Stuck Inside of Mobile With The MEMPHIS BLUES Again

 

As a continuation of my post about Memphis, here's another shot of Beale Street - home of the Blues.

There was a Hard Rock Cafe there - and as much as I was kind of sad to see such a 'commercial' place in an area of such local culture.......it was designed really well!  Guitars all around......I love the door handles.

And of course, the awesome sign....

Even the fence around the entrance has guitars on it!

Beale Street was a hotbed of  culture, history, music and eclectic stuff.

This was the place that Jenks and I went to watch a blues band for the evening.....

 

If I liked beer, this would've been an awesome sign.....

Jenks IS a beer fan, so he partook of the Beale Big Ass Beer!

There were guitars hanging from the ceiling all over the bar and they had tags on them with names - I guess those stars donated the guitar to the bar?

And on the pole in the spiral staircase up to the second level were these $1 bills signed.  Weird!

This was the view out the window of the blues bar - that's Beale Street.

Here is the blues band that we watched.  Lots of harmonica action going on!

And after that bar, we went down to another one and watched another band play. 

Walkin' In Memphis

 

One of the big highlights of our road trip from Dallas to Greensboro, NC was a 1-day stop in Memphis.  We didn't have much time there, but we experienced a lot!  True to Marc Cohn's song, we were "Walking In Memphis"....

Here's Beale Street!

Memphis is known for Blues and BBQ - we saw a LOT of both.

 

This rule wasn't so much an issue - I can't stay out that late anymore at my age!  Plus, I had a bad cold, so there was no way I was staying out that late....oh, and it was a Tuesday night.  hahaha

Too funny - a place called Wet Willie's......

Ummmm......yes please.  :)

I can definitely vouch for the fact that there was NO shortage of blues joints on Beale Street!

 

 Also in Marc Cohn's song, he mentions Union Avenue - here it is!

 

A little history on Beale Street.....

And what's the blues without B.B. King?!

I LOVE this - "Put some South in your Mouth!"

I really wanted to ride in one of these carriages, but we didn't.  Alas, a reason to go back.  :)

It was a pretty tame night since it was a Tuesday, but that's just how I like it.  I'm not a fan of big crowds, so it was just PERFECT with the sparse group of folks out that night.

 This place is where we listened to the Blues - our hotel was just the next street over from Beale Street and this was right behind it on Beale.  I just wish I would've felt better - it's not cool being sick on a vacation!

Down The Mississippi

This post really should be titled "Mississippi Randomness" or something. After we toured the battlefield in Vicksburg, we started the drive up to Memphis along the Mississippi River. We thought we would find a ton of cool little towns like we find on our Texas roadtrips, but we just didn't.....

However, we did find Rolling Fork, Mississippi - a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.

The reason that they have a guitar on their sign is because this is the home of Muddy Waters!

Very cool mural on the edge of town.

And this town was kind of interesting - Cleveland! I thought it was weird when I found Detroit, Texas.....but Cleveland, Mississippi?? What's the deal - did we run out of creative names and had to recycle??

Ummm....yes, we're still in the deep south - we were driving down "Cotton Row"!

They weren't lying when they said that "Cotton is King" in the deep south - we drove north alongside the Mississippi River up to Memphis and there were cotton fields the WHOLE WAY.

Fish Out Of Water

One of the stops during our tour of the Civil War battlefield at Vicksburg, Mississippi was a museum and the remains of the USS Cairo. She was underwater in the river for about 100 years - from 1864 when she was sunk to 1964 when they pulled her back up.

Here is a blown up picture of how she looked back in the war....

And this is her now - you can tell what is new restoration and what is the original rotted wood!

I'm not sure if the cannons are original, but I'm guessing they were put in the correct locations to make it historically accurate.

New wood on top, original wood on the bottom. Crazy.

Looking down the barrel.....glad I'm on this side and not the receiving end!

You could go onto the boat and everything - it was so neat. And they put that dome/tent over it, so it wasn't as hot.....

The curved wood was just beautiful.....

Look at that fancy curved wood - just amazing!

Ummmm.....ok. I guess.

Lots of gears connected to each other - ah, the mind of an engineer (I do NOT have one of those, BTW).

I wasn't that into the boat when we first walked up to it, but this was just so neat!

When the boat was in its entirety, the sides would be covered with iron to fend off attacks.

Here it is partially covered....

And here's the end that is totally covered to show you what it would've looked like.