My Experience Walking In Memphis
Last Thursday, I got up much earlier than normal (that hurt in more ways than one) and I boarded a plane to travel to Memphis. Of course, I got to spend a little time in the Detroit airport before heading to the great state of Tennessee.
Nice thing about the second leg of the trip was that the plane was only half full, so I got to have a row of seats all to myself. I guess that's an airline travel rarity these days.
After just under seven hours traveling, as Marc Cohn once sang, "...the plane touched down in the land of the Delta Blues...", except it wasn't in the pouring rain. It was sunny and about 60 degrees. Gotta love that.
During my short stay, I did a bit of exploring the downtown area and took in the majesty of the famous Peabody Hotel, complete with the famous ducks.
I was joined by some New York and New Jersey radio friends. We took in the sights, "walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale" (well at least that's what the song says), and we visited several of the blues and rock nightclubs on Beale, staying up later than I'm normally used to. But I had lots of fun...well as much fun as I can remember. Early mornings though, were not my friend.
I topped off my extended weekend doing something I've wanted to do for long time. I got to visit Graceland. I thought the tour was just Elvis' house. Little did I know that there is a huge exhibition center with an Elvis career museum, automotive museum, diner, gift shop, a separate area to see his airplanes, and if you have an RV or travel trailer, there's an RV park.
Just before I left to head back to the airport (where temperatures were again hovering around 60 degrees and sunny), I decided to stop into Gladys Diner in the exhibition center for some food. I noticed some delicious slices of pizza, until my eye caught a listing on the menu - one of Elvis' favorite types of food, a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
I had to give it a try. I had a choice of the bread being buttered or layered with bacon grease. Can you guess which I chose? And surprisingly, the sandwich was really good! That topped off my already awesome Elvis experience. I almost think I heard someone say "Thank you, thank you very much." Maybe it was the sandwich talking to me.
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