When I think of Memphis, I think of music. It is known for great musicians and genres that got their start there. Would we know of the Blues and Elvis without Memphis? However, the city of Memphis is so much more than its music.
Must See Museums
Science, music, art, history, culture, historical sites, and the Mississippi river are all highlighted in museums around the city. There are enough to make every museum-goer happy. With only two and a half days we hit the ground running when we arrived in the city.
this place gave me chills!
National Civil Rights Museum
As I walked down Main Street on my way to the National Civil Rights Museum, I had no idea where I was going and what I was going to see. We turned down the walkway and the Lorraine Motel came into view. I can only imagine what the view looked like to an African American in the 1960s, when that was a rare refuge for them, a motel that would accept patrons of their skin color. Well until April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated on the balcony outside of his room. He was in the city to help fight for the rights of sanitation workers. He spoke at the Mason Temple the night before and spoke of how he had been to the mountain “And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.” Across the street from his motel stood a boarding house that housed a gunman that day, James Earl Ray, who would end the life of the Reverend. Thankfully, he did not end the movement for civil rights.
The museum is dedicated not only to America’s Civil Rights Movement, but also to the events that lead to its necessity. The museum masterfully takes you on the journey through some of the greatest injustices in history. Thinking it was only a small museum due to its outside appearance, I was pleased to be wrong. The front of museum maintains the Lorraine Motel appearance, however, the inside provides hours of enlightenment. As someone who thought they were educated about the Civil Rights Era, I realized how very little I really knew. I have revered Martin Luther King Jr. through his writings and speeches, and to stand only a few feet from the place he spent his last day and took his last breath was very sobering. The final steps of our self-guided museum tour were to the boarding house where Ray took aim and fired the fatal shot. Upon leaving the museum I was moved even more by the presentation. I continued to ponder how I would have behaved if I had lived in Memphis in the 1960. I want to believe that I would have been an agent for change in the world. I want to believe that King is right, someday the “promise land” will be seen by all.
BBQ Museum?
Ok, there isn’t really a BBQ museum. Just feel like we need some good food after that somber paragraph. When you finish at the museum, head around the corner to Central BBQ, one of Memphis’ hot spots for its famed BBQ. Try the pulled pork, it was amazing…and the sweet tea, don’t forget the sweet tea, oh, and the peanut butter pie. Have that first, you might not have room after the BBQ. If it is anytime close to a meal hour, plan on waiting a long time to order. I was again reminded that everything moves slower in the South, and efficiency is not a popular innovation. This is really the only food advice I will provide for the city. Well except, try the fried green tomatoes. So good!
The Cotton Exchange
Cotton was a very plentiful crop in the South. Planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, and cleaning cotton took an enormous amount of labor, all provided by slaves before 1865. After the end of the Civil War, the labor was provided as a crop share with former slaves and landowners. By the turn of the century, Memphis had become the trading capital of cotton, with 70% of the crop being grown within 200 miles of the city. That trading took place at the Cotton Exchange. The exchange closed to floor trading in 1978 with the conversion to computerized trading. The exchange now houses a cotton museum dedicated to the history of the crop and its importance in creating the South. It is well worth the hour or two that we spent there. They have several interactive exhibits that provide information without all the reading, just in case that is appealing to you.
Slave Haven and Underground Railroad Museum
We were quite excited to go to this museum which is in a house that was owned by a German immigrant named Jacob Burke. He assisted runaway slaves in heading North towards freedom. The tour requires reservations and takes you though a series of rooms in the small home. Each room is focused on one aspect of the history, starting with the enslaved people being brought from Africa and ending in the small space under the house where the runaways would hide. I wish that our tour guide had been a little more experienced in giving tours, she talked very fast and seemed to get off on tangents that felt a lot more like propaganda than historical facts. One of them was about how the slaves ate watermelon because it was a “superfood”, and how the pictures of African Americans eating watermelon is a way to oppress them today. I think that the museum was interesting. It would have been much more so if the docent had been more about the presentation of the house’s use and less about her personal agenda. I did learn a lot and the hour that I spent going through the house was worth the time and price of admission.
Rusty’s TV and Movie Car Museum
In a little city about an hour east of Memphis called Jackson, TN you will find a small museum that houses some of your favorite vehicles from TV and the movies. If you grew up watching the shows of the 70’s and 80’s, many of those cars will bring back wonderful memories of your younger years. When I heard that they had the Starsky and Hutch car used in the TV show, I knew I had to go. Every Thursday evening, I would get special permission to stay up late and watch the show with the cutest guy on TV since David Cassidy. The collection includes cars from favorite shows such as Knight Rider, The A-Team, Scooby Doo, Breaking Bad, Beverly Hillbillies, Munsters, and Batman. Movies are equally represented including Ghostbusters, The Blues Brothers, Back to the Future (with the flux capacitor), Fast and the Furious, Wayne’s World, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Jurassic Park, and Transformers. Be sure to take lots of pictures to make your friends at home jealous.
Fun Stops
Memphis Pyramid
Giant Sturgeon at Bass Pro Shop 
looking up
When you look up the top things to do in Memphis you will see the Bass Pro Shop mentioned over and over. Not because the store itself is so wonderful, but because it is housed in the city’s pyramid. They have a glass pyramid built on the side of the river, next to Mud Island. It is indeed very nice inside. They have a large aquarium and a large pond filled with huge sturgeon and catfish that you watch from bridges built over the water. There is even a small area with baby crocodiles. An elevator to the top of the structure for viewing or to dine at the restaurant, is available for a fee. They also have a hotel in the structure, The Big Cypress Lodge, a themed hotel that looks like an interesting place to stay, if you are so inclined.
Trippin’ on the Mighty Mississip
Rockin’ with Elvis 
on the Mississippi
Put on your deck shoes and take a boat trip down the Mississippi River. This was one of the most enjoyable things we did in Memphis. Mississippi River Boats offers a 90-minute tour and a dinner cruise on certain days. The boat is large and comfortable. They offer an entertaining guide that shares stories of the river and the area around. He was funny and engaging and made the trip something more than a boring boat ride. They also had music from the area playing when the guide wasn’t talking. It added a little more entertainment than just cruising down the river, plus an opportunity to do a little river dancing. If you ever wanted to take a ride on a paddle boat, you should put this on your list. Although don’t expect to get stuck if the paddle stops working, since it is just for show. It was worth the price and a good way to spend part of your afternoon.
Samuel T. Bryant Distillery
While you are visiting the fun cars in Jackson, make a quick stop at this distillery for some amazing moonshines. Conveniently located right off the interstate, you will find this creative distiller of spirits. The moonshine products are unlike any I have seen and are so varied that anyone inclined to partake will find something they want to take home with them. There is a tasting fee that will be waived with a minimum purchase. We enjoyed it so much we walked out with a case to last us for the trip and then some. The cream moonshines are amazing and are perfect over ice or in coffee.
Music Scene
Let me start a post on Memphis music by saying that I am not an Elvis fan. It isn’t that I don’t like Elvis. My parents weren’t really into his music so whenever I heard an Elvis song it was always because someone else was playing it. I’m sure that makes the music scene in Memphis a little different for me. Just between you and me, we didn’t even go to Graceland. We all decided that we didn’t want to spend $75 per head. The things we spent our time on in the short three days we had were more than enough to make me feel like I made the right choice.
It’s all about the Blues
Having only seen the blues played in the movies, my exposure was limited to small screen clips. Truthfully, the one impressionable blues scene that I remember was from Adventures in Babysitting where she sang the “Babysitting Blues” to get passage. I just assumed that blues lyrics were all impromptu. Silly, I know. In Memphis, you will find blues coming from bars all over Beale Street, as well as from a few other areas. We met a guitarist who was in from Chicago to play at Rum Boogie Cafe’. He had made the trip to play with his brothers at this dive bar with guitars hanging everywhere. It had too much character to not find myself giddy as I was wandering around checking out the atmosphere. It was indeed a very cool place that drew a crowd as soon as the music filled the corner of Beale Street and B.B. King Blvd. I discovered what people came from all around to see and experience. A dark bar with an eclectic mix of memorabilia (and furniture) and a small group of musicians playing the blues with all the heart and soul they have in their bodies. We all found ourselves dancing in the walkway, struggling to make ourselves stop. Knowing nothing about the blues, I found myself wanting more. Something that had I found disinteresting in the movies now came alive for me to enjoy and experience, and that is the heart of the music scene in Memphis, falling in love with Blues, for the first time or the millionth time.
guitars everywhere! 
Carlos, Barbara, and Ron 
the stage at Rum Boogie
There is so much more to see and do, however, than dancing in the dimly lit dive bars on Beale Street.
Stax Studio
Isaac Hayes’ gold Cadillac 
historic Fenders
There are two famous studios that are a must see when you are in Memphis. The first is Stax Studio. Stax was started as a studio behind a record shop by a brother sister team. They created an easy friendly atmosphere that cultivated some of the greatest musicians of the time. The museum takes you through an amazing journey of how they began and how the music and its musicians transformed through the years. You find yourself taking an emotional ride as you walk through the ups and downs of the studio, and it’s struggles. The museum is focused more on the history of the Memphis music scene than on the studio itself. I found it to be informative and interesting. It took us a lot longer than expected and we started cutting out information by the end just to make a prescheduled tour. Plan a couple hours at least and expect to be very surprised at the information and the journey it takes you through.
Sun Studio
The second studio is Sun Studios. That experience could not be more different from Stax. Sun offers a 40-minute tour led by an energetic story telling docent. There are only two rooms besides the entry area. The first part of the tour goes up the stairs to a memorabilia room. It is full of equipment and pictures, and you are regaled with stories of the studio’s beginnings. Then you head down into the recording studio itself. Again, the stories are entertaining, however hearing them in the actual place that they happened somehow seems more extraordinary poignant. Standing in the place where Elvis, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison, among many others, stood to record some of the most important recordings in music, is worth the price of admission.
Sun’s first tape recorder 
the recording booth 
dancing in the footsteps of Jerry Lee Lewis
And so…..
Whether you are an Elvis fan or not, Memphis is a stop you want to add to your list of adventures the next time you are in the South. So put on your blue suede shoe, and start “Walking in Memphis”, you too will find your “feet ten feet off of Beale.”