Wednesday 30th November – Leaving Arkansas…

Our seven-night stay done, we had one more significant Memphis location to visit on our way through – Stax Museum of American Soul.

Stax recording studios is where many of the greats of Soul laid down tracks between 1957 and 1968.  Isaac Hayes, Ike and Tina Turner, Otis Redding to name but a few.  We underestimated the scale of the museum – there were soooo many exhibits!  

Stax' original two-track recorder. Otis Redding cut 'Mr Pitiful' and 'Respect' on this machine

It was sad to hear the negative impact that the death of Dr King had on the studios.  Founded by two white Siblings, Jim STewart and Estelle AXton (hence STAX), many of the artists were racially integrated bands, for example the house band - Booker T. & the MGs.  This was rare in a time of racial tension around Memphis but at Stax it wasn’t a point of focus.  Straight after Dr King’s death racial sensitivity was heightened at Stax and there was negative feeling from some African Americans towards whites in Memphis.  This, only 6 months after Stax lost one of its main stars, Otis Redding, in a plane crash really dented the spirit at the record company that it never fully regained.  Problems between Stax, Atlantic and CBS records over distribution deals forced the studios closure in 1975.  But you can see the volume of recordings that the studio was responsible for from this picture:

Isaac Hayes Oscar for 'Theme from Shaft'

After a swift late lunch in the car park we hit the road, heading North-east towards Nashville.  We had many miles to cover.  Here is the sun setting over the Tennessee river as we crossed towards our campsite for the night:

Tuesday 29th November – the BEST day so far….

Even with one of our earliest alarm calls, this day will be hard to beat!  

As well as the issues with the engine battery a warning had come on during the previous week stating that the RV needed an oil change.  We’d asked the folks at Tom Sawyer for a recommendation and the man who rescued us a couple of days ago suggested a garage in West Memphis, advising us to always get work done at a non-RV specialist where possible as specialists will over-price their work.  Over the phone the garage had suggested getting the RV to them as close to opening at 730am as possible as we’d explained that we would need the work to be done while we waited as we literally had nowhere else to go!  Now, I do not trust garages in the UK one bit.  Whenever they've told me I need something done on my car in the past I am convinced they are lying and I am being done every single time.  Here, we mentioned the issues we had been having with our battery and asked them to check it whilst doing the oil change for us.  Fully expecting to have to shell out for a new battery as well as the oil we braced ourselves for the bill.  But no, they checked the battery and found no fault at all, suggesting instead that the living area of the RV must be drawing charge from the engine battery and we should turn the engine isolation switch when we stop for a few days – this should resolve the issue.  Only 45 minutes and $71 later for the oil change, we had a renewed confidence in humanity and mechanics as we left to find somewhere for breakfast.

It turns out you can achieve so much more when you get up before 8am – but we found it difficult to find somewhere for breakfast -apparently we were too early!  We headed towards our second stop of the day – Graceland and ended up eating in the diner there, which was over-priced but authentically decorated as you would expect an American diner to be.  Here’s a picture from the diner - it's a sad example of how the young people today just don’t talk face to face anymore, imprisoned by their technology… 

The Graceland experience consists of a few different options.  The essential and by far the best is the tour of the Graceland mansion itself.  You are handed a tablet and headset each for the tour and part of the entertainment is watching the more senior members of the group trying to get to grips with the technology!  Once you’ve been dropped off by bus at the front door of the mansion you can explore it at your own pace.  

At this time of year, the house and grounds are decorated with the Presleys' original Christmas decorations so it appears as it would have been when Elvis was alive (spoiler alert).  Priscilla and other family members still entertain here sometimes and upstairs is completely out of bounds, preserved for their privacy and memories.

The lounge ready for Christmas

Elvis's 'man-cave' with state of the art TV screens in the walls

'There's a pretty little thing, waiting for the King, down in the jungle room' - Walking in Memphis lyric.  This is the jungle room - along with a bar, waterfall, plants and green shag carpet on the floor AND ceiling for acoustic reasons!!

I don’t claim to be a mad Elvis fan, my earliest memories of him were in his cheesy GI films that my Nan used to love watching regularly, but you cannot deny the talent and impact that he had on music and culture as a whole.  Walking down corridors, the walls filled from floor to ceiling with gold and platinum records sold around the World, you perceive some idea of the scale of his achievements and why he was idolised.  And in such a limited lifespan.  Who knows how much more he could have done if it weren’t for his early demise?  The glitz and specialisations within Graceland cannot be understated – from the gym, the television room or ‘man cave’, the pool and stables – everything you could want or need was there in glittering diamond-encrusted form!  

Then there was the Memorial garden within the grounds containing the tombstones for all of the departed Presleys:

Separate exhibitions were available depending on your interests.  We paid a small extra fee to gain access to Elvis’s private jets (of course we did, you can never see enough planes?!), including the Lisa Marie clad in suede, leather and gold throughout. 

Then of course Elvis loved his cars, including this Stutz Blackhawk which is the last car that Elvis drove through the gates of Graceland on 16^th August 1977.  We learnt more about his birthplace and upbringing in the Tupelo exhibit, which was lucky as we weren’t making a diversion to that part of Mississippi.  A committed Elvis fan could make the visit last for the whole day easily.

(Hotel sign , the motel is round the corner)

But we had more attractions to cram into our day.  We drove back into downtown Memphis to the Lorraine Motel, room 306 - scene of the murder of Dr Martin Luther King Junior on 4^th April 1968.  The National Civil Rights Museum is now housed within the building but there are also listening posts on the pavement outside that provide a lot of information about the build-up to the shooting.  For example, I was unaware that Dr King was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers calling for improvements in safety standards, following the death of a man who was crushed in substandard machinery.  The mood surrounding the location was sombre as one might expect in a place of such shocking tragedy.   

The motel was bought and restored to its 1968 appearance, along with cars from the era on the forecourt.  Room 306 is on the first floor behind the wreath.

Heading further into town, looking for somewhere to park Harvey, we then stumbled across the St Blues Guitar Factory Shop. This company have been making guitars since the ‘60s and their guitars are all handmade in Memphis and distributed from there. Some of history’s guitar greats, such as Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton have played St Blues Guitars and the company have now branched out into handmade ‘Cigar Box’ guitars. Each Cigar Box Guitar is truly unique, four strings and best played with a slide and they all sounded great. Again, the staff at the factory were so friendly, happy to show us what they were making and talk to us about the history of the brand…

(Remember the photograph behind the bar for later on....)

We had seen so much already.  But, as music lovers, the best was still to come.  We drove to Sun Studios which can best be described as the birth place of rock ‘n roll.  Here’s Simon enjoying a revitalising coffee in the café before our guided tour:  

We saw the original broadcast booth of 'Daddy-O’ Dewey Phillips who shattered the mould with his ‘Red hot & Blue’ radio show from 1953-1959. He played Elvis’s first record, ‘That’s all right’, on 8^th July 1954 and the reaction to the record was so extreme that he played it 12 times before inviting Presley to appear as a guest for a live interview.  A star was born.

The climax of the tour was heading into the basement containing the recording studio itself where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, (all together in this photo called the ‘Million-dollar quartet’) cut their early records: 

The studio is still in use today.  We all had a go at striking cheesy poses with the microphone (right):

After the other tour customers had left and we were still hanging on, we cheekily asked our guide if we could see the sound booth itself.  Imagine our joy when he told us to go ahead and take a seat in there!  To be able to sit where the buttons were pressed that were responsible for capturing all that classic music was humbling....

Note the small pile of black and white photographs on the desk – these were pictures of the King himself, Elvis – right there and in this very studio.  Afterwards we both admitted having a fleeting thought of swiping one for our collection, but quickly came back to our senses!

It was late as we returned to the RV park and we were exhausted.  But what a momentous day!  How on Earth were we going to top a day like this when we had visited so many unique and historically significant locations in twelve hours?!

Monday 28th November – A wash-out

We had written off today after warnings of an impending storm and it did not disappoint.  This photograph doesn’t do it justice:

It all got a bit scary.... for me anyway.  A combination of gales in our exposed position next to the river, torrential rain and lightning had the RV shaking about and us checking for leaks – thankfully none were apparent.  Simon did not step foot outside the RV for the entire day, I only left to go as far as the laundry as I just can’t resist the lure of a freebie - even in an Arkansas downpour!

Sunday 27th November – Walking in Memphis

With a full day’s tourism ahead we got up in good time to get started…. But sadly Harvey didn’t want to.  It had been cold but again, the flat battery was a surprise – not as much of a surprise as when even the power pack we’d purchased failed to get things started.  I walked up to the campsite office to summon the owner who thankfully gave me a lift back with his ancient truck that had done about 200,000 miles… but was still running on a cold morning.  I was concerned that it was something more serious than the battery but no, glad to be wrong, the engine kicked into action and we set off.

We went to the secret location (another VC) to buy our cheap deal $64 multi-ticket before returning to the main VC to take advantage of their free parking.  From there we got our first experience of ‘walking in Memphis’.  Finally, parts of that song make sense!  We walked to Beale Street which is legendary for live music – credited for helping Elvis and BB King start out.  Almost every single bar or restaurant had live blues or rock music emanating from it as we strolled past, making a mental note of where we would be returning to later....  

The first ticket in our bundle got us in to the Gibson Guitar Factory, just round the corner from Beale. 

Now that's a reception desk!

Having drooled over all of the models in the Gibson store, we embarked on a 45 minute guided tour of the acoustic and semi-acoustic factory (sadly the solid body electric guitars are manufactured in Nashville).  It was intriguing to see how much of the process is still done by hand compared to the roles that have been taken over by machinery.

Gibson Lucille guitars - BB King's chosen model

From Gibson, the Rock ‘n Soul museum is just across the road.  This was another all-immersive audio tour where you entered the number from the exhibit in front of you onto a device to hear all about it.  The museum gave the fascinating history of music around Memphis, the natural progression from church gospel to people listening to radio shows like the Grand Ole Opry in their home. Then on to the first juke boxes and exhibits from the ground-breaking Tennessee musicians such as Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Elvis and Johnny Cash.  But my favourite exhibits were the Hammond organ, Fender guitar and hand-written lyrics of Mark James, used when he composed and recorded ‘Suspicious Minds’ in 1968:

Only a year later James had a premonition that the song was right for Elvis who went on to record it, the track becoming one of his most popular tracks and making it into the top forty songs of the twentieth century in relation to number of times it has been performed.  What an epic song!

The Isana guitar that Elvis had with him whilst serving in the army in Germany

With musical history ringing in our ears we had worked up an appetite not only for some live music but also USA sandwich number three, the pulled pork variety!  Back to Beale Street and BB Kings Blues Club.  We were seated upstairs with a balcony view of the stage to be serenaded by some seriously talented blues musicians.  The food?  I went 7/10 for the sandwich. Plus points for atmosphere and flavour (lots of Barbecue sauce and coleslaw) but minus points for the fact that it was brought to me mid-way through our hot starter when we were certainly not in any rush and therefore had disintegrated and cooled down by the time I got to enjoy it. 

The music was amazing and if money was no object we would have gladly stayed for the whole evening.  But I was designated driver and we also wanted to avoid the walk back through Downtown Memphis too late at night, so we drew a line after dinner and headed back to the RV.  Beale Street was buzzing on a Sunday night but as soon as we walked elsewhere in the city there was hardly a person about.  Maybe it’s just the time of year but it seemed like the ‘Soul’ of Memphis was only apparent in the tourist areas and there are some very poor areas, where businesses and residents aren’t getting on so well.

Saturday 26th November - Blogging catch-up

Today was a lot sunnier but we had decided to do our Memphis tourism bits on Sunday and Tuesday.  So I went for another bike ride and found an observation tower to take these pictures of the campsite and the Mississippi (the campsite is prettier than the river):

It stayed clear all day for a lovely sunset....

Apart from that I tried to get in contact with people in the UK, including my mate Becky in Birmingham who has now booked tickets to come and travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco with us in March – Yay, extra company for us!! Apart from that it was catch-up time, no relaxing allowed, I had a blog to type up! Here’s the evidence of how hard I was working…

Friday 25th November – Black Friday

Since arriving in the US I had intended to make the most of Black Friday to get a good deal on a laptop.  This had become even more essential as I just wasn’t getting enough use of Simon’s iPad to be making any progress with this blog and I really wanted to get the project properly off the ground.  But if you think we were going to be queuing all night or getting up at the crack of dawn then think again!  We left the RV site at the reasonable hour of midday hoping that most of the madness and violence was over by then - but not the bargain deals!  We crossed a bridge over the Mississippi which also marked our transition from Arkansas into State number 20, Tennessee:

We headed to a Target store where I invested in the very Acer laptop I am tappety-tapping on this very minute writing this blog.  Time to get cracking!

On the way back to our RV site we stopped off at the Visitors Centre (saying nothing) and struck lucky yet again.  Not only is there FREE RV parking there within walking distance to the centre of Memphis, the lady at the counter also tipped us off about a discount package we could purchase for $64 each, allowing entry to ALL FIVE of the significant music attractions in Memphis we wanted to see.  This saved us more cash and I took a celebratory pic of a BB King statue in their foyer.

Note the entrance to 'Outdoor World' which is INSIDE the pyramid

From the VC it was impossible to miss the Pyramid shopping Centre:

Whilst trying not to spend any money we had a good old browse and enjoyed viewing the wildlife that also lives there - birds, fish and reptiles (somewhat contradictory to the amount of weapons and ammunition you could buy in the mall!).

Some of the fish were HUGE!

Out of interest we approached the gun counter.  Being Black Friday it was chaos and they had brought in a ticketing system for potential customers to deal with the volume of people wanting to arm themselves.

A beautiful and festive mall

Varmint targets

Spot the problem with where we left Harvey - erm, where does that bridge START if it doesn't finish?!

We managed to walk away having only purchased an essential tool we had been missing - a marshmallow fork for $4!









Back at the site I attempted to set up my new laptop utilising the inconsistent Wi-Fi and started the process of recalling the last few months….

Thursday 24th November – Thanksgiving

As I mentioned, everywhere would be shut today so we had no plans to go out.  We had a lazy morning.  It was overcast but I went for an orientation walk and bike ride.  Here’s our view of the Mississippi:

I have to say, having seen the river numerous times now, it may be a vital part of American history as far as human exploration and sale of goods – but it is not pretty!  Even on a sunny day, it is functional – the swirling currents in the grey waters are home to huge ugly barges and industrial ships carrying freight, not day-trippers in pretty sail boats.

I took advantage of one of the best points for this campsite – FREE laundry!  Certain that there would be no other crazy people wanting to do such boring tasks on Thanksgiving I was surprised when I had to queue to use the machines.  Turns out it’s Canadians and others who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving who do washing on this holiday….that’s why they look at you strangely when you give them a cheery ‘Happy Thanksgiving!’  But I got into conversation with a Canadian lady about the usual things us RVers talk about – where are you headed?  Where have you come from?  And what are you planning around Christmas now the weather here is turning?  At this point, I realise that I have failed to tell you that we have booked a State Park in Florida for Christmas, as it turns out that this lady and her husband are going to be in the same park as us – what are the chances of that?!  When we had our planning day back in Texas, we had to face the reality that we had been warned about – Florida in December is ridiculously busy, mostly due to the fact that it’s the only State where you are guaranteed sun and warm weather at this time of year.  And the PRICES are mad!  We were looking at RV sites for $70-100 per night, way above what we could realistically afford, but it was okay as they were all fully booked in any case!  Our friends at Passport America were no help – our money off membership was not valid between November and March at all their sites in Florida.  It seemed that all retirees, holiday-makers and most of the rest of the population were heading down to Florida for Christmas so the sites can charge whatever they like.  Thankfully, we discovered the wonder of Florida State Parks.  I got a login for their website and, although we’d been disappointed at the expense of some near the start of this trip, these parks were now going to come into their own.  We managed to book 7 nights at Collier Seminole State park, just on the verge of the Everglades in South Florida for $176, over Christmas – so bang on budget.  We had no idea what this would mean for our Christmas, what facilities there were in the area or whether we would literally be isolated in the middle of nowhere?  But we had to book something or we risked being on the roadside somewhere.  This goes against all my ‘winging it’ intentions for this trip and the freedom to just end up where we end up, but it was essential for that time of year so I just had to suck it up.

As the evening drew in it was time to cook Thanksgiving dinner.  With our tiny oven I think we did a great job – turkey, roasted sweet potato, honey-roast parsnips and Simon even made a successful attempt at Yorkshire puddings!  Here’s the evidence:

What you can't see is that we're watching the NFL on TV in the background, we fully went for it.  It was Dallas Cowboys Vs Washington Redskins but don’t ask me who won!  When the match was over I was sure there would be some cheesy holiday TV on somewhere – I think I hit the jackpot when I found an ‘Anne of Green Gables’ remake with Martin Sheen in (he wasn’t Anne) but I don’t think Simon was as convinced!  It was better with pecan pie to accompany it….

As we’d travelled, various locations had reminded us of classic movies we have seen or feel like we should have seen.  For example, Dodge reminded me of Blazing Saddles and we’d watched ‘Lincoln’ after visiting Springfield.  Tonight it was time to watch JFK starring Kevin Costner which neither of us had seen before.  We both really enjoyed it and, even having visited the Sixth Floor Museum only recently, it made us reconsider some of those conspiracy theories!  Definitely one to see if you haven’t previously had the chance.

Wednesday 23rd November – Long drive to Memphis

There was one heck of a lightning storm last night.  I love a good storm but the shell of the RV magnifies the sound of the rain so it is hard to stay asleep, especially in torrential rain.  The morning was similarly gloomy, so a good day to be driving rather than trying to enjoy the great outdoors.  It wasn’t far to the Arkansas border, here’s the proof ….

But then we had to cross the majority of the state to make our booked campsite, Tom Sawyers, in West Memphis.  Mid-afternoon took a turn for the worse weather-wise again so I took some video of the conditions that Simon was having to tolerate.  The last video I attempted to upload to this blog didn’t work but this one is shorter so I may try again?!  

But the sky was an extremely dark grey and the pouring rain made the visibility on the Highway appalling.  Thankfully there was some respite when we arrived at the camp and were shown to our spot, within 50 meters of the Mississippi river.  We paid our $210 for the week, slightly over our $25 per night budget but the cheapest we could find that looked like a nice site in easy reach of Memphis.  

Tuesday 22nd November – Insurance admin and some boating

In the back of my mind I had been aware that the RV insurance should be due around now, it had been over a month since we had first gained our cover before our epic day at the RMV!  But as far as I was concerned we had set up auto-pay monthly and this had successfully topped up our mobile telephones without us having to do anything, so why not with the RV insurance too?  I was surprised that the payment hadn’t appeared on my credit card yet, it was a few days late, but I was enjoying myself too much to worry about chasing it.  Until last night when I received some messages from Tash in Boston saying that they’d received some post for us and one was from our insurer stating that our next payment was due by 17^th November (oops).  They stated that they had tried to email me but the address they had did not work and so they had written a letter (why they didn’t bother calling my cell number I’ll never know!).  Never mind any late fees, I was more worried about them stopping our cover and being uninsured on the road!  The timing was not great.  Lake Claiborne was in the middle of a communications black hole - not only with very unreliable Wi-Fi but also with no phone signal at the campsite.  I couldn’t resolve the issue over the internet, it kept crashing.  Plus, I couldn’t download the Progressive App on my phone as my account is registered in the UK… where Progressive doesn’t exist (thanks again Apple)!  I was told that you could get phone signal by the Church at the top of the hill.  I traipsed up a steep hill, past the smelliest rotting deer roadkill you could imagine, constantly staring at my iPhone screen and doing that thing where you hold it up in the air as if that will do anything to help!  At the church, I had between one and two bars of signal and managed to arrange payment for our insurance for the next month on an automated line, before requesting to talk to a human to resolve the issue with my email address being wrong – a missing ‘e’ in my surname.  It had taken just under two hours of my morning, but I had ensured we had cover and placed reminders on my calendar to prevent this late payment occurring again.

The weather was slightly dubious, but thankfully it cleared up in the afternoon for us to have a second opportunity to take Steven Sea-Eagle out.  The lake was calm and we saw numerous birds of prey, terrapins, cranes and other waterfowl.  We started discussing where the range of alligators and crocodiles begins in the USA?!  That made us paranoid about every little movement by the water’s edge.  No one had made mention of there being any reptiles in the area and certainly no one had tried to stop us launching into the lake but as we were the only people on the water in a flimsy, inflatable kayak it was slightly disconcerting….  No gators seen, we had a very sedate and pleasant paddle.  I even went single-crewed for a while after dropping Simon on the shore – taking as much time as possible to watch the huge birds of prey circling above through my binoculars and camera.

I have completely failed to describe the frequency that we see birds of prey since we arrived in the US.  I am a massive fan, enjoying seeing any kestrel, kite or buzzard in the UK that I get a chance to.  But here it is a daily occurrence, along every single highway, to see birds of prey on top of telegraph poles or soaring overhead.  At first we’d shout ‘Big bird!’ every time we saw a shadow to alert each other.  The problem?  I wasn’t able to identify what the birds were.  They were nothing I was used to seeing.  Unlike Simon with his military planes that he knows off by heart (geek), I was showing my ignorance.  I turned to the internet to try and identify the birds we were seeing but by this stage in Louisiana I was still unsure what it was we were seeing.  Maybe I’ll have to invest in a book or an identification chart to rectify this situation?!  But whatever they may be, trying to get images or just sitting and watching their graceful flight is time well spent as far as I’m concerned.  It was a lovely relaxing afternoon enjoying a scenic part of the country that we had visited purely by chance.