Days 81 - 83
Nashville to Memphis, Tennessee
It was a pleasant drive from Nashville to Memphis. Memphis is located right on the Mississippi River, with the other side of the river being in Arkansas. The town in Arkansas is called West Memphis, which is where our campground was located. The campground is right on the Mississippi, and we watched the boat traffic for the two nights/three days that we were there. Most of the boat traffic is large barges being pushed by tug boats. The tugs are working quite hard and you heard this deep rumbling all through the night as barges pass slowly by.
As we arrived in Clarksdale we passed "the Crossroads", made famous in many stories as well as a song by Cream.
The tour included seeing his airplanes, cars, motorcycles, and golf carts that he collected. His private jet had gold-plated sinks and faucet handles!
Tomorrow we head west through the rest of Arkansas.
Unfortunately, it was a Sunday and just about everything was closed! We weren't able to tour the Blues Museum or visit Ground Zero like we would have wanted to.
Things we wanted to see in Memphis include Beale Street, Graceland, the Lorraine Motel Civil Rights Museum, and to enjoy some pretty-good BBQ. We signed up for a tour of Graceland, and they do a pretty good job.
Elvis had several Harley-Davidsons on display, but I was much more interested in this 1965 Honda CB305! (I had a 1970 CL450!)
The next day we headed south of Memphis along the Blues Trail to Clarksdale, Mississippi - Home of the Blues. Along the way we passed many cotton fields. In some the cotton had not yet been harvested, while in others the cotton had been picked and compressed into these large plastic-wrapped rolls.
But, we did enjoy some street art and then later found a Mexican restaurant that was open and had a nice lunch.