Rainy Day In Memphis

We woke up to thunder and lightning and rain hitting the windows. When we got down to breakfast, the news was showing extensive flooding in the area. That made us really glad that we booked the extra day here and didn't have to drive in the mess. From what we saw of the local traffic, we wouldn't have gotten far anyway. 

Our first activity today was to visit the National Civil Rights Museum. It was a fair walk to get there so we chose to take the bus after a couple of blocks. They have a $1 per ride bus that runs up and down the main street and passes the museum.

The Civil Rights Museum is a must see if you are ever in this part of the world. We both left pretty much shaking our heads in disbelief after seeing, reading and listening to the stories and facts about slavery, racism and the struggle for rights. No matter how much you think you know, you don't really know much. You start out at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968. It's quite chilling to stand where the crowd was, where the sniper was and where MLK was when it all happened. 

This is the approximate view from where the shot was fired. The building is across from the museum and is preserved along with a great deal of evidence from the case. 

The museum, which is in a new building attached to the hotel, starts off with a movie and extensive displays about slavery and how it proliferated because of its importance to the economy of the country. Again, you think you know a fair bit from school and reading and other media, but you don't. Some of the facts are incredible.

And then you move into the Civil War years and the Emancipation Proclamation. Many people think that was the end of slavery, but it wasn't. The displays continue on through the decades where racism persisted and blacks continued to be mistreated and attacked on many different fronts. There is a lot of archival tv footage showing what happened during the civil rights protests during the late 50s and 60s. I was aware of a lot of the major events but there was so much that went on that was behind the scenes that was shocking.

There are quite a few displays showing recreations of famous or infamous civil rights flashpoints. This is Rosa Parks sitting on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

I think you get the idea that this was a very powerful visit for both of us. We would easily go back and do it again.

When we left with just enough time to make our river cruise, the pouring rain had come back. Some of the ceilings in the museum were actually leaking and the streets looked like this:

After a quick lunch, we made it to our paddlewheeler for a cruise on the Mississippi River. We had a great guide who told us a lot of history of the river and Memphis. It wasn't raining but the sky was grey and threatening, not making for great photos. Mostly, we listened to the stories as the  scenery passed by.

This is interesting because it shows some of the levees that protect the city from floods.

These are the bridges that connect Tennessee to Arkansas. We might be taking one of them tomorrow as cutting through Arkansas seems to be the quickest route back to Kentucky. 

We passed a number of large barges carrying coal, grain and unknown things. This one was larger than most because it was going downstream.

You'd think we'd be done by now but no! We had the shuttle guy drop us at the Memphis Rock 'N Soul Museum. It was a self guided place where you learned about the history of rock and roll, soul and the blues from this part of the states. They touched on the segregation and race issues as they related to the music but it wasn't as powerful as the Civil Rights presentations. There was more on how music served to bring the races together in many ways. 

A short while later we were walking on Beale Street and decided to have a beer and listen to some blues at BB King's place. There was a great band playing and we stayed for a set before heading off to find some non bar food.

Last, but not least on this long day, we went back to the Kooky Canuk restaurant because we had told the owner yesterday that we'd be back for lunch. Due to spending extra time at the Civil Rights Museum, we didn't do that so we felt we should go for dinner. He was very glad to see us and gave us some extra sides to go with our blackend and fried catfish. It was all really good but way too much. We have a doggy bag for the ride tomorrow. You have to love the "Canadian" theme in the place. I know we all have lots of stuffed animals in our homes! As with everyone we've met here, the people were very friendly and we had a great time along with the excellent meal!

 

We enjoyed watching the sun go down over the Mississippi from our roof top patio. I would highly recommend this hotel if you're in Memphis!

We're off to Padukah, Kentucky tomorrow. I'm told that this is the Quilt Capital of the World. And there are at least four quilt stores! I'll be dropping Marilyn off and going on a photo expedition or something. I need to look up what else is in or around Padukah!

Best BBQ & Arriving In Memphis

Our goal today was to leave Nashville early and get to Memphis early to start looking around. We did leave early but realized about an hour into the drive that we would be sort of passing by a small town called Brownsville TN. This is the home of a bbq shack called Helen's that was featured on BBQ Crawl. I think places like Helen's are the reason why we travel. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere and we happened to be passing by after travelling over 2000 km from home. It was an amazing place and we got to meet Helen, one of the few female pit masters, and have a chat with her.

This is Helen's place. It's about a mile from Brownsville's centre but it's worth the drive whether you're coming from Mississauga or Memphis. Helen makes pulled pork and smoked bologna. I'm told the bologna is great but we didn't try it this time. 

Here's Helen's. If you  are ever near Memphis or even just in Tennessee, you really need to take the time to drive out and visit. 

The back of the building is the smoker. There are fires where oak and hickory are turned into coals that slowly cook the meat to perfection. I don't think I could work in that much smoke and heat but Helen and her crew do it every day!

This is a view into the kitchen. You can see that smoke is everywhere. Our car had a pleasant smoke aroma all the way to Memphis!

And here is the final product. Helen does the best pulled pork we've had in our travels. It was very moist and flavourful. There are mild and hot sauces that you can use, but you don't need to add anything to Helen's pork. 

Here I am with Helen. For me, it was like meeting a rock star! 

 

While we were in the area, we noticed that the town of Nutbush was only about 8 miles away. That happens to be the home town of Tina Turner and the highway to the town is actually named after her. She has a song called Nutbush City Limits. Of course we decided to drive over and see what kind of sign or monument was there. Well, there wasn't much there. The town was a few run down buildings and the commemorative sign was pretty sad. I guess we know why Tina left!

Memphis was a short hour drive from Helen's so we arrived in the early afternoon and checked in. Our reservation was for one night but when we saw the hotel and the room, we quickly decided to go for two nights. This will allow us to spend more time exploring and we've already booked a river boat tour for tomorrow. The room is almost like an apartment with a kitchenette and a type of loft bedroom. There's also a sitting area and a small dining table. As Marilyn said, We could live here!

Our first walk was down to the banks of the Mississippi where there is a park that runs to Beale St.

 

Beale Street itself was not that big, but we've come to expect that. It was also not too busy but everyone was saying that it is much busier at night. We still managed to visit BB King's Blues Club and a few of the stores that were open. One place has some very interesting art work and toilet seats!

After wandering around a bit, we found an odd restaurant called Kookie Canuck. It's a Canadian themed restaurant owned by a guy from Montreal and Toronto. It has the basic beers and poutine along with other themed foods. It's famous for its giant burgers that run 4 or 6 pounds. If you eat them, you don't pay. Everything is large, including the beers. Might go back for lunch as the owner came out and talked to us for a while and gave us some advice about the city.

Before heading back to our hotel to get ready for dinner, we ended up at the famous Peabody Hotel to watch some ducks. Yes, ducks. It's a long story, but there are some ducks in a fountain in the hotel and they are paraded in every morning at 11:00 and back out at 5:00. There is a Duck Master and the ducks have an apartment on the roof of the hotel. Somewhat bizarre but people flock to see them. I hesitate to admit this, but we waited 45 minutes for the procession to start! The ducks even have a red carpet that leads them to the elevator!

Dinner tonight was at a Memphis institution called Charles Vergos' Rendezvous. It's a bbq place that has been on numerous tv shows. I believe the downstairs part we were in holds over 250 people. They serve excellent brisket and dry seasoned ribs that are cooked over charcoal, which is different than the other bbq places. 

Marilyn says that we didn't really walk far enough to balance all the food we ate today. We did just under 8 km but it was very hot out and we did spend quite a bit of time driving! 

Grand Ole Opry Day!

I can't believe I'm going to the Grand Ole Opry! We went to the theatre when it opened this morning and a small block of tickets that had been reserved for the families of performers was released. Marilyn got some front of section, aisle seats that weren't available last night. We'll do a bit of a review here later tonight. 

 

We had a bit of a food dilemma today after getting the Opry tickets. I had planned on going to two places that were highly recommended. Hattie B's Hot Chicken for lunch and Peg Leg Porker BBQ for dinner. The Opry tickets meant that dinner was out. What to do? My new plan was Hattie B's for early lunch around 11:30 or so and Peg Leg Porker for late lunch at around 2:30. What else could I do?

Hot Chicken is a Nashville thing where they make fried chicken that has hot sauce in the coating and then you add a cayenne pepper and oil sauce at the end. It can range from mild to volcanic.

This is what Hattie's looked like. The first is Marilyn's southern chicken with no heat. Next comes mine which had quite a bit of heat. You can also see some mac and cheese made with pimento cheese. It's now on the must make at home list. We didn't get major amounts of chicken because we needed to have room for late lunch!

After Hattie's we drove back into downtown Nashville to take a tour of Ryman Auditorium which was the original location of the Grand Ole Opry before it moved to the suburbs. But, when we got there, the auditorium was closed due to some kind of country music award show. This was the set up for the red carpet photos.

We'd already paid for parking so we wandered back to the strip and found a bar with live music and had a beer. It's very easy to just sit and listen to music with a beer. It's amazing how much music there is in this city. As you walk down the street you hear new live music coming from pretty well every bar or restaurant that you pass. And on the streets, there are metal boxes that house radios that play music from a dedicated radio station. Music City indeed!

After our beer, we still had some time left so checked out the public library that was in a beautiful old building. We found ourselves in the Civil Rights section and it was quite a solemn experience. We weren't aware of the segregation issues that had occured in Nashville. In 1957, laws passed to desegregate schools and there was violence and protests. It took four years for the schools to become desegregated. The photos of sit ins and arrests and attacks were shocking. These are reminders of some of the things that were said by people close to the situation at the time.

It turned out that the location of our late lunch was quite close to our hotel in a part of the city called The Gulch. Not overly inviting but I guess it fits with the western theme that we kept seeing. Peg Leg Porker is another restaurant that we saw on BBQ Crawl. The restaurant has won quite a few awards for their dry ribs so we tried those. And Marilyn wanted to try what they called Kansas City Sushi as we had seen it on the tv show. It consisted of smoked sausage, saltine crackers and cheese slices. Probably not something I'll make at home, but it was good. 

The dry ribs were quite good and we ended up buying a bottle of the rub to try at home. 

Ok, on to the Grand Ole Opry show. As many of you know, I'm not a major or even a minor, country music fan. However, the whole Opry experience was very enjoyable. I'm not just saying that because Marilyn will be reading this either! We saw 8 fifteen minute acts and they were all easy to listen to. A couple of the traditional acts reminded me of music my dad used to play when he wanted to wake me up but it was all good. The new, rocky type of country would be my favourite and there were a couple of those type of acts. When you see country music in that setting, it's easier to see why so many people like it.