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Published: September 23rd 2012
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Tennessee!
We started in Nashville, home of country and found a great little venue called the "Bluebird Cafe" to listen to some great live music. The main act had several great guests including her dad, Ray Stevens who happened to be a 2x Grammy Award winner, inducted in the Country Hall of fame and is most famous for his song "Everything is beautiful". Not bad for a random cafe! We were able to park overnight in the parking lot and survived the night of pretty horrible humid muggy weather. We started the morning with a quick stop at the Grand Ole' Opry, then on to Memphis. Our first stop was the museum of metal...no not heavy metal, literally, metal. Charles recently started building a forge and has made some really neat and functional metal pieces with his welder and our guide book recommended a "National Ornamental Metal Museum", so he was all over it. We pulled up to the gorgeously designed gate covered with amazingly detailed metal pieces and I actually started getting interested. The museum was pretty interesting with amazing designs and Charles got to talk to a blacksmith artist making things in his big forge which was pretty
neat. They had designed several sculptures, gates, benches, etc for the city as well as for private parties. Once they made a crown for a goat!...not sure of the full story there...
We got our metal fix and we were planning to just park outside the museum's gates beside a beautiful park for the night and call a cab to take us downtown for the evening. We got ready in our camper and in the meantime a game of bball started up in the park at the basketball net and C joking about our new "home" stated he should join in on a game. Our cabbie just pulled up when a Ducati motorcycle pulled up as well and the rider asked "Are you ok?" I answered, "Yeah we're fine, just parking here for night, thanks" as I then recognized him as the blacksmith from the museum. He replied "Well, this isn't the best neighbourhood to park in..." Charles and him talked for a few minutes and since he lived on the museum grounds he offered for us to park behind the Museum's gates for the night...and the chance of having a camper at the end of the night would
slightly increase, and if we're lucky our tires wouldn't be slashed... Mike (the blacksmith) also stated that the dudes that Charles was going to casually play basketball with were most likey waiting for us to leave so they could raid our camper...nice, so much for our score of a parking spot! I got into the cab and the driver confirmed Mike's statement by saying "You can't park on this street for night, those brotha's were coming for ya right now!"
Having mixed feellings about Memphis we still went out to the famous "Beale Street" where B.B. King and other blues and jazz artists got their start. We found it a little over the top with the crazy neon lights everywhere and kids literally doing handsprings down the streets for some tourist change, but we found some fun music and tried some deep fried pickles. At the end of the night we returned to our still intact Eugene waiting behind those nice, secure ornamental metal gates.
The next morning we visited "Sun Studio" where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and several other famous musicians had recorded. Even though I'm not the hugest Elvis fan ever, it was still kind
of neat to stand in the actual spot he did and touch the microphone he sang into when he recorded for the first time!
After a quick drive-by past Graceland, we headed up through Arkansas to Manhatten...the one in Kansas, to visit Margaret, one of Charles' friends from university. On the way we stopped in Kansas City, Missouri for "the country's best BBQ". We got in line and admired all the photos of celebrities that had eaten there, including Sally Field, John McCain and Sarah Palin with high expectations. The person in front of us ordered 2 steak sandwiches and fries. The guy behind the window pulled out a piece of that brown meat butcher paper, literally threw down 2 slices of white wonder bread, piled about 5 inches of sliced steak on and randomly threw some pickles, fries and 2 more pieces of that white wonder bread in the mix. He then wrapped it all up like a burrito using that butcher paper. She must have looked as astounded as we did because he looked at her and said "What, aren't you hungry?". At this point I'll add that the dude behind the counter looked like a huge
scary football player stuck making sandwiches instead of enjoying his true calling, as a football player, or a mobster or something... She replied "Yes", and took the burrito and paid up. We quickly learned not to ask "to go" to avoid the butcher paper burrito, so instead we got it all piled on a plate. It was however pretty delicious BBQ, even if presentation wasn't their strong point.
After a night in Manhatten, Margaret recommended a museum on the way to Colorado called the "Garden of Eden". Not expecting much from a random museum in the middle of rural Kansas, we were pleasantly surprised by the crazy, eccentric concrete statues built by a farmer starting when he was 64 til he was about 84. The statues were based on Biblical characters as well as having populist themes depicting the "crucifixion of the labourer" by lawyers, bankers, pastors, etc. We also got to view the old man himself as he was in a coffin with a glass cover in a mausaleum on the grounds. Interesting way to want to be remembered...
Next up Colorado!
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