Memphis

Day 1

As we left the Delta Queen to go to our hotel and settle in, we were humming the song "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn. Memphis is a city that carries with it a lot of expectations. People expect to hear the blues on every street, to see Elvis on every corner, and to chow down on ribs every week. Those expectations do not often get let down.

We settled in at the "Sleep Inn," located at Court Square right off of Main Street. To give you bearings of the area, the city generally runs parallel to the Mississippi River with the Main Street Trolley running three blocks in from the river alongside it.

Anyway, after settling in, our first stop was the Mississippi River Museum at Mud Island River Park. To get to the River Park, you need to walk to the Monorail to cross the small stretch of river. It's probably easiest to take the monorail, as opposed to a taxi, since you get a great view, and it's fast and easy.

The Mud Island River Park is famous because it has a scale model of the entire length of the Mississippi River that stretches for five blocks. You can literally cross the city of New Orleans in about two steps, and play Godzilla up and down the river, hopping over the flowing mini-river. Especially after riding the Delta Queen, it was a great idea to walk along the River Walk to see where we've actually gone. You also get a much better perspective on how truly curvy the river is once you've walked this model. I highly recommend it.

The River Museum is also completely dedicated to life on the Mississippi, taking you from the days of the Native Americans to the present sailors on the river. They even have a scale model of a riverboat, but having come from the Delta Queen, it was a bit anti-climactic. The Delta Queen is the real thing, but the other exhibits here more than made up for it. One of my favorites was the life-sized model you walked into of an iron clad from the Civil War. The museum is a high-class exhibit, which gives a great overview of the river and river life.

After running around through the museum and alongside the model of the river, we headed back to the hotel to prepare for dinner.

Locals seem to be rather peculiar about their ribs in Memphis. Some people prefer one restaurant's; some prefer the other. They will literally debate over the best ribs for hours. Small fights, wars, divorces and marriages were formed over the debates of these ribs. Out of the debates we overheard, the best two that were recommended to us were Blues City Cafe and Rendezvous. Tonight, we were trying the Blues City Cafe.

The Blues City Cafe looks a cross between a run-down deli and a cafeteria of sorts. It's not modern, it's not pretty, but it certainly has damn good ribs. People do not go there for the ambiance, but go there for the food. We had the over-baked shrimp for the appetizer, which was wonderful, then the ribs, which we thought were certainly worth the reputation.

The Blues City Cafe is located right at the beginning of Beale Street, so it's a great way of starting a stroll down Beale Street. Beale Street at night is very similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but without the excess and a little less lively. There is music on the street, and a party at each bar. The hub of activity lasts about three blocks and gives you a number of options on choosing which type of blues music you'd like to hear. Acoustic, electric ... you name the jazz, and it's there.

After exploring the Beale Street at night, we needed to walk back to the hotel, which was an adventure in itself. Most people in town warn you that there is a bit of excessive homelessness in the area. We were in fact approached no less than four times in just the six blocks or so to walk home. Being a dark and deserted street, it gets you a bit nervous. In the future, if your goal is to go to the Beale Street area, I'd recommend staying between the Peabody Center and Beale Street, so you'll be in the heart of it all and not need to walk through some of the more desolated areas. Once you walk away from that section, it gets me a bit nervous and feels slightly unsafe.

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