Spork's Summer Vacation....Part 1

Hello Everyone! It's been a while since you've heard from Spork, but that's because they've been on VACATION! Woooo for summer vacation! For the first leg of the vacation Spock and Kirk had to part ways when Kirk headed to Tennessee.

That is where our story begins. At an obscene hour with bags packed we headed to the Salt Lake City International Airport (using 'international' makes it sound more exciting don't ya think?) to catch an early morning flight to Memphis, Tennessee, land of one of the all time great male singers to have ever graced the world..............................................................................

Justin Timberlake!!!!! Hahahahaha just teasin' ya, Mr JT really is from M-town, but I was really talking about The King...Mr Elvis Presley.

anyway....back to the flight to Memphis.....well actually it was a flight to Phoenix, then to Nashville, followed by a car ride to land of Elvis, but you get the picture. Spock refused to get his picture taken because he still had bedhead so we didn't get a departure picture....he's such a diva sometimes. Anyway, back to the story.....so after a very long day of traveling Kirk finally arrived in Memphis Tennessee and got settled in at my Brother and Sister-in-law's apartment where he met these two cuties.

Aleck and Conner

Ok, so maybe I'm biased, but really you can't deny they are pretty darn cute. It was my first time meeting Aleck so I was pretty darn excited, I think Kirk was just worried about getting his head torn off by Conner. That evening we were treated to a fantastic southern rainstorm. I thought I'd seen rain here in Utah, but the worst storm I've ever seen here seemed like a drizzle compared to this. I now understand what people mean when they say it's raining buckets....it's really like someone is dumping giant buckets of water. Within seconds you are completely soaked. It was pretty awesome. For the next few days we played with the babies and bummed around Memphis. Memphis is a pretty kitchy town as you'll see from some of the pictures I took. A lot of my pictures unfortunately didn't turn out, so I've stolen some from online to make up for that.

We of course had to get a picture of a BBQ joint since Memphis is a BBQ mecca and this one was just too good to pass up.

I don't even remember the name of this place, but who wouldn't want to eat at a place that has a pig airstream trailer parked out front????? It's just a shame they aren't open before noon! The pig trailer isn't where the fantasticness of this place ends though. They also have a fleet of pink limos parked out front. What they do with these limos I can't say but seriously...how cool is a fleet of pink limos??

Spork is a big fan of Al Green and his smooth sound so when we saw this sign Kirk just had to pose in front of it.

(If you can't read it, it's Reverend Al Green Road)

One evening my brother and I ventured out on the town to catch a few of the sights of Memphis at night. One of the coolest things to see in downtown Memphis is the GINORMOUS bridge across the Mississippi River. Unfortunately that was one of the pictures that didn't turn out, but my picture of course looked shockingly similar to this one.

Let me tell you that river is so unbelievably huge. You hear about how big it is, but until you see it, it's hard to comprehend. We drove across the bridge (my picture of that also didn't turn out) into Arkansas and got totally lost, but eventually we made it back to Tennessee. Before the night was over we had to go to Beal Street. We drove around downtown till we found a parking garage and then we set off to go walkin' in Memphis. I snapped this picture just about 10 feet off of Beal. (I crack myself up)

We ventured further down Beal to check out all the neon signs which were pretty cool, but the stench of beer, weed and sweaty bikers was more than I could stand so after snapping this less than impressive picture we took off.

A trip to Memphis of course wouldn't be complete without a pilgrimage to Graceland. Kirk stopped by for a few pictures in front of the home of 'The King'.

There were all sorts of people milling around, we even saw a bunch of ladies on a tour bus bawling their little eyeballs out as they left the grounds of Graceland. You'd think after 32 years they'd be over it, but apparently not. Anywho, here are the fantastic pictures we took outside of Graceland (I'm too cheap to actually go in....there is no way I'm paying like $50 to see a dead guys house).

(If you zoom in you can see the mansion in the background)

Thousands of people have written on the wall outside Graceland...Kirk forgot his sharpie so unfortunately he's not one of those thousands

The famous Gates of Graceland (well half of them at least)

A little history, just in case you've been living on another planet and don't know who Elvis is.....oh and some bald dude's head. Hi bald dude!

And of course I couldn't pass up taking a picture of...........

Heartbreak Hotel!

We couldn't leave Memphis without having some BBQ, so on our last night in Memphis we headed out to Fat Larry's BBQ (isn't that the best name ever?) for some southern deliciousness.

I had my first taste of deep fried pickles. I was skeptical because deep fried and pickles aren't usually words that are used in the same sentence, but they were A-MAZ-ING! I could have eaten like 10 baskets of them.

Yum yum yum....I'd go back to Memphis just to get more of these babies.

After dinner we rolled back to the apartment to finish up the last of the packing and then headed to bed so we could get up early and fly to Vegas with the babies. Kirk makes a surprisingly good babysitter when necessary.

(Babysitting in the airport in Atlanta Georgia. Of course Kirk took the easy kid who sleeps all the time and left us with the rowdy one!)

That pretty much sums up Kirk's time in Memphis. He had a blast and so did I. Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 to see how Spock spent his time alone and how the boys partied it up when they were reunited in Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada!