Walking in Memphis

People keep telling us the weather is "unseasonably cool" here for July, so we took advantage of it to have an outdoor adventure yesterday. We decided to check out some of the tourist attractions right here in our new city.

We went to Mud Island River Park, located right on the Mississippi River. The park itself is free, but to get there, you either have to walk over the 1/3 mile bridge (free) or ride the monorail ($4 round trip). Also there is a museum that requires tickets. We had a coupon (of course) so we got two-for-one admission that covered the train and museum.

After our *exciting* 3 minute monorail ride, we disembarked to a nice view of the river.

We checked out the Mississippi River Museum, which I found moderately interesting. The best parts were the two full-sized boats inside that you could walk through. One was a passenger steamboat, and the other was a gun boat from the civil war. In my opinion, though, the museum lost focus somewhere in the middle with too many non-river-related Civil War displays, and then a whole section devoted to music in Memphis. I mean yes, music is a big deal here, but they didn't explain what Elvis had to do with the river...

Next, it was time to stroll along the scale model of the river!

The model is .5 miles long and represents the lower Mississippi from where it joins up with the Ohio River in Cairo, IL to the Gulf of Mexico.  

This is the delta in New Orleans.

And here's the model of where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

I feel much more educated about the river after visiting this park!

So, next stop was dinner at Rendezvous BBQ, a Memphis classic. It's a really big restaurant compared to most other BBQ places we've been to. I think the baked beans might be my favorite in the city so far! The brisket was good. The ribs could've been more tender. The slaw was grosser than normal. It tasted like mustard and was rather sour. In the interest of fairness, I should mention that I don't like coleslaw in general. And the rolls were bland and not homemade. So, it was about 3.5 stars for us, out of 5.  

After licking our fingers clean, we walked over to the Peabody Hotel. I believe it's the fanciest hotel in town. The lobby is ornate! They do this thing every day where a parade of ducks walk through the lobby to swim in the fountain, and then they parade out of the fountain and back to their home on the roof. Our visit didn't coincide with the duck march, but that's ok. 

The famous fountain.

View from the rooftop deck.

The last stop for the evening was a free concert at the Levitt Shell amphitheater. It was the last concert of the season, which we didn't know until we got there. It was a lovely night to be outside enjoying some "water ice" from Parker's.

The show was a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Memphis chapter of the Recording Academy. I think these people vote on who is going to win Grammy awards. Or they nominate them. Or both. I was rather confused. There were a lot of "in-group" references during the show to supposedly famous people that I'd never heard of. The music varied from toe-tapping rock and folk to sleep-inducing ballads. People made speeches, showed videos, and generally patted themselves on the back for such projects as helping musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

So, there's a sampling of the fun stuff there is to do in Memphis! Now when y'all come visit, we're ready to play tour guide :)