Tennessee Vacation Day 1: MLK's Hotel Room, Beale St, and More
Today was the start of Vacation 2023. We are actually traveling via car this year, which we hadn't done in a long time. We had explored visiting a few other places for vacation, but they were expensive to plan, especially at the last minute (and thanks to AT&T's crappy service since the tornado, we left it all until the last minute). But traveling by car has its perks, too, and we made good time and had a smooth trip this morning. Sara made her own USB drive of music to listen to in the car, and the very first song we heard when we hit the road was "These Dreams," by Heart - better known to us as "Dreams in the Mist." We use this expression a lot, but I hadn't heard the actual song in a long time and took it as a good sign. I also really liked "Something More Than Free," by Jason Isbell, even though it was very sad.
Once we finally hit the I-40, Sara had to drive across the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis on the outside lane because we needed the first exit on the other side, which made us both nervous, but she did great, and I did great at navigating. We found our first stop, the National Civil Rights Museum, with no problem. We walked through the entire thing and really enjoyed it. The demographic of visitors inside was mostly older white people, which I thought was interesting. We saw an actual copy of the issue of Jet magazine that published photos of Emmett Till's body, and an actual letter sent to Earnest Green (one of the Little Rock 9) discouraging him from attending graduation. There was also a replica of the Montgomery city bus that Rosa Parks sat on, and of course, MLK's hotel room and balcony were preserved. It felt pretty powerful to see that. I had read a little bit beforehand about Jacqueline Smith's protest across the street and thought about going to talk to her, but I think she holds some anti-Semitic views.
After the museum, we were both pretty hungry, so we went across the street for a BIG, delicious lunch at Central Barbecue. Then we drove back up Front Street, checked into our hotel, and rested there for a while. We have a really nice room on the 12th floor with a window view of the Mississippi River and Mud Island.
We had tickets for a ghost tour in downtown this evening, so that was where we headed next. The tour met up in front of a restaurant on Beale Street, so we spent some time browsing there for a while first. We stopped in a souvenir shop and bought postcards to send Mom, Athena, and the kids. I thought about buying a Christmas ornament, but our little Christmas tree is already pretty well-decorated. Later, I spotted a bakery called Insomnia Cookies, and when I pointed it out to Sara, she almost pushed me right off the sidewalk to get to it! She had a chocolate chip, I had a mint chocolate chip, and they were both amazing: rich and delicious and still warm and gooey. We ate them sitting on the base of the statue in WC Handy Park.
The ghost tour was a good time, too. The young woman who led it took us by the Orpheum Theatre (still an operating theater), the Pontotoc Hotel (currently dilapidated ruins that were really creepy to see at night), the John Alexander Austin House (a private home and so beautiful), Earnestine & Hazel's (still an operating bar but not looking its best), and more sites and talked about the history of each one. I enjoyed it, but it ran later than we'd expected, and I was really drooping by the end of it. It was also more walking than I'd expected. We actually walked far south enough to see the Civil Rights Museum again so the guide could talk about MLK's assassination. She also pointed out the boarding house that he was shot from, which was interesting (I couldn't tell which one it was from inside the museum). One older white woman on the tour, Margaret, got really annoying. She kept pressing her face against windows and courtyard gates and saying stupid things, including that they never caught "the guy" who assassinated MLK. The guide and I both corrected her on that. It felt too ignorant not to say anything, especially since this woman was probably alive when that happened. Another time she saw the flash from my old digital camera and got all excited thinking that she'd seen a ghost, and I couldn't roll my eyes hard enough. There was also a young black woman with the prettiest French accent on the tour, and I spotted two mezuzahs on doorways.
It was pretty late on the walk back to our hotel after the ghost tour, and as we walked past Court Square Park, a homeless man on a bench saw me and Sara and screamed, "Oh, dat's sweet, dey holdin' each other's hands!" But anyway, so far, our vacation is off to a good start!
Distance walked today: 5.8 miles.
Once we finally hit the I-40, Sara had to drive across the Mississippi River bridge in Memphis on the outside lane because we needed the first exit on the other side, which made us both nervous, but she did great, and I did great at navigating. We found our first stop, the National Civil Rights Museum, with no problem. We walked through the entire thing and really enjoyed it. The demographic of visitors inside was mostly older white people, which I thought was interesting. We saw an actual copy of the issue of Jet magazine that published photos of Emmett Till's body, and an actual letter sent to Earnest Green (one of the Little Rock 9) discouraging him from attending graduation. There was also a replica of the Montgomery city bus that Rosa Parks sat on, and of course, MLK's hotel room and balcony were preserved. It felt pretty powerful to see that. I had read a little bit beforehand about Jacqueline Smith's protest across the street and thought about going to talk to her, but I think she holds some anti-Semitic views.
After the museum, we were both pretty hungry, so we went across the street for a BIG, delicious lunch at Central Barbecue. Then we drove back up Front Street, checked into our hotel, and rested there for a while. We have a really nice room on the 12th floor with a window view of the Mississippi River and Mud Island.
We had tickets for a ghost tour in downtown this evening, so that was where we headed next. The tour met up in front of a restaurant on Beale Street, so we spent some time browsing there for a while first. We stopped in a souvenir shop and bought postcards to send Mom, Athena, and the kids. I thought about buying a Christmas ornament, but our little Christmas tree is already pretty well-decorated. Later, I spotted a bakery called Insomnia Cookies, and when I pointed it out to Sara, she almost pushed me right off the sidewalk to get to it! She had a chocolate chip, I had a mint chocolate chip, and they were both amazing: rich and delicious and still warm and gooey. We ate them sitting on the base of the statue in WC Handy Park.
The ghost tour was a good time, too. The young woman who led it took us by the Orpheum Theatre (still an operating theater), the Pontotoc Hotel (currently dilapidated ruins that were really creepy to see at night), the John Alexander Austin House (a private home and so beautiful), Earnestine & Hazel's (still an operating bar but not looking its best), and more sites and talked about the history of each one. I enjoyed it, but it ran later than we'd expected, and I was really drooping by the end of it. It was also more walking than I'd expected. We actually walked far south enough to see the Civil Rights Museum again so the guide could talk about MLK's assassination. She also pointed out the boarding house that he was shot from, which was interesting (I couldn't tell which one it was from inside the museum). One older white woman on the tour, Margaret, got really annoying. She kept pressing her face against windows and courtyard gates and saying stupid things, including that they never caught "the guy" who assassinated MLK. The guide and I both corrected her on that. It felt too ignorant not to say anything, especially since this woman was probably alive when that happened. Another time she saw the flash from my old digital camera and got all excited thinking that she'd seen a ghost, and I couldn't roll my eyes hard enough. There was also a young black woman with the prettiest French accent on the tour, and I spotted two mezuzahs on doorways.
It was pretty late on the walk back to our hotel after the ghost tour, and as we walked past Court Square Park, a homeless man on a bench saw me and Sara and screamed, "Oh, dat's sweet, dey holdin' each other's hands!" But anyway, so far, our vacation is off to a good start!
Distance walked today: 5.8 miles.