Free Museum Day

There's nothing like a "free" price tag to get us to try something new! Saturday was Downtown Museum Day around Memphis, with museums offering buy-one get-one or complimentary admission to TN residents. I guess these sorts of things are our reward for surviving the DMV experience!

First stop: Sun Studio Tour (alert: if you open this link, it starts playing a song). This is one of the major tourist attractions in town. It's known as the "birthplace of rock 'n' roll." Many famous musicians were discovered here like Elvis and Johnny Cash. On the tour, you learn about the history of the studio, and you can go into the recording room where the musicians actually stood to record their albums. It is pretty cool. Our tour guide was great - very energetic, informative, and passionate.

 Outside the studio

I am not 100% sure I'm remembering this correctly, but I think this was the device that recorded the very first ever rock 'n' roll song. Of course, this song's status is up for debate.

The "million dollar quartet" singing at Sun Studio - Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash

The roof in the recording room - it has this wave effect going on that's supposed to be good for acoustics.

After we had thoroughly rocked out, we continued downtown to the Cotton Museum. It was...about as exciting as you'd expect a museum devoted to cotton to be. It explained how cotton grows and the technological innovations through the years that have affected cotton harvesting and production. It also told about the importance of cotton to the Southern economy and Memphis in particular. There was a lot of pro-cotton propaganda. Monsanto is one of the museum sponsors, so genetically modified seeds are portrayed as a beacon of light to humanity. And cottonseed oil is touted as an excellent addition to your diet. But it was fun to play with cotton puffs :)

 Here is what a cotton plant looks like

The main part of the museum is set up in the old Cotton Exchange building, which is pretty cool. It's was like the Wall Street of cotton back in the day before computers. This is a replica of what the board looked like where workers would write in various prices.

Staring in the 1930s, Memphis held a cotton carnival to promote wearing and using cotton. This is a bouquet and some other memorabilia from those events. Apparently the carnival still goes on today, but with less of a cotton focus.

This was the room where I felt like they were trying to brainwash me.

So yeah, the second museum was less exciting but still free.

For dinner, we took the Food Network's recommendation and tried Uncle Lou's. D.F. thought his chicken was tasty and I enjoyed my burger. The sweet tea was sweeeeeeeet!