Tennessee Trip Part 2

Day 2: Erwin to Memphis

Got up early, found out the free continental breakfast was basically coffee and donuts, so I walked to a nearby Huddle House, which I had never heard of before, but when I got in there it made me think of a low-rent Denny's. That's right, low-rent Denny's. Got the strawberry waffle, which was easily three-quarters strawberry topping and whipped cream, and generously one-quarter waffle. Hopped way up on sugar and now ready for travel. Took off. First of all, I think Erwin was quite a bit further off the main trail than I thought it was. Second, Tennessee is long. This day of driving did wear me out quite a bit. I-40 reminds me a lot of I-81 in Virginia. The 70mph speed limit is sweet, but it's still only as fast as the slowest truck. And the exhaustion was not helped by the time change. Never, in all my planning, did the time change ever occur to me. Didn't occur to me until I saw a sign on the interstate that said “Central Time.” I said, Oh Shit!, and started looking at every clock available to me. Some of them changed automatically, some did not, and the ones that did not, I never bothered changing. Consequently, the time change messed with my head for pretty much the entire trip.

Getting in that night, I pretty much knew I wasn't going to get any tourist type stuff done, so I decided I was going to get some bbq (obviously) and then watch the first Redskins game of the season, which luckily was being nationally broadcast. So, after much deliberation, I decided on Central BBQ, because it was on my list, and also near a Kroger that I wanted to go to. The location of the hotel and the drive to food made it clear to me that navigating this place was going to be interesting. The hotel was in this weird area, about 3 blocks from Beale Street, it seemed like my block was kind of run-down. A bunch of empty buildings, a lot of slow-moving people just kind of milling around, not really well lit. But then you can go one block in one direction and you're at the Peabody Hotel complex thing. Go a block in another direction and you're in a public park. Yeah the park is full of homeless people, but still, it's a park. There's a statue. That sort of played out throughout the parts of the city I went through over the whole trip. Nice area, bad area, collapsed area, decent area, really nice area, bad area. All right next to each other. So when I picked a place to go, I never really knew what kind of neighborhood I was going to end up in. It was okay though, nothing too frightening. (Except the one homeless guy who, while I was stopped at a light at the end of a ramp, walked out of nowhere, stared straight at me with some enormous eyes and wild hair, and started yelling something at me, then sat down next to my door. Not going to lie, that light seemed really slow.)

Central BBQ was pretty good. A good balance of sauce to meat on the sandwich, and the baked beans actually were pretty incredible. Overall, a decent introduction to the BBQ scene. Went back to the hotel, realized I had missed the first hour of the game because of the goddam time change, and spend the rest of the night half watching the game and half trying to figure out how to spend the next day.

Day 3: First Tourist Day

One thing I knew, first thing I was doing that day was going to the Arcade Restaurant. Apparently a Memphis institution, from the moment I read “Sweet Potato Pancakes” on their website, I knew I was going to be spending some time there. The restaurant has such a reputation I was worried I wouldn't be able to sit down, but when I got there it was pretty empty. That's about when I realized that I guess I'm not here in prime vacation time. Getting excited. Walked there the first day, but decided after that that if I came back I'd drive. The walk was longer than I thought it would be, especially when there's breakfast at the other end of it. And the alternation of good to bad blocks was stark. And panhandlers seem to be most active and insistent in the morning. The sweet potato pancakes were amazing. How could they not be?

Just contemplate what they are for a second. (Sure, I could give you the "before"/uneaten photo, but these were delicious.) I pretty much decided then that all other breakfasts in the area were going to be voided, I was going to be at the Arcade everyday. (Even though I later found out there was a place right around the corner from my room that served what basically amounted to a pancakes version of the peanut butter and banana sandwich.)

A bunch of stuff I wanted to get done that day. My plan for the day involved Sun Records, Stax Records, a Mississippi River Boat tour, the Memphis Rock 'N Soul Museum, and, at some point, BBQ. First thing, walked to Sun. The tour begins upstairs with this little mini-museum, some interesting stuff behind glass, but I wasn't totally blown away. Still, it seemed a little rushed through. Tried to take some pictures of records, but didn't get all that I wanted because the tour guide kind of moved us along. So, anyway, after listening to the tour guide tell you all the stories you've heard before, you go back downstairs and into the Sun Studio. And I have to say, that really was pretty special. Records on the walls, instruments on the floors, the most special thing about it to me is that the room is all the original walling and flooring.

So, this is it. Elvis's shoes were here. Howlin' Wolf's shoes were where my shoes are now. And this:

This actually sort of took my breath away for a minute. A picture of Howlin' Wolf with a guitar under it that looked like one you'd see in pictures with him. So, I'm thinking, “That's genuine! I'm sharing air at this moment with one of Howlin' Wolf's guitars.” Complete and utter tourist fan-boy amazement. The worst kind of it. But then the tour guide picked up the guitar and played with it, basically calling me an idiot and saying “No, idiot! This is a prop.” I got all my wind back. But, honestly, standing in that room was something special.

So, after that, took the long walk to the riverfront and bought my ticket for the Mississippi tour. Thought it was later than it was (CLOCKS!) and realized I had over an hour to kill before it started, so I went to find some lunch. Knew of no BBQ around, but ran into a place that I had read about, the Front Street Deli. And that's what I was totally in the mood for, just a simple turkey sandwich. I guess the place is known for just being a little hole in the wall with a decent sandwich and a personable owner. Pretty sure, actually no question about it, I spent more time talking to the owner of the deli than I did speaking to anybody else the entire week. And it didn't feel like that, “I have a reputation for being personable so you're going to engage with DAMMIT” thing that I feel with a lot of business owners, but rather, “Well, we're the only two people here. What's up?” Much more enjoyable to me.

Mississippi River Tour. I might advise people to skip this. I don't know what I was expecting. I guess a guy dressed up like Mark Twain sword-fighting scoundrels with his cane and almost getting knocked into one of those big spinning paddle things. Paddles and steam and spinning of yarns. Not an hour and a half of one bridge for cars, one bridge for trains, and pointing out where Cybil Shepherd used to live, and making sure everyone knew exactly where the real state line was, and how the basketball team is a bunch of whiners. Oh, and making a point of telling everyone that the Mississippi is shorter than a lot of other rivers and not nearly as awesome in size as you might think. Yeah, let's make this trip as underwhelming as possible, tour guide. I didn't totally regret it. The weather was pretty nice. It's pretty hard to get genuinely aggravated on a boat. I'm just saying, it put me to sleep.

After that, walked to the to the Memphis Rock 'N Soul Museum. Sounds pretty expansive, that's a lot of ground to cover right? Well, in my opinion, this was the most disappointing display I went to. Before this, I'd never taken a self-guided audio tour, and I wasn't immediately impressed with the concept based on this place. Because there was a lot of audio, and not nearly enough to look at. So it was like the sync was off. The audio track might have five minutes left and there's nothing left in the section to explore. What am I supposed to do? Sit down, close my eyes, wait for the audio to end, and then move to the next one? Eventually I dispensed with the audio portion and just looked around for my own enjoyment. Much better. But there was some neat stuff there, like this:

And this:

At which point I realized, this was the first point my birthday had even entered my mind since leaving. (Your fault, BB King!) It's working! Went back to the hotel to make dinner plans, but upon reaching my room, my stomach was just screaming at me, “No BBQ! We'll do it again later but I just can't take it right now!” and my eyes and face were feeling the effects of being bludgeoned by sunshine all day. Plus, for whatever reason, a lot of restaurants are not open on Monday. Ended up just getting a pint of frozen yogurt and flopping on my back for some napping and planning, which ended up becoming a pattern the whole trip. Kroger had these really good pints of frozen yogurt, for a store brand they were really good and the stats on them were pretty fantastic. So I tried them all over the course of the trip. A nice little cap to the day back in the room.