(Still no pictures due to tech issues, stay tuned!)
Happy Independence Day from Memphis! After another hotel breakfast, we drove from Huntsville to Memphis, listening to our 4th of July ‘Merica playlist along the way. Our first stop in Memphis was the National Civil Rights Museum, which certainly lived up to expectations - what a well-done museum. The museum is located at the former Lorraine Motel where MLK Jr. was assassinated, but isn’t focused on his life and death. Before you move through the history of the civil rights movement from early slavery days to the present, there was an art gallery themed “Black Joy” which featured some local artists. Perfect way to spend our afternoon, highly recommend.
We checked into our hotel downtown next to the river - we wanted to be close enough to walk to Beale Street and the fireworks. Before trips, we often make lists of local specialties to watch for on menus, and of course dry rub Memphis ribs made it on the list. We found a place that had one vegetarian option for me, while the rest of the family split a rib plate for 2. Their verdict: Zadie - not as good as when Dad made them before; Ruth - big thumbs up, very happy with this meal; Bill (who’s been eating almost entirely low-salt vegan for the last 6 months) - delicious but gave him a stomachache and made him swell up so much that he couldn’t take off his wedding ring. (Back to normal foods afterward for him and all is now well.) We also split a buttermilk chess pie dessert (also on the list) - as expected, too sweet for everyone but Zadie.
We squeezed in a quick swim at the hotel before heading down to the park for the drone show and fireworks. The park was fenced off with security access points in a few places, cops and national guard everywhere. They had DJs at several places in the park before the fireworks. We weren’t sure where the drone show and fireworks would be - it’s a long skinny park along the Mississippi River, and we were at one end - but we lucked out and sat at the side where the drone show and fireworks were held. The drone show was neat! We’d only seen one before. This one focused on a lot of Memphis-themed images like someone playing a guitar, playing records, Memphis Grizzlies NBA team, a FedEx plane, and Ruth’s fave, a UFO flying over the huge Bass Pro Shop pyramid in downtown Memphis. (Side note, we stopped here the next morning; it is a humongous Bass Pro Shop / hotel / restaurant and had a pool with a bunch of alligators inside, along with several fish ponds.) The fireworks themselves were nicely done but went on for so long that Zadie asked when we could leave.
During the fireworks, we saw people running from an area further down. Turned out that people had managed to sneak fireworks past security and were setting them off inside the park in the crowd. Another person set off a few closer to us. At several points, we saw police running by us trying to find the people who had set off fireworks. Things got worse much later that night when the National Guard shot and killed a man (I’ll leave it at that for now since there are still minimal details online at this point).
On a happier note, the girls enjoyed some delicious pasties for breakfast at Hive Bagel before we took off for Little Rock. Ruth had a Black Forest “cube” and Zadie pain au chocolat. Mmm.