The Latest Memphis Trip

We love Memphis! I would drop everything in a second and throw a change of clothes and my toothbrush in a bag if someone said let's go. Once you hit the corridor you have over 180 miles of turn free, and stop free, if you can handle it, driving straight into Memphis.

This time we went with my sister and her boyfriend and we actually made reservations. We stayed at the Hampton across from the Peabody. It cost a little more, but you make up for it in cab fare and anxiety. We went to Rendezvous to eat first thing. Their ribs and service were great. I suggested that we stop at Johnny's Drive-Inn in Tupelo for a bite, but we stopped short and everyone ate road food instead, so I dropped it. It is a great little on the way stop and I would encourage you to make it yours, if you are heading to Memphis. It being in Tupelo, there is Elvis memorabilia from when he used to eat there. Their BBQ is delicious, so are their onion rings. YUM!
Rendezvous had a wonderful atmosphere, I liked it anyway. It was decorated with signed photos of famous people mixed with old junk, every bit of which is authentic. I saw this hanging above our table, so I snapped a picture.
And here is a pic Lee took of a photo of one of his favorites, Frank Sinatra.

So, now that you are officially mesmerized by my ability to blog you a slide show of vacation pictures, none of which have us in them, I'll get to the fun stuff. Thank you for your patience.

We headed for a martini bar that Lee and I had a blast at the fist time we went. It now served beer and hoagies, I think. Nope, not what we were looking for. We hit the Flying Saucer. I love that place! They have all the beer...actually their slogan is MOST BEER. Check them out at www.beerknurd.com. I started out with the special on tap. I then realized that my sister, who drinks beer when we hang out, doesn't like beer. I've been there before. Tell the waitress and she'll bring a few samplers of beer that tastes like wine coolers. All better, except that that stuff is very expensive. It has low alcohol and high sugar content. So you are actually paying $10 a pint for Kool-Aid, OH YEAH! Now it was time to do Beale Street. I had been drinking Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, which is about 9% or 10% alcohol, so things get a little fuzzy from here on out. Much like the above picture of the girl we met in the ladies room at Wet Willies, just loving her new t-shirt. She was very sweet.

Beale Street is very exciting with it's street performers, people hollering at you to come into their bar and shops with strange assortments of useless items to take home for souvenirs. Everything seems to have a WOW factor. We went to Ground Zero because the little fella at the door convinced us to and because it looked like a cool place to hang out and take some photos. We had a few drinks. My sister was happy to finally get her hands on a drink that was colored blue. Perhaps we should have stayed there, but there was no live music playing in there yet and I didn't want to get settled too early. It was still daylight. We walked on down, Coyote Ugly is at the end of the street. I had a blast there with my other sister. It was lame. The only bartender just didn't have what it takes to keep folks in there. The bartender that was on duty the other time gave us free shots and chatted us up. Before we knew it she had us up on the bar shaking what our momma gave us. We went to Wet Willies where they had frozen drinks but the beer selection blowed. I liked the live entertainment, until their female singer got on stage. She sang Chain of Fools great, but her dancing was on my last nerve, slinging her hair everywhere.

We were going to go the Silky Sullivan's, but at this point they were collecting covers, which weren't bad, but nobody was really crazy about seeing more live entertainment. Lee and I exited Beale and headed back to the Flying Saucer to find something besides Bud Light, which we can drink at home and my sister and her boyfriend went on their own adventure eating BBQ at Pig on Beale....how I don't know after eating this at the last place we went:
Happily back at our favorite bar in Memphis, we ordered our beer, not sold in Alabama, and I sent my sister a text that we had a table and to meet back up with us if they run out of things to do. It was here that I cease to remember the remainder of the evening. Not a clue. I have video of me using the video camera, rambling on about nothing, as Lee sits next to me drunk and very uninterested in anything I'm saying. I swear I went on for seven minutes, or an eternity, about absolutely nothing. It's so loud in there that you can't hear what I'm saying, thank goodness! Apparently my sister and her boyfriend showed up, we ordered more drinks, I got mean, spilled ice water and we left.

The next morning, we toured Sun Studio, hungover as usual. One of these day I'm going to have to spend more time in Memphis, so I can tour Graceland, Sun Studio, Mud Island, etc. without feeling dehydrated. I swear, I thought I was going to pass out on the tour of Graceland. I'm getting too old for binge drinking. From there we went to Interstate BBQ. This is always the last stop when we are heading out of Memphis because we always bring BBQ back. To be exact, we bring BBQ spaghetti back. It is so good! The other times we have been there the service has been more friendly. I did not see one smile while I was in there. It is a family owned and operated business and you never know what they may be going through, so I won't judge.
We stopped in Tupelo at Elvis Presley's birthplace on the way home. Another must and a perfect way to round out a trip to Memphis. It's very tranquil there.

Okay, so here is the last photo with a funny little story. We call this death by ice cream.
We stopped at a gas station just before we got to Tupelo on the way home and my sister decided she needed some ice cream. So she and her boyfriend grabbed them a cone and we hopped back on the road. She was driving at this point and for some reason found it very difficult to eat her ice cream cone and stay on the road. Lee was sitting up in the front passenger seat. I was in the seat directly behind him and my sister's boyfriend had dropped the seat next to me and was in the "wayback" with his feet propped on the seat in front of him. He's chillin', eating his ice cream cone, trying to relax, as he has done a lot of the driving thus far. Every few minutes my sister ran off the road and it made an awful noise, vibrating the whole vehicle. We joked with her about it, but being all hungover, truly wishing the annoying noise would stop. After a while, he calls her on it and gives me a mental image that makes me cackle for the next five minutes. I even snicker right now as I remember him saying, "I'm not sure what happened, Officer, but look at that, they have ice cream all over them." I could just see our dead bodies splattered with ice cream and thinking that's not how I want to go. I piped in with a whiny, "I don't want to die." After another run off or two, there was a tiff and she had to give up the cone.