vacation 2013 Archives - Black Cat Lies

Graceland is way more than just a house. After you tour the actual home there are several building on the property filled with memorabilia and then even more exhibits with cars, jumpsuits (oh the jumpsuits!), planes and more. It’s truly an experience. Anyway here’s a peek of all the stuff outside of the main house.

The Office: I believe Elvis’ dad was his manager and this building was sort of Elvis Inc. for most of his life. You can see the old office set up and a lot of cool fan art.

Check out the awesome lamp that you can’t really see but was awesome.

Memorabilia Rooms:

This was the coolest display, I was salivating over all the cool Elvis memorabilia. How awesome would it be to come across some of that stuff! I wants it, I wants it all!

So. many. records.

Priscilla’s wedding dress

details of the dress

Elvis’ tux. Yes that is a paisley printed tux, how awesome is that!?!?

blurry details

Den(ish) Room:

Beginning of the Jumpsuits:

Presley Family Graves: Elvis, his father, grandmother, and mother are all buried here. There is also a small plaque in remembrance of his twin brother who died soon after birth, he’s not actually buried there though. I had no idea Elvis was a twin. All the flower arrangements are sent in by fans and put around the graves.

The Cars:

Though cool this thing was HUGE! I don’t understand how people parked in the 50’s and 60’s.

More Jumpsuits!!!

The Planes! Elvis had two private planes and both are amazing. Although I have to admit the smaller one with the colorful interior is my fave. On the headset it said one year for Christmas he and his family got on the plane and went somewhere (Colorado I think) so Lisa Marie could have fun in the snow and then flew back, sounds liked the perfect way to enjoy snow to me.

The Lisa Marie:

Yes all the furniture is covered in plastic like your grandma’s house. It’s to protect the furniture and actually kind of adds an extra kitschy element to the whole experience.

The Little Plane (I forgot it’s name): Aka the coolest plane ever!

After visiting Graceland I had a serious desire to buy a jumpsuit, I wonder why… That Man seriously loved a jumpsuit and they are pretty awesome. Anyway Graceland was sooo much fun. I’m not a huge Elvis fan but it was amazingly cool to see it, it’s the King in all his glory and it’s totally worth a trip. If you’re ever in or near Memphis you should put it on your list of must see places.

So a couple weeks ago (Valentines Day week to be exact) I packed up and went to Florida for the week. My mom got a few weeks off and wanted to go somewhere and when I was able to get a week off so we decided we should go somewhere warm, so we went to Florida. We kind of went all over Florida, we landed in Fort Lauderdale and drove to our hotel in Islamadora, Fl (one of the Florida Keys), then we spent the next day in Key West and drove (8hrs) to Orlando. In Orlando we did the usual, Disney World and Universal Studios for 3 days (which really isn’t a lot of time, people usually spend a week doing just that) and then we went to Tampa where we went on a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings at Florida Southern University and a tour of (mostly) Mid Century modern houses in Sarasota, Fl. All in all it was an incredibly busy but fun vay-cay. Whenever I go back I’ll probably do less and spend more time on the beach, but it was a really nice trip and a nice break from winter.
I did take pictures, but there are so many I think i’ll break them up into three posts. I also have a couple outfit posts from the trip so i’ll include those when appropriate. I don’t have as many outfit posts, as a lot of the Orlando time my outfits were more functional than fashion-y, it also was a tad cold (like 50/60 degrees but with rain) some of the days so a lot of the pictures of me during those days are of me in a hoodie, which isn’t real exciting.
I figured I’d get the outfit post out of the way first. I wore this the first full day we spent in Florida. I like it but i’m not in love with it, not really sure why.

The patio of our hotel room.

Top (actually a dress): Thirfted Skirt: Asos Belt: Target Shoes: DV by Dolce Vita

Now onto the (many) Florida Keys Photos:

Palm trees

view from our room’s patio

the beach around our hotel

I guess Islamadora is known for it’s good fishing so our hotel had lots of docks for boats and fishing,

cool bird

These little cabins were also part of our hotel. Aren’t they cute?

Key West.

When we finally got to Key West we had to find parking, it was really packed when we got there, and we went immediately to Ernest Hemingway’s house, one of our must see sites on the trip.

The Hemingway House

The house had some really cool light fixtures:

Hemingway was a cat person and was really fond of these extra-toed cats. Now the decendents of these cats occupy the house and grounds, it’s really cute.

just a cat on Hemingways bed, nbd.

the house had some amazing bathrooms

You know just hanging out on the display thing

I’m obsessed with this bathroom, isn’t it amazing? I want it!

Look at that funky tile. momma like.

view down from the veranda

I told you i liked that bathroom

The ground were really beautiful too, though the ground smelled a bit like cat pee…

Hemingway’s carridge house/ study. I love the way this room is decorated.

The cats really do run this house

Urinal turned cat watering hole. Hemingway took it from his favorite bar Sloppy Joe’s (see below) when they moved to a new location. His then wife added the water fixture and tile to pretty it up.