Memphis

Memphis is about a 5 hour drive away heading down through the Ozarks National Forest. It was actually a very interesting and beautiful drive - for the first few hours anyway, after that we got a bit fed up. It seems that everyone here thinks of a 5 hour drive as absolutely nothing whereas to us it seemed a bit epic. Having recently arrived here it was our first real introduction to what is often referred to as the 'real America'. Lots of tiny little scatterings of run down trailers and static mobile homes (not sure I can call them towns) with piles of junk/scrap in their yards and no apparent source of employment nearby. Nearly every home or sometimes community had a 'yard sale/flea market' set up on their drive where it looked as is they were probably offering their entire wordly possessions to the highest bidder. And all of this set amongst dense woodland, rich fields (with some very nice looking farm houses), hiking trails and rivers.

After driving out of the Ozarks we drove through miles and miles of flat nothingness before arriving into Memphis on the Friday afternoon. It was kind of strange, we could see Memphis for miles before we arrived, it was a smallish collection of highrise buildings in the middle of nowhere with seemingly very limited suburbs. After checking into the hotel we decided to head straight out and were immediately struck by the fact that we seemed to be pretty much the only people there, it was kind of creepy, like somekind of ghost town or perhaps a wild west town about to have a shoot out!

It is too long ago to remember the exact order we did things in so I am just going to list them.

We went to the Peabody Hotel to watch the famous duck parade. At 11am the ducks are escorted from their duck house on the roof of the hotel by the duck master, he leads them into the lift and then from the lift, along a specially laid red carpet to the hotel water fountain in the centre of the lobby where they swim around until 4pm when the duck parade is reversed. It was infact pretty busy in the hotel and at 4pm we jostled for space and watched the ducks jump out of the fountain and waddle across to the lift. Mini Monkey enjoyed it but would have liked the show to go on a bit longer, we enjoyed it too in a 'bit of a novelty' kind of way.

We then headed to Beale Street, famous for its 'blues' type bars and cafes. The weather was still warm enough for us to sit outside and we stayed for several hours listening to live bands, drinking Blue Moon beer out of 'Big Ass Beer' cups (which must be approx equivalent of 1.5 pints) and eating deep fryed cat fish for me and smoked ribs for Daddy Monkey and surprisingly Mini Monkey enjoyed the ribs too.

Next morning we got up early and headed to Graceland (and then realised why the streets were so empty, all the people for miles around must have been here only to pay tribute to Elvis). We queued to buy tickets, then queued to get onto the bus which took us across the road to Graceland. We did an audio tour of the mansion with its extreme decor and opulent fitments and then out to the grounds before being bussed back across the road to the Elvis car museum which was impressive, and a couple of small clothing and other items 'museums' which were not that good, we saw the main clothing collection in Graceland. Graceland it probably better described with photos which I will post, along with comments, later.

We then tried to go to Sun Valley Studios but they did not allow children under 5 on their tours and after driving around a bit more we decided we had seen enough anyway.

That night we went back to Beale Street which was absolutely heaving. There were Police checkpoints at either end of the road checking people in and out, street acrobats, stalls etc, etc. We stayed there for a bit and then heard from other people that there was a free jazz festival a few streets over, we headed across and listened for a while but to be honest it was just one band at a time on a stage, they were good but there were good live bands in every bar on Beale Street. We then wandered up and down the large collection of stalls selling stuff and ate some very nice Mexican food at one of the stalls before heading back to Beale Street.

The next day we went to the Zoo. We love the Zoo and it is always a good day out for us because mini monkey enjoys it so much. This was a well laid out Zoo with lots of animals of every kind, large enclosures and plenty to see and do. Our favourite thing was the grizzly bears, at feeding time the keeper stood above a pool of water with a glass side/wall cutting across it. He rang a bell and the 3 grizzlies came running across and all jumped straight into the water. He then threw large pieces of fruit such as peeled melon and apples into the water which the bears ate right in front of the glass with all of us stood right the other side of the glass watching them. Finally the keeper threw a large ice block with fruit frozen into it and the bears went and lay at the far side of the pool in the shallows and gnawed at their treats.

On the Monday we headed back home.