
" about the tornado.
The man in the Veteran's Museum is 92 and served in the military during WWII. He is not the person who owns the items in the museum collection. He told us many stories related to items in the museum. The most interesting was how he narrowly missed being amongst those killed in the war. He was in the Navy, he was in a group that was to be assigned to a ship that later was sent into battle. The ship was sunk and all aboard were killed. He was not on the ship because before they were assigned to the ship he joined a military band. He was a trombone player and the band he joined needed one. Shortly after he joined the band is when the remainder of his group were assigned to the ship. He agreed with us that God had a hand in his not being with those killed.
There were also some outside displays. There were farm, fire department, homes, and other displays. The original "Dudies Diner" is one of the displays. This is the home of the "Famous Dudie Burger", which the men in the museum described. We did not think it sound like something we would like. The two men confirmed the burgers are not very good.
On the way back to the motel, we were going to go to the Fairpark Grill again. About ½ mile before we reached the grill we were stopped at a traffic light. After the light had cycled through for the third time with no movement Ernie leaned over to look around the cars in front of him. There was a train stopped across the road. We were stopped in front of a deli, but we were a couple of cars back from the driveway. Luckily, a car or two must have turned onto the cross street and we were eventually able to get into the parking lot. When we finished eating the train had moved out of the way and we were able to get out of the parking lot and drive back to the motel with no more issues.
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Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo
Tupelo Buffalo Park & Zoo is a small zoo, but they have a good number of different animals. It started when the owner of the property brought some buffalo (American bison) to the property. People would stop their cars along the road and look at the bison. He decided to charge a small fee to let the people come in and view the buffalo up close. He then started to take in abandoned animals and the zoo was formed.
The admission fee is really reasonable: $11 and $9 for old people like us. In addition, because it was kind of cold the monkeys were not out, so they took a dollar off the admission price. They let the monkeys out later in the day, so we were able to see them.
After viewing the animals in enclosed areas we decided to take the Buffalo Tour. At $3 per person it was not a difficult decision to make. This was an open tram car pulled by a large farm tractor. We followed a dirt road through the pastures to get a closer look at the larger animals. This included a stop at a location where the passengers got off and could feed the cattle and buffalo. There was no extra charge for the feed.
Some of the animals we saw on the tour were: Buffalo, Cattle (several different breeds), Donkeys, Horses, Zebras, Antelope (a few different types), Camels, Llamas, Ostriches, and Emus. Some of the animals we saw in the enclosed areas were: Bengal Tigers (a yellow one & a white one), Giraffes, Swans, White Peacocks, Geese, Ducks, Parrots, Cockatoos, Exotic Pigeons, Ponies, Horses, Donkeys, Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Wild Boars, Lemurs and several other animals. Of course we went to see the monkeys when they were let out.
Amongst the monkeys was "World Famous Oliver
". Ernie asked why he was so famous. He had gotten out and it took a couple of weeks to get him back. The story was on the national news, so he became world famous.
On the way back to the motel we stopped at Fairpark Grill, there were no trains in the way this time, and had another really good meal.
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jun 30 2019