Memphis. The Last Day.

We started out our last full day in Memphis with the ducks. In downtown Memphis there is a famous old hotel called The Peabody. Since 1940 they have had this whole fancy ceremony where the ducks ride down an elevator at 11am, march to the fountain in the lobby and swim around there all day. Then at 5pm they go back up the elevator to their penthouse. Seriously. Go check out this link for more details.

There is a "Duckmaster" who tells about the tradition and the history of the hotel and rolls out a red carpet for the ducks to walk on from the elevator to the fountain. We got to the hotel about 40 minutes before the ceremony and it was already filling up. 

At 11 o'clock, the music started and then came the ducks. We were not able to see them get off the elevator because of all the people, but Hubby managed to capture some pretty good pictures of the grand fountain entrance.

The whole thing lasted about two minutes. Kind of silly, but kind of fun at the same time.

One other thing about The Peabody Hotel. My aunt and uncle honeymooned there in 1945. I had fun trying to imagine them as young newlyweds.


After lunch we switched gears and went a lot more serious. We had recommended to us to visit The National Civil Rights Museum. This museum is located at The Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr was staying when he was assassinated in 1968.

We spent close to three hours in this museum. I told Hubby that I felt like I shouldn't be there because I have not had to deal with the prejudices that the African-American people in this country have had to deal with. But I was thankful for the opportunity to learn so much.

I found the experience to be incredibly interesting and incredibly disturbing.

This is a replica of the bus that Rosa Parks got on and refused to give up her seat.

We watched a 30 minute movie about Martin Luther King, Jr mostly narrated by a friend of his who was on the balcony when Martin was shot. So moving.

If you ever get to Memphis make time to go through this museum. So worth it.

We sat in the car a while after this and talked about what we had seen.

The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping. We looked at pretty jewelry, bought a box of chocolates (that we shared very nicely), and found a Williams-Sonoma outlet store. (Yikes!) I texted my daughter-in-law that I might be in serious trouble. Grin. I loved wandering through there and found the prices much more reasonable. And let's just say that I'm glad we drove on this trip and didn't fly. It would have been impossible to get all that stuffed into a suitcase. :)

That evening we ate at a BBQ place that the driver of the carriage the night before had recommended. It was a very popular place with swarms of people. Hubby dropped me at the restaurant and parked the car at our hotel and walked the four blocks back. We enjoyed some scrumptious ribs, complete with coleslaw with a mustard based sauce. That was a little odd. I had never tasted that before. As we were leaving the restaurant we realized it was pouring outside.  What did we do? We walked through the rain! The downside (besides getting soaked) was that when the rain came, the temperature had dropped dramatically. My teeth were chattering less than a block from the restaurant.

We thought we should document our drowned-rat look. 
This is our attempt at the self-portrait. Hubby was holding the camera on these two.

 

I held the camera for this one. I can't seem to hold the camera and think about having a pleasant look on my face at the same time.

You're welcome.

Memphis

Our next (and last) stop on our week's vacation was Memphis, Tennessee. Neither of us had been there before and weren't sure what all we wanted to do besides eat Memphis BBQ. ha. But we managed to find several things that we really enjoyed.


Our hotel was just a short block away from Beale Street. That's a street where there are tons of BBQ places and tons of venues for music. We could smell BBQ in the air. We could hear the music quite well in our room. Thankfully it didn't go terribly late and we used a white noise app on my cell phone to cover up the noises when we wanted to go to sleep.

Here you can see a corner of Beale Street and the location of our hotel. Our hotel is the taller light colored building in the back that in red letters says Hampton Inn & Suites.

The first day we were in Memphis, we decided to visit Graceland. Neither of us are Elvis fans, but we thought "when in Memphis...".

Proof we were there:

I was surprised at the number of people waiting in line for a shuttle bus. 

And I felt conspicuously young.

There is quite the set-up for this tour. Across the street from the house is all sorts of shops, etc built to enhance the experience. We waited in line for a shuttle bus to take us across the street to the mansion.

 I would say the inside was a cross between gaudy and what-were-they-thinking- early-70s-decor.

It was interesting to hear about how Elvis made it big. Sad to think about how much he had and he still wasn't a happy person towards the end. The tour didn't really talk about the end of his life much, but it all seemed so pointless, you know?

I'm glad we did the tour. I told Hubby that now we'll have to rent an Elvis movie. He didn't seem convinced. ;)


That evening we decided to go to Beale Street and specifically BB King's blues club.

 We managed to score a seat right next to the stage.

We enjoyed a nice meal and a couple of different bands. The music was outstanding!

This gal had some fun dancing. And I'll tell you a secret::: a small part of me wished I had the guts to get up and dance like her. :)

And this guy was awesome on the organ. This ain't no church organ!

We enjoyed the evening at BB King's immensely! As we were heading back to the hotel, we decided to cap the evening with a carriage ride around downtown Memphis.

The weather was just perfect that Thursday night. It was a lovely ride combined with the driver telling us about downtown Memphis and the history of the place. He even recommended a BBQ place that we hit the next night.