Memphis (October 15)

We awoke to cloudy skies and possible rain that gave way to occasional sun and no rain until evening by the time we left AMERICA for our 9:30 AM tour to Sun Studio.

Beale Street Landing had an ingenious transfer spiral that connected the floating pier to the land. As the river rises and falls, the pier pairs up with a level of the spiral.  Once in the spiral, we walked round-n-round to the top.  For those passengers who preferred not to walk up, golf carts shuttled them to a reception center.  

At Sun Studio out tour guide was Lona, a rockabilly player from Alaska.  

We began on the second floor museum, inclusive of components of the radio station in Memphis that first broadcast rockabilly music.

We moved downstairs to the recording studio. Prominently displayed there was another picture of the Million Dollar Quartet - Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash - taken at Sun Studio.

Some of our group had their own jam session.

The tour returned to AMERICA. We headed out on foot to the Cotton Exchange.

We could not enter the actual exchange, but the building housed a well-curated museum.

We walked over to Beale Street and along it for a couple of blocks to confirm the location of our dinner reservation.

MATA trolley

Beale Street is not much to look at during the daytime.

We did find a soda fountain that was a trip down memory lane.

We walked back towards AMERICA with the idea of catching the trolley that orbits the outer ring of the downtown. In the sidewalk were tributes to many musicians and songwriters with deep routes in Memphis. Who knew that would include Peter Paul & Mary.

We had to walked further than we expected to get to a trolley station.  The fact that the trolley did not go past us as we walked we took as a good sign; less time to wait for one when we got to the station. We did not consider the other possibility, and nothing at the station tipped us off, so we waited until I went online and determined that this trolley line was shut down.  Would a sign saying "Line Closed" be too much to ask.

At dinnertime, and not for fear  of having another tray of drinks pouring down my back, we headed to BB King's Blues Club for food and music. 

Great bbq ribs...and baked beans...and macaroni & cheese. The coleslaw, French fries and ice cream sundae were pretty good too.

The show started at 7 PM. We picked this place because with with a name like BB King's it was a given that the blues music would be excellent.  It was. 

We got back to AMERICA just in time to catch part of the act of an Elvis impersonator who was quite good, so we went to bed having seen two fun shows in one evening.