Memphis Tennessee

19th June – 196 miles from Decatur, Alabama, to Memphis Tennessee

The next morning we took route 72 from Decatur to Memphis, cutting through Mississippi and stopping for lunch in a small town whose name I don’t recall. It was a pleasant stop and a real slice of small town America, with endless refills of coffee and not another tourist in sight. Again, it would have been a great to have had a couple of shots for a record of the trip.

Arriving in Memphis, we found accommodation in the Comfort Inn. It was one of the more expensive hotels on our trip but after a couple of cheaper days we were ready to push the boat out. Well, I was, and although Spencer was usually more conservative with spending we had little choice. There was a convention in town, and not many rooms available close enough to enjoy the Memphis nightlife. The hotel had a pool on the 9th floor, so we spent part of the afternoon relaxing there before heading out to Beale Street for the evening.

It was a big night out, and we hit a couple of bars before enjoying a Memphis Platter of ribs and catfish in a restaurant bar with really good live music. Upstairs we found some pool tables, so we had a couple of games before moving on to another bar. We should have stuck with the first place, as the second bar was nowhere near as good, but we wanted to try to experience some variety. All we got for it was an attempt to rip us off when I was given change for a ten dollar bill instead of a twenty. I wasn’t so drunk I didn’t notice, and got my change together with an excuse from the waiter about the other $10 getting caught in his bill clip. Sure.

20th June – 90 miles from Memphis, Tennessee to Brinkley, Arkansas

We had a slow start to the morning, hungover from the big night out in Memphis. Our hotel was right next to Mud Island, which had a walkable map of the Mississippi. It’s actually a scale model of a section of the river, about half a mile long, and showing accurate river depths and street plans of major towns.

We had overpriced sub sandwiches for lunch on Mud Island, paid a quick visit back to Beale Street, and left Memphis in the afternoon. We stopped at Graceland, where we decided that all of the tours were a bit too pricey for our level of interest, and then carried on to an overnight stop in Brinkley, Arkansas.

We ate in a Pizza Hut in town, where the waitress seemed to be fascinated by our accents, always a good indication that we were off of the tourist trail.

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