04-14-11 Four states in one day

04-14-11
You can take me where you will
Up the creek and through the mill
Like all the things you can't explain
Four states in one day
348 Miles
I get about 3-4 hours sleep and wake around 6:45 am.. The sun is warming and I type my note up and post them. I find that two friends have replied to my “pledge drive” and my “Room to move” post of the day takes on new meaning.
I am ready to get going in some direction by 11 am, but where? I can now finish off Tennessee week by going up to Memphis, Or I can repeat my pattern of two days before and get a campsite and catch up with sleep. My body is leaning towards the latter, but reports of more storms heading this way for Friday & Saturday make me consider that my window of opportunity is closing and as in the prior day’s quote - and you’re caught half way up, don’t want to go back. So you keep moving on, compromising the lack.
So “on” It is.
I get one I-55 at first thinking that I’m going to camp at nearby Sardis Lake…but the marker says Memphis 60 miles and the decision is already made.
We get to the visitor’s center around noon and I get and mark a couple of maps of Memphis with the places I want to get pictures of. Places I missed getting pictures of on my prior visit to the town in 1993.
I had a two hour lay over on my way to Austin, Tx and I hailed a cabbie and said what I wanted to do and could it be done before my plain took off. “Get in” he said! A side note to this side note. This was my first and last personally hailed cab ride. It was a great one!
He took me to Graceland parking lot (where the plane and cars are kept) and let me off in front of the gates of Graceland (try doing either of those things now!) Then he took me to my first choice of destination - Beale St. (The Marc Cohn song “Walking I Memphis” had just made a splash the year before and I wanted to be able to say I’d been “Walking I Memphis” with my feet at least two feet off of Beale. He showed me the statue of Elvis (at the time is was just in the center of a flat grassy square, now it’s a multilevel landscaped park setting). He drove me up Beale past B.B. King’s BBQ Joint (the street is now closed be all but foot traffic) and the Gibson buildings were not in evidence back then.
He took me by another place that changed the feeling immediately.
The Lorraine Motel. The place where Martin Luther King was assassinated. I’d only seen the pictures of people pointing from the balcony railing by the room and was surprised to see that the street level was almost at the same level as the room. And it was still the Lorraine Motel - The National Civil Rights Museum had opened, but it was nothing like it is today.
On this trip I addend in some missed locations - Stax Records studios; Sun studios; the Peabody Hotel and a shot of the Mississippi River.
I also had it to see what W.C Handy was doing with another home in Memphis - I’d already been to his home in Florence (He was getting as many places as Andrew Jackson!)
The maps they listed are less informative than I found helpful (read I got lost a few times - check that - I knew where “I” was, I just wasn’t sure where I was “was”.
I found my way to 51 north. (On the map it looked like a shorter drive) My plan was to head north to the 155 near Dyerstown and head over the Mississippi into Missouri and Caurthersville, the childhood home of my maternal Grandmother, Maude Viola Smythe. I’d hoped to see if there were any Smythe relatives around.
I got to the town library at 6:03 pm, thinking that would be a great place to begin. It might have been had the Library not closed at 5:30 pm.
So I make the best of it and take pictures of the old town areas and head south.
(This is where the “Four” States in one day comes in. I failed to realize that to get back to Memphis from the Missouri side I would be passing through Arkansas to get there. It’s already getting dark by the time I cross the Arkansas state line.
But as Stevie sang:
It’s Been a hard day and I don't know what to do
Wait a minute Baby, this could happen to you
Well…maybe not YOU!
I get back to the Batesville Truck Stop I will call my home for the 3rd night because The Weather Channel is showing severe weather forecasts and that heavy rains will begin at 1am and continue until 5pm the next day. Camping would be a literal wash out. Better to stay in the uncomfortable car with shelter nearby inside than to risk being stuck in the mud on some back road with no resources close.
As I write this it is just about 5:30 am and there have only been a few drops so far.
But It is now upon us. A little late but lightening and thunder just announced itself as the vanguard of the storm front about to lay siege.
That’s it for this day.
Waddya want, Rubber biscuits? (Ba-bow-bow-bow!)