Beale Street Blues - Kinda Close

A vacation to Memphis in the middle of winter. Maybe that doesn’t exactly sound exciting, but at least it sounds warmer than Waukesha in February. So we had planned to visit the source of the Beale Street Blues for the better part of a week.

You can listen to Louis sing and play Beale Street Blues here: https://youtu.be/MKnAub5-LNE

Carriage house and carport from the alley

Leaving Waukesha

One fine Sunday afternoon - January 30, 2022, to be exact - we packed up the car and headed south, mainly for that warmer weather. Since it was already sorta late in the day, we planned to drive only as far as Champaign, Illinois, where we’d spend the night at a Baymont hotel.

This was the first time I had a real chance to use the cruise control on our 2022 Sonata. I’m going to digress here from the main thread of our vacation story to talk a little (or may be a lot) about our car. I hope I don’t sound like I’m bragging that we have the car. There are just some cool things about it that I want y’all to know, and this seemed like as good a time and place to tell you as any.

If you’re not interested (but I really think you should be for reasons which will become evident as you read this section) in this vehicle section, you can probably safely skip down to The Carriage House section and not miss too much of the vacation story.

Our previous car was a 2012 Accord. We have never owned anything dated 2013 through 2021. I mention this because some of the things I’m going to explain about our 2022 may apply to models from some of those earlier years. Maybe you even own a car that has some or all of the features described below.

Getting back now to the cruise control. When you’re on the freeway and engage the cruise control, several nifty features kick in. You can almost drive without touching the wheel (like in that knee-slapping-hand-clapping Queen commercial), but you shouldn’t. In fact, the car “yells” at you if it has to correct your driving too much. By “yells” I mean that a message saying, “Keep both hands on the steering wheel” appears on the dash directly in front of the driver.

At freeway speeds (actually, anything above 40 mph) and when the car’s sensors can detect painted center and/or side lines on the pavement, the steering wheel will gently nudge you in the correct direction if you get too close to the lines. (This part is actually separate from the cruise control.)

If you approach a vehicle that’s going slower than you are, when you get within 4 car lengths of it, your own car will slow down to maintain that distance. If a car has just passed you and it slides back into your lane but continues to increase its distance from you, nothing special happens. The sensors are that sensitive and smart.

As that car is passing you, a symbol - consisting of your car, a sensor beacon, and a car in your blind spot - that is embedded into your side mirror lights up, alerting you that something is in said blind spot.

Combining that blind spot sensor (one on the right side too) with the rear view cameras that show what’s behind you when you shift into Reverse, and you theoretically should never have to turn your head around (when driving) again - except maybe to see what the kids are up to. (And even that may be a thing of the past according to a different commercial I’ve seen for a different model I don’t remember.)

[soapbox] Every car on the road today should be equipped with all these features.

You should strive to own one of these cars ASAP. [/soapbox]

Now, back to our vacation story.

The Carriage House

The second day of our journey (Champaign to Memphis) was fairly uneventful. New Madrid does seem to still take pride in that big earthquake they had a few years back (1811-12).

The only other thing of note for me personally was that this was the first time I had actually driven in Arkansas. That makes either 28 or 29 states (depending on whether I’ve driven in Kansas or not…can’t recall) that I have operated a vehicle in.

We had reserved several days at a carriage house in central Memphis. This is a small building that was apparently once used to store a carriage when not in use. We’re not sure if the horse(s) were kept there too. It is accessed (today) via a very narrow alley halfway between Washington and Poplar streets. The main residence is on Washington, but we had no dealings with the people who live there. The landlords of the carriage house actually live elsewhere.

As you can see in the pictures below, there’s not a lot to the place, and yet there was more than we actually needed. It’s kind of like living in one of those “tiny houses”. It’s all there; it’s just packed more tightly together.

Carriage house from the carport

Entryway holds the Internet

Kitchen at the far left (west)

Living room with TV and table for gaming

12 steps to the 2nd floor

Bathroom and closet from top of stairs

Bedroom, essentially the whole floor

Not-too-useful upper deck

Mud Island and Overton Park

On Tuesday, we decided first to explore Mud Island. (Wonderful name, yesno?) This is a spit of land, connected to Memphis proper, that extends into the Mississippi River.

By the way, if you haven’t yet, you should look up Memphis on a map. I bet it’s not located as far east or north as you thought it was.

We first stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center (down by the river) to check on parking and access to the “island”. The nice lady there said we could stay parked in their lot (unusual, I think) and walk a couple blocks to the entrance of a walkway/bridge that would take us to Mud Island. We were cautioned that there was nothing currently open there (which we knew), but that was fine with us because we were just out for a walk anyway.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was February - off-season for most outdoors places - even in Memphis. 60 degrees and lack of snow will affect a Wisconsinite that way.

I snapped a shot of the famous(?) pyramid as we walked away from the Welcome Center.

Bass Pro Shops pyramid

See the history of the pyramid here.

This is the bridge we walked from the mainland to Mud Island (and back).

Several blocks long

Here's a view of part of the Mud Island park from the bridge.

Park from above

Yonder is a more major bridge over the Mississippi River (I-55)

Bridge to the south

We drove in and out of Memphis over this I-40 bridge. Apparently the "M" arches can be lit up at night.

Bridge to the north

On Mud Island, there is a detailed replica of the Lower Mississippi River. It currently doesn't have water in it. There were a couple of workers reconstructing the section for Memphis.

Looking at a section of the replica

There's a relatively new sign that tells you what city it is you're looking at. We saw a dude having fun flying his quadcopter (drone) in this open area.

Memphis in a very big font

In the afternoon, we walked some of the paths through the wooded area of Overton Park on the eastern end of the big “block” in which the Memphis Zoo is also located. We were hoping to find the 35 educational markers along the way and didn’t realize until after we were back “home” that we had missed them by taking the “wrong” path. Oh well, maybe next time.

Memphis Zoo

On Wednesday, we went to the zoo, located in the northwestern part of that same block. It wasn’t the greatest day weatherwise, but we did still get to see many, if not most, of the animals. We saw lots of primates, cats, and birds. Birds included flamingos, a kookaburra, sandhill cranes (and what seemed to be their cousins), hornbills, bald eagles, a burgundy-colored bird that I’d never heard of (and obviously can’t remember the name of now), and lots more. There was even a neat free-flying indoor area to walk through.

It’s a very-well-laid-out zoo. Unlike Milwaukee’s (IIRC), you can see just about everything without backtracking or recrossing your path.

Quilting and Grocery Stores

After the zoo, we drove east, past the beltline, to look for a quilting shop that we thought we’d seen online. Sadly, it no longer exists.

On the way back to the carriage house, we stopped at a Kroger grocery store. We were surprised at how busy it was on a Wednesday afternoon around 2:00.

Then it dawned on me. There was an ice storm predicted for that night and the following day. This was Memphis. That’s technically down south. They don’t handle things like snow, ice, and cold very well there. So people were probably stocking up on food on Wednesday in preparation for a bad Thursday. I’m not 100% sure that was the reason, but I’m at least 90%.

Ice Storm

Saying that they don’t handle bad winter weather very well in the South may have been an understatement.

The storm did hit, as predicted - go figure. We had planned to stay indoors in case it did. What we hadn’t counted on was losing power, which we did about 11:00 on Thursday morning.

We survived by playing board games we’d brought along - Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries (ironic, now that I think about it), Suburbia, Code Names Duet, and Isle of Trains - while partially covered with a big quilt the owners had furnished.

Earlier, at about 9:45, the tree just outside the living room window gave way to its load of ice.

Taken after the 2nd snap

We’d been hearing the snap-SNAP-whoosh-rattle-fwhump of branches falling from trees in the neighborhood, and I had been wondering how soon it would be before one really close tumbled. Eventually, a second branch from the same tree fell. Those were the only two falls that could have, but didn’t, affect the carriage house.

When it got dark around 5:30, we took that quilt upstairs to the bedroom, remained in our street clothes, and tucked in under about four layers of bedding. I think the last snap-whoosh-fwhump I heard happened around 10:00.

We mostly stayed there till around 6:00 the next morning.

Phones with built-in flashlights are awesome.

The first two nights, it was really obvious that the carriage house was in the northern flight path for (Fedex) planes landing at Memphis International. By the third night, the wind must have changed direction enough that the air traffic controllers started to have planes come in from the south. The next night, virtually no one was going in or out via the skies.

The Return and Quilting Store 2.0

On Friday morning then, at 6:45, we left Memphis and retraced our path toward Waukesha.

The roads weren’t bad at first. There was always at least one lane open in Arkansas. As soon as we hit the Missouri state line, that changed. The Missouri plows hadn’t kept up with the ice storm. It wasn’t slippery; it was often really rough due to partially-ice-covered roads. As soon as we hit the Illinois state line, both lanes were clear.

So, Missouri, you can’t tell me it was impossible to keep your roads clean. For shame! We lost about 2 hours of travel time creeping through your “heel”.

We went back to the same Champaign hotel on Friday night. Next door to the hotel was a quilting store (that I had actually seen the first time around). We went there before supper so Karen could do a little shopping. She bought some fabric (Color? Guess.) and a pattern.

The remainder of our trip home on Saturday was uneventful.

All in all, a good adventure was had by both.

Oh, one more plug for getting that newer car. You can easily get over 40 mpg on the freeway, at least, if you get a hybrid. Just sayin’.