Feb 27 Wed Corvettte museum and factory tour

Stopped in Bowling Green to see the Chevrolet Corvette museum and do the factory tour. The factory tour takes 1 1/2 hour and no cameras or recordings are allowed. Assembly line moves at 2.9 miles per hour and is 7 miles long. It takes 3 days to build a car, one in the paint shop prior to assembly and 2 shifts on the assembly line. They operate one shift per day and produce 170 cars per day. The fastest corvette goes from 1-60 mph in 2.8 seconds

The corvette museum is a car buffs heaven. The museum is a run by a foundation and is not owned by GM. All vehicles are on loan from individual car owners. The museum raffles new corvettes by selling $100 tickets limit of 3000 tickets. As soon a s the 3000 are sold they then start a new raffle.

This is a 1953 model , only 300 were built. All were polo white with red interior.

Base price was $3498.00

They keep a 2016 model at the front door that you can sit in .

The seats in this one were amazing. So comfortable.

Feb 23 Nashville Opryland convention centre

We had some extra time to kill today as we have delayed our trip home due to the expected snowstorm back home. We visited the Opryland hotel and convention centre. This place is an amazing place to hang out. It has 9 acres if indoor gardens and waterfalls. 17 restaurants and something like 150 meeting areas plus 6 ballrooms. It is right next door to a large indoor mall and the Grand ole Opry.

They even have a 1/4 mile boat ride through these canals.

All of these flower gardens are real.

We saw about half a dozen people who were tending to these flower beds

Pretty relaxing place to have a coffee or lunch

They have all types of places to eat, even a high end steak house

or areas where you can book private functions

Feb 21 Memphis Graceland

Graceland , the home of Elvis Presley is open daily for tours.  It has been kept in the exact state and condition as it was when Elvis died. It is really just visiting a museum of a 1950's home decorated to Elvis's taste. The house as well as all of the other buildings have been loaded with memorabilia and quite interesting.  They receive about 600,000 visitors per year.

Graceland

The living room and music room at the back

Family photos in the living room

Dining room

Kitchen

Notice the yellow fridge

TV room with 3 TV's.  A place for him and his friends to hang out.

games room

the ceiling has the same carpet as the walls

This would be like a family room. The red wall is a water fall.

Once again there is a carpet on the ceiling

Other end of same room

Horse stable  in the distance .

He kept about a dozen horses so he and his friends could ride. 

This is one side of a long room with all of his gold records

The walls of this room are covered floor to ceiling with memorabilia

more views of the same room

another view of the same room 

This is a meditation garden. Elvis, his mom and dad, his grandmother as well as his

still born baby brother are all buried here.

One of the many cars, motorcycles, and other toys he had.

They are all kept in a separate museum. 

Rose and THE MAN

Feb 20 Sat Cotton Museum Lake Providence La

The Northeast part of Louisiana is very different from the rest of the state. It is so level and open that it reminds me of Saskatchewan. Not really as open but in many areas you can see for a maybe a couple of miles across the flat land. This area is along the Mississippi right into Arkansas . The area was originally all cotton but to day it is mostly corn, soybeans and to a lesser degree cotton. In order to understand the cotton industry we visited a cotton museum. Today they harvest cotton with huge tractors and special combines but the pictures below will give a idea of how it grows and gets processed.

There is no cotton in the fields at this time of year, this is basket of the cotton plant.
It looks just like cotton balls growing on a  bush  

This is what the cotton looks like after it is picked. The seed is still in side this cotton ball.

Removing this seed is called ginning

The earth is worked up , usually in the winter

Cotton is planted much like corn in rows about 30" apart

30 lbs to the acre and then thinned to about 10 lbs. With today's equipment

it would be planted in the correct amount right away.

Once the cotton plant is well started it is hoed to about 8" apart

It has to be weeded a few times until the plants are large enough

to shade out the weeds and prevent them from growing

The plants are then dusted to control the boll weevil in July

Originally the cotton was picked by hand but today they use combines

Ginning is the process of removing the seed.

Once the seed is removed the cotton is baled and ready for shipping.

This is the Ginning process

A refurbished Ginning Machine

One bale of cotton will make about 150 pairs of jeans

A boll weevil