Memphis, St. Louis & Indianapolis

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We’ve had a lovely past couple of days in St. Louis. By coincidence, Craig’s dad Rob was here for business at the same time as us and had organised to stay in the same hotel. It was so nice seeing someone from home, and Craig in particular loved spending some time with his dad. It was also really nice that he was able to take home a suitcase full of souvenirs for us! We’re not all loaded up anymore, yay! (Until we start buying more stuff again, that is).

But before I write about St. Louis, I’ll fill you all in on Memphis. We didn’t arrive in Memphis until 5am one morning. We had that delayed flight from Washington to Detroit and hence had to take a later plane from Detroit to Chicago. We hired a car in Chicago and didn’t really get going until about 5pm. We thought the drive from Chicago to Memphis was going to take us about 6-7 hours, as that was what Google told us when we were planning things a few months ago. That was ambitious in itself after spending the morning flying. But when we looked up the route on Google in Washington, it told us it was going to take 9 hours! It was obviously Google’s mistake, as I’d printed out the original map with the time of 6 hours and 35 minutes. So it was going to be incredibly ambitious to drive all that way in one day, particularly with the delayed flight. But we’d booked and paid for our accommodation in Memphis and really didn’t want to spend money on another night’s accommodation, so decided to try and get there that night anyway.

Craig did all the driving, as it would have cost an extra $130 to add me as a driver. He did such a good job! We stopped along the way for some dinner and took sometime looking through a nearby sporting goods store. We figured we were already going to be really late getting into Memphis, so what the hell? We also stopped a couple of hours out of Memphis so that Craig could have a 15 minute power nap. But apart from that and a few service station restroom stops, we pretty much drove straight there in the one stretch. (I win! - Craig)

We were so tired by the time we got to the hotel! We went straight to bed and slept until about 1pm.

That afternoon we headed down to Beale St to have a look around. It had so many bars and pubs crammed into this short stretch of the street, and hearing music blaring from each one even in the middle of the day made it a pretty cool atmosphere.

The next day we visited Graceland. It was smaller than I expected it to be. I’m not a huge fan of Elvis, but it’s hard not to get a bit swept up in the Elvis mania in Memphis. Everyone was just so excited to be there at Graceland. Seeing the 70s style décor inside was really cool, too. Shag carpets on the floors, and even on the walls and ceilings of some rooms. A waterfall inside a rumpus room. Elvis’ own personal racquet ball court (now converted into a little museum for his awards and clothes). His grave site was also located on the Graceland property, along with his parents and his grandmother (who happened to outlive both her son and daughter in law(Elvis’ parents) and also her grandson). Elvis’ grave site was apparently originally at a nearby cemetery, but was moved due to the volume of people visiting it.

Opposite the Graceland mansion they had a few other museums dedicated to Elvis. There was his car and motorbike collection, and you could hop onboard his private airplane which was called the Lisa Marie. The plane was so nicely decorated inside, the sinks in the two bathrooms and the seat belt buckles were even gold plated! Man, I’d love to have my own private jet!

The hotel we stayed at was pretty much right opposite Graceland, and it even had a guitar shaped swimming pool with nearby loud speakers that played Elvis (of course!) all day. After we’d gone to Graceland, I spent the whole afternoon in the pool and lazing by the pool, reading. It was a beautiful day, and the best way to spend it!

A couple of other things we did in Memphis was visit Sun City Studios (where Elvis recorded his first songs) and go to the Peabody Hotel, of which the lobby fountain is the home of a family of ducks! (It’s not everyday you see ducks just living in a fountain in the main lobby of a hotel! Pretty cool stuff! - Craig)

The next day we drove to St. Louis, stopping at Metropolis along the way. Metropolis had a big statue of Superman and a kitschy Superman museum that was a bit of fun & was definitely worth the 2 hours it added to our trip to St Louis.

Rob came out with us for a day of sightseeing on Tuesday in St. Louis. Our first stop was at the Cahokia Mounds, the site of an old Indian reservation. The Indians built these large mounds all around their settlement for the leaders of the tribe to live overlooking the settlement, and for spiritual buildings. None of the buildings remain, but you can still see all the mounds. One of the mounds was so big that if a class of 30 schoolkids carried eight big baskets of dirt per day each to build it, it would have taken them 167 years! They had a pretty cool visitors centre & museum there too.

While driving to our next destination, Craig just happened to make a wrong turn which lead us to a classic cars showroom. Well, Craig says he made a wrong turn, but it’s all very coincidental, hey? Maybe he just has an internal radar for that sort of stuff. Craig and Rob had a great time looking at all the classic cars and adding items to their wish list. (This place was really cool, all the cars on show were on sale & let me tell you there were some amazing cars in there, ranging from Mustangs to Dodge Vipers to Corvettes to Hot Rods & so on. The best wrong turn I’ve ever taken I think! - Craig)

We went up the Gateway Arch in the afternoon. It was amazing, you go up in this tiny little tram car that seats five people (only just - we’re all squashed up against each other). It takes about four minutes to get to the top. It’s an amazing view from the top, and we got some great photos. It’s a little bit hairy, looking down from the windows to see nothing underneath you! (It’s pretty funny when Stef is scared of the heights & I’m not, seeing as I’m usually completely petrified! It really was fantastic & we had a great time up the arch - Craig)

On our second day in St. Louis Craig and I went to City Museum. We had read in the Lonely Planet that it was an adventure museum made from mostly recycled materials, and we didn’t really know what to expect. It was amazing! There were heaps of things to crawl through and explore, and they even had a ten story tall slide to go down! They also had a big yellow school bus half hanging off the top of the building, and you could go inside it. We had a ball reliving our childhoods, although some of the things we tried to go through were a bit of a tight squeeze! (I gave a few of the kids tunnels a crack, although after pretty much getting stuck at one point, decided I better not try anymore, despite the extreme urge I had to do so! - Craig)

Inside the museum they had an aquarium full of rescued fish and marine life. They also had a lot of mammals in there. There were a couple of birds to greet us as we walked in, and they had a couple of normal animals like hamsters and ferrets that you could pat. They had heaps of snakes, spiders (now why would you want to rescue spiders?!), lizards and alligators. There were also turtles, including a rare albino turtle which was really cool. In a large tank they had sharks and big turtles, and you could crawl through a clear pipe through the tank. While we were doing this a big turtle swam straight up to us and started knocking his head on the glass. I’m sure he was coming over to say hello! Some of the other animals they had included sea otters, an anteater and sloths. They also had a snake with two heads, and a conjoined turtle!

After the City Museum we headed to the Anheuser Busch Brewery, the company that brews Budweiser. (From here we went on a tour of the brewery, which to our amazement was free. It took us all throughout the brewery & showed us how the beer is brewed of course, but also to these incredible stables where some of the Budweiser Clydesdales are. If you aren’t aware, the Clydesdales are a famous tradition of Bud, as they used to deliver all the beer on horse drawn carts with the amazingly looking horses, as well as a Dalmatian riding up on the beer. At the end of the tour we got to have a sample of two beers each, with the best thing being the samples were actually pots! Not bad for a free tour! By the way, I found out on the tour that Anheuser Busch actually own Stella Artois & Becks, so for all of you that think these are such classy beers, well guess what, they are simply glorified Budweiser’s hahaha! - Craig)

Craig caught a couple of baseball games while in St. Louis, too. We had timed our visit to St. Louis to coincide with the St Louis Cardinals playing the Chicago Cubs three nights in a row. It was the first time Craig had seen the Cubs play, so he was really excited. And they won all three games, which was awesome! Craig went to a game by himself on our first night in St. Louis (Rob hadn’t arrived yet), and on our last night in St. Louis one of Rob’s business associates treated us to the baseball. He’d managed to get tickets only about 15 rows from the front right near the home plate, it was such a fantastic view! (The baseball tickets to the second game were amazing, the seats were so close to the action it wasn’t funny! I don’t know how I’m going to go back to the usual pleb seats now! It was fantastic getting to 2 games to see my team in action, plus to have them win over the arch rivals was great. Even better was the fact we pretty much eliminated St Louis from playoff contention, when we have a pretty poor season & were out of the playoffs basically 2 months ago! Awesome! - Craig)

The next day we drove from St. Louis to Indianapolis. Along the way we stopped at the Purina Farm. It had sounded pretty cool in the guidebook but it wasn’t all that good. They had a few dogs, but they were all in cages so you couldn’t pat them. Not that we really wanted to pat them after a boxer barked and barked at us when we first entered the building. But a few of the dogs did put on a show for us. They had dogs jumping up metres in the air to catch Frisbees, and running through obstacle courses.

They had a two story cat house there which was pretty cool. They had stairs winding around the house so you could have a look at all the cats’ little hidey-holes. One cat came up to us and started fu-nudging the rope barrier between us and we gave her a pat.

They also had some cows and horses, and some gorgeous little three-week-old piglets! They were so, so cute!

On the way back onto the freeway from the Purina Farm we came across a fireworks store. (Not just a store, a fireworks supermarket! - Craig) Of course we had to go in to check it out! They had SO many fireworks, and they were all really cheap too. Craig and I really wanted to buy some to try them out, but unfortunately we really don’t have anywhere to test them! We did buy something though, some snap dragons that just make a bang when you throw them on the floor for a measly 39 cents!

The drive from St. Louis to Indianapolis took about four hours. We stayed at a hostel that was just a normal house in a suburban neighbourhood. I think we were the only people staying there last night. (It turned out to be pretty nice, although the bed was really tiny for me, with my feet dangling about a foot off the end of the bed. Also Stef wouldn’t have heard as she was pretty out of it, but a whole heap of other people came back to the hostel, ranging from 2am to about 4am, who seemed pretty drunk from all the noise they were making! - Craig)

Today we visited the Indiana Medical Museum. The building we went into was an old autopsy, pathology and chemistry lab that had been part of a mental institution from the late 1800s to the 1960s. In the 1960s the hospital closed and the lab was just abandoned. Everything that was in there was left from when the lab was disused. We got taken on a tour of the morgue, the lecture hall and different labs. They had lots of old equipment which was really cool to look at. Even Craig enjoyed himself, which is unusual for something medically related!

After that we went to the Indy 500 Speedway. Bor-ing. Craig really enjoyed it, though. I’ll let him talk about it. (It was so amazing to actually go to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, also known as the brickyard! I really enjoyed wandering around the museum, checking out all the former winning cars from the races as well as taking in all the history of the 100 year old track. We also got to take a bus ride for a lap around the track, which was just incredible to do! I really enjoyed the tour & am glad to have been able to do so, now all I’ve got to do is see an Indy 500 race there someday! - Craig)

Then we went to the NCAA museum. (Stef wasn’t really interested in this one, so I went in & checked it out myself. It was a museum that simply had things from all the college sports, which the NCAA controls. There wasn’t a great deal inside, but there were some cool interactive exhibits where I was able to shoot a few hoops(both interactive & on a real half court), throw baseballs & footballs at an interactive screen as well as kick a few goals with the soccer ball on the screens too. - Craig)

We’re currently on our way to Champaign, Illinois, the place where Craig lived with his family for a few months when he was 14. He’s looking forward to showing me around. And tomorrow night we have our first night in the fantasy hotel, I can’t wait!

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