Travel to the US from Aotearoa and you rip open the time/space continuum - as in, add an extra day. So although the date on this post says Sunday 27 September, in Memphis it's still Saturday night (and yup, you got it - I can't figure out how to change the blog template thingy).
Anyway, another big day in the South. We left Nashville about 8.30am today for the three-and-a-bit-hour drive to Memphis (with a lunch-stop enroute where a couple of Aussies and I eschewed food in favour of an hour at Walmart across the road; it confused the Americans on our trip no-end). As sad as it is to admit it, I adore wandering Walmart's kitchen aisles and found a few things for the bach.
And then it was onto the birthplace of rock 'n roll. Our first stop was the National Civil Rights Museum which detailed a critical but troubled part of the city's history. By the time I got to the balcony at the Lorraine Motel where Dr Martin Luther King Jr was gunned down on 4 April 1968, I had a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball.
The balcony where Dr King was shot, kept as it was on that fateful day.
Later, I hit up Beale Street where, on the recommendation of my old J School buddy Dean (who I will be staying with in LA next weekend), I ate delicious shrimp tacos and rocked it to a band who couldn't have been cooler at the Blue Note Bar & Grill.
Making friends:
And then I went next door, to the Whittier Art Gallery where I totally lost my mind and paid far too much for, admittedly, a profoundly moving black and white print from the civil rights fight of the 60s. A lovely women snuggled it into oodles of wrapping to withstand the flight home so I can't show it to you right now but promise I will do the big reveal once I get it home and have it framed.
An early night tonight because tomorrow we have to be up early for Church (my mother will be flipping out when she reads this). A gospel church, that is. And then it's Graceland, baby. Prepare for total kitsch overload.
Here's a couple more visuals from today's tour of Memphis:
Anyway, another big day in the South. We left Nashville about 8.30am today for the three-and-a-bit-hour drive to Memphis (with a lunch-stop enroute where a couple of Aussies and I eschewed food in favour of an hour at Walmart across the road; it confused the Americans on our trip no-end). As sad as it is to admit it, I adore wandering Walmart's kitchen aisles and found a few things for the bach.
And then it was onto the birthplace of rock 'n roll. Our first stop was the National Civil Rights Museum which detailed a critical but troubled part of the city's history. By the time I got to the balcony at the Lorraine Motel where Dr Martin Luther King Jr was gunned down on 4 April 1968, I had a lump in my throat the size of a tennis ball.
The balcony where Dr King was shot, kept as it was on that fateful day.
Later, I hit up Beale Street where, on the recommendation of my old J School buddy Dean (who I will be staying with in LA next weekend), I ate delicious shrimp tacos and rocked it to a band who couldn't have been cooler at the Blue Note Bar & Grill.
Making friends:
And then I went next door, to the Whittier Art Gallery where I totally lost my mind and paid far too much for, admittedly, a profoundly moving black and white print from the civil rights fight of the 60s. A lovely women snuggled it into oodles of wrapping to withstand the flight home so I can't show it to you right now but promise I will do the big reveal once I get it home and have it framed.
An early night tonight because tomorrow we have to be up early for Church (my mother will be flipping out when she reads this). A gospel church, that is. And then it's Graceland, baby. Prepare for total kitsch overload.
Here's a couple more visuals from today's tour of Memphis:
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