We had to head back West to get to the heart of Memphis. Our hotel was east of town. We drove past the Bass Pyramid. Jorge is not sure but it looks to him as if the edges of the building have stairs going all the way to the top. Yikes! Well, it might just be ventilation shafts. We’ll have to make a point of going back to visit.

There are several Interesting murals in town. Naturally, we took a picture of the statue of the King of Rock’n’Roll: Elvis “The Pelvis” Presley. Yes, he did play guitar.

There are electric trolley cars in town but the one we decided to come back and ride on someday is the Mud Island River Park cars suspended under the I-40 bridge.

The Lorraine Hotel is the location where Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The hotel was acquired 27 years ago and converted into the National Civil Rights Museum. It is a very well done and covers black history from slavery to modern times. A wreath is placed upstairs where one can see where he was killed. What a sad time in history!

Not everyone is happy about the museum especially a woman that was evicted from the hotel. A protest against the museum has been in action since its inception. It seems that some black people think that building a museum has not solved their problems.

The rain persisted today. There was another accident and a truck rolled over. We believe it was carrying booze. On the back side it stated in bold, black letters: TO REPORT BAD DRIVING CALL… Black humor? :-)

We decided to eat lunch at Loertta Lynn’s Kitchen. Ellen states that she’d go there again just to have the same meal: Catfish, hush puppies, pinto beans and cold claw. Yum and artery clogging!

Outside the restaurant was a bison with red or orange eyes. Jorge became his best friend.

Loretta Lynn owns her own town: Hurricane Mills TN. Population: 5. Besides the usual tourist trap souvenir shops there is an excellent museum dedicated to her career and life. Every dress she wore, the many guitars she played, hundreds of pictures…ah, but we were not allowed to take cameras. So, you’ll have to go yourself!

There is a tour we paid for that took us into a replica of her parents’ old home in Butcher Hollow KY. Then we step inside a simulated mine. The coal had been shipped from the Kentucky mine her dad worked in.

Then there’s her home which is a two-story mansion and she doesn’t live there. She built a one story home behind it and that’s where she lives when she isn’t on the road still singing and entertaining the world at the age of 84.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.