Memphis & Nashville, TN

I’ve gotten a little behind on documenting our travels. In real-time, we’ve been at home in NC since the weekend before Thanksgiving and have been spending time with family and taking care of all our annual appointments.

Last month, we spent the first couple of weeks of November continuing our eastbound I-40 journey through Tennessee. Our first stop was Memphis, where our friends Mark and Diana live.

We stayed at Tom Sawyer RV Park, actually located across the Mississippi River in West Memphis, AR, but was an easy 15-minute drive to downtown Memphis. While we prefer public campgrounds, this was a great private one. It was reasonably priced, had large sites and free laundry, and we watched the tugs and barges moving up and down the river all day.

The weather was great for most of the week and in the afternoons we explored the city’s parks and streets. The cover photo as well as the photo on the left below is from Mud Island Park. The photo on the right is Sun Studio, the birthplace of rock-n-roll, where legends like Elvis and Johnny Cash were discovered and recorded.

We met our friends for dinner a few times. At their suggestion, we had delicious food at Central BBQ, South of Beale, Maciel’s Tacos, and The Cheese Cake Corner (best ever).

We also walked over to Beale Street to see the shiny lights and listen to music.

On Saturday, we spent a couple of emotional hours at the National Civil Rights Museum. The museum is located inside the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. MLK Jr was assassinated while there to participate in a sanitation worker strike.

Next, we headed over to the Peabody Hotel to see the Peabody ducks walk the red carpet from their daytime digs in the lobby bar’s fountain to their nighttime penthouse. In the 1930s, the duck hunting/Tennessee whisky-sipping manager thought it would be funny to put live decoys in the fountain. Everyone loved the ducks (obviously), so the hotel has had ducks ever since.

Our next home for a week was Cedars of Lebanon State Park, located 40 min east of downtown Nashville where we were able to snag one of the few full hookup sites.

We stopped here with plans to see our friends Greg and Meredith but sadly that ended up not happening because of cold/flu season.

On Tuesday night, we went to the Grand Ole Opry, which in our opinion is a must-do thing in Nashville. The Opry is actually a live radio show that occurs a couple of times a week and consists of 8 artists performing 3 songs each. There are usually first-time Opry performers, country/bluegrass legends, and a superstar each night. We had the cheapest seats which were plenty good for us because it’s really not that large of a venue. We had a great experience and if we ever visit Nashville again, we will definitely go to the Opry again.

On Friday afternoon we headed downtown to the Broadway Street area, aka the Bachelorette Party Capital of the East.

We walked by the Ryman Auditorium, where the Opry used to be located. We had a beer at the famous Tootsie’s bar, which was slammed in the middle of the afternoon, followed by dinner at Hattie B’s Hot Chicken. And then walked around again after dark to see all the neon signs!