Walking in Memphis

Friday, May 4th

We left Hermitage and headed west through TN and landed in West Memphis, AR, just over the Tennessee border at Tom Sawyer RV Park along the banks of the Mississippi River. Our site is on the water and we have views of all the barge river traffic coming and going. Frequently we’ll see 7 barges long by 5 barges wide so a total of 35 barges being towed by a towboat with one or two engines. Occasionally for heavy loads it’ll be two towboats side-by-side towing the barges. Amazing. We even saw the American Queen Paddleboat. Big thanks to Meigs & Paul for suggesting this campground. It truly is one of a kind! On top of that the manager has a 8-week old Siberian Husky! Cute as a button!

If we’d been here about six weeks earlier, we wouldn’t have our site as this area was flooded. Not an unusual occurrence.

The Beale Street Music Festival (annual event in May) was going on this weekend. Everyone was asking “are you here for the music festival?” Nope, didn’t even know about it. Apparently “Memphis in May” is a thing. There are events going on all month. Who knew?!

Stacie & Johnny got here a few days ago so they joined us for happy hour at our site and we visited for several hours until we called it a night.

Saturday, May 5th

Chore day. We had two weeks of laundry to take care of and some bills to pay. We met up with 11-year old Cody in the laundry room! Great kid! Super outgoing! He is full timing with his mom, dad, and older brother (14 years old). Dad works for Comcast installing residential cable to the pole. We can only assume they travel to where the work is. He told us all the states he’s visited and his favorites. Gary met another full timing family… Mom, Dad, teenage daughter and lil brother. They have been full timing for three years and still own a home in FL which they have no intentions of going back to! They have a website www.ourrearview.com and all 4 of them blog. Kinda cool. Although I think Mom does the majority of it.

Stacie & Johnny joined us for dinner on Saturday night and we visited until it got dark, and once again had a lot of fun with them. They head to Branson, MO and continue on their trip out west. After our week in Memphis, we’ll be starting to head north and east so our paths won’t cross again on this trip. But, we’re making plans to link up again next fall when we’re on another RV trip and they’ll be coming back from out west.

Sunday, May 6th

We’ve been doing some research on an RV navigation system over the last few days and decided to order one through Amazon. We ordered a few additional items… one being a gas fire pit so that we can still have campfires even when the campground doesn’t have fire pits (like this one) or when conditions are dry and regular wood fires aren’t allowed. Since we’re here for a week, it was a good time to place an Amazon order because we’ll have time for it to arrive before we move on from here on Friday.

This afternoon we visited the Bass Pro Shop. It’s one of their signature stores, and is enormous with a hotel inside, restaurants, large aquarium, pond with fish, alligators (behind glass thank you very much and in their own body of water), boats on another body of water, “trees” and stuffed dead animals (not my favorite part). It’s an outdoorsmen’s paradise! They have more fishing poles than I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s an interesting pyramid building and under a huge atrium-type structure. Very cool.

Monday, May 7th

We did a pilgrimage to Graceland today. We couldn’t visit the Memphis area and not see Graceland. A beautiful home built in the 1930’s that Elvis purchased for $102,000 when he was all of 22 years old. Graceland was originally built by the Moores who named it after Mrs. Moore’s Aunt Grace Toof, the original landowner. Elvis liked the name and kept it. I can’t help but think of my Aunt Grace when I see Graceland. It’s a beautiful stately home with horse paddocks and lovely landscaping. Aunt Gay would have approved. The home is the second most visited home in the US after the White House. (I’m not sure what that says about us Americans culturally but a fact is a fact.)

The tour was well done with an iPad that you could listen to and move along at your own pace, which included stories about Elvis as well as information about the home. Furnishings were tasteful. Granted it’s 1970’s vintage but still very tastefully done… except for perhaps the jungle room. 🙂  You can’t help but feel moved that this is where Elvis called home. There’s also a meditation garden where his parents are buried and his grave was moved there as well after his death for fear of vandalism in the local cemetery. Plus they have a trophy room with artifacts. It’s amazing what they were able to hang on to… old home videos, original receipts from the purchase of the home, the invoice for all the stained glass, which is quite beautiful and cost $9,000 (a bargain!), the wedding outfits worn by Elvis and Priscilla, etc. He had two planes… a larger one called the Lisa Marie after his daughter and a smaller plane. They sported comfortable accommodations for the time including 24K gold sinks. We felt the tour of Graceland was well worth the price of admission!

In the late afternoon we were lounging outside and a couple, Deedee & Rick, came by on their bikes. They are from Washington state but will be traveling up to Maine in a few weeks and wanted some tips. They joined us for a drink and we shared some Maine tips with them. From here our paths will cross again at the KOA in Dayton OH. In Dayton is the Air Force Museum, which Meigs & Paul had told us about. It’s supposed to be incredible.

As it turns out the Air Force Museum is bringing in a new exhibit, the Memphis Belle, and Rick’s Dad was on the Memphis Belle. They are flying the families out by special invitation for a preview of the exhibit before it is open to the public. His dad was actually an advisor on the Memphis Belle film starring Harry Connick, Jr. and John Lithgow. Pretty cool! He was the last surviving member of the squad who was still alive at the time.

It’s amazing the folks you come across. The day before we left Hermitage, I bumped into a couple from MA. They were headed back home for the summer and would be in NH in June to see their son perform with Dan & Shay, who are kind of a big deal in the country music world. Their son is the drummer for the duo… but I digress.

Tuesday, May 8th

We headed into downtown Memphis and specifically Beale Street. Very reminiscent of Broadway in Nashville except instead of honky tonk bars, it’s blues and jazz. Old historic buildings, one after the other, with nightclub after nightclub of blues and r&b. Very unique! Beale Street is almost 2 miles long but the entertainment district covers three blocks. The street is closed off (except to allow the beer trucks in) so you can walk in the street. We were there during the day so it was pretty tame. Lots of character!

We came across a photo gallery and walked in. Turns out it’s the Ernest Withers Museum and Gallery. He was the photographer for Martin Luther King during the last 12 years of his life, plus Mr. Withers was a world renowned photojournalist and took an estimated 1.8 million pictures depicting life in America for blacks. The walls are covered with B&W photos of the civil rights movement and also amazing images of the famous black musicians of the time who performed in Memphis. We felt fortunate to discover this little treasure and not just walk past. There was a young woman who was manning the front desk. Turns out she’s from MA originally but went to college in Virginia and is doing her dissertation on Beale Street. I asked her what her PHD was in and she rattled off what it was but it went right over my head. She volunteers at the Withers Museum, plays guitar 5 days a week on Beale Street and has to write her dissertation. She doesn’t plan to go back to Virginia. Apparently she can write the paper anywhere and she wants to stay in Memphis.

Then we headed to Central BBQ for some true Memphis BBQ. It’s a local bbq chain and ranked very high. Twas very good! I managed to put away a half rack of ribs while Gary had a pulled pork sandwich, which he said was excellent.

After lunch we headed to the historic Lorraine Motel, which was the site of where Dr. King was assassinated. They’ve managed to save the hotel and it now is part of the National Civil Rights Museum. Once again, you can’t help but feel moved to be at this iconic place. You can see the balcony outside his room that he stood on. It looks like such a small hotel for such a monumental moment in history.

After that, we headed back to the campground to relax outside and watch river traffic. (Plus Kya’s tummy wasn’t perfect in the morning, so we figured we should check on her. She did not leave us any presents, and we were very grateful.)

Gary headed to a nearby casino for an hour or two in the evening, wearing my lucky (pink banded) iwatch. He came back $300 ahead! Go pink-banked iwatch!

Wednesday, May 9th

This morning we stayed put and did some fine tuning on our fall RV trip schedule. Then in the afternoon we headed into Memphis to visit Sun Studios. We’re familiar with Sun Studios because of seeing Million Dollar Quartet (thanks to John S. and Ram Printing having one of their many vendor appreciation nights at the Ogunquit Playhouse and the Palace Theatre!). Once again the history floors you. This is the same studio where Elvis was discovered and first recorded and where Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash played together completely spontaneously on a night in December in 1956. Great tour given by a local. They still record at the old Sun Studios. Some very famous names have recorded there including Springsteen, Bono, and so many others.

After that we headed down to Beale Street for an early dinner and to listen to some music. Our doctorate student from the Withers Museum had given us some tips on where to go. First we sat outside in a courtyard and had a drink at an Irish Pub. Yes, they do have them on Beale Street. This one is unique because it’s behind the facade of one of the historic buildings. They want to keep the front of the building so that is there and behind it is this courtyard. And did I mention that goats were next door to us. I’m not sure what that was all about, but they had a cute spot!

Afterwards we headed over to BB King’s Blues Cafe to have dinner (chicken fried steak for Gary and shrimp, grits and okra for me) and listen to Memphis Jones play a mix of rock & roll and blues with his band. He’s a Memphis native and entertained us with some of the history of the blues. Did you know that back in the 1940’s and early 50’s the drummer never appeared on stage with the band. It was considered bad form. It was on Beale Street that the first drummer appeared on stage with a band and the blues became the rhythm and blues. People could finally dance to the music, which meant they got thirsty and drank more and the bars made more money and the bar owner wanted the band to come back and play again. Voila! A genre is born!

After we stepped back out onto Beale Street, it had been overtaken by motorcycles. Apparently Wednesday night is motorcycle night. There were hundreds of them! Amazing! All lining Beale Street! Once again the street is closed, except for the bikes driving in and parking.

Then we headed home to sit outside, enjoy the cool breezes and watch the sun go down.

Thursday, May 10th

Today was chore day… another round of laundry and the RV navigation system arrived so we were setting that up and getting some groceries in and finishing up the blog post for Memphis!

Kya had a tough night last night. Got us up four times. Something was going through her tummy. I’m hoping it’s not my missing blue sock, which I still can’t find….

Tomorrow we move on to Bowling Green, Kentucky.