6/28/26 Memphis TN - mostly sunny - 93F - Extreme Heat Watch

 6/28/26 Memphis TN - mostly sunny - 93F - Extreme Heat Watch

The ship docked at Greenbelt Park Landing. 

I was at the Sky Lounge at 6:45 AM for Special K and coffee (good and hot). I got a good seat and ate outside. There was a radio on nearby but I couldn't see where it was. At 7:00 AM, I heard the national anthem. Maybe, there were workers near the boat.

We had a real breakfast in the Restaurant at 7:50 AM.  

I had pancakes - one blueberry and one banana - with 2 OM. The pancakes were not anything like the ones we had on the last cycle - these were smaller and flat like crepes.  Even the coffee was off here today.  

We are on tour today - "Memphis City Exploration with Beale St Dropoff". We scanned out at 8:45 AM (9:00 AM start) and walked up a moderate ramp to our cool and comfortable bus to get a good seat.

I got a nice shot of the ship docked.

Tour guide Terri is an ex teacher (6th grade - 25 years).  She's an excellent guide - easy to  understand and good at pointing out sites. A nice retirement gig for someone who has made positive contributions to the city.  She also has a pedigree.  Her father, Jimmy Van Eaton, was a session drummer at Sun Records (Elvis, Roy Orbison) and just got a "Note" on Beale St (more later). 

We left right on time at 9:00 AM and drove through downtown Memphis (population 600,000). (Note: Generally, at this time of year, the Mississippi tends to be shallow due to the lack of rain. The boats can't get here and passengers are bussed. No problem today - the area has gotten a lot of rain and the River is covering some of the trees at the shoreline.)

Our first stop is the Lorraine Hotel, where, in April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray. On the way there, we saw the Fed Ex Forum 

where the NBA Memphis Grizzlies play and also AutoZone Park, home to the Memphis Redbirds, the AAA farm team for the St Louis Cardinals.

At the Lorraine Hotel, 

we saw Room 306 and the balcony where MLK was shot. On the sidewalk, there are special tiles and a groove which shows the bullet's path from the boarding house (Ray's) to the Hotel. Ray shot from the small bathroom window 207 ft away. 

To make it more realistic, two cars of the period are parked under the balcony. It was a moving experience. The hotel is no longer operating - today it houses the "National Civil Rights Museum".  The museum is not part of the tour today.

As we walked back to the bus, we finally got a picture of the two of us taken by a fellow passenger.

Our next stop was the Sun Records recording studio where Elvis Presley recorded his first record, "That's All Right" (with "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the B-side), on July 5, 1954.  

In the first photo below, Ellen is standing just below Terri, our guide.

Sun Records, has been in business since 1952; today, the recording studio still reissues classic hits as well as original recordings. 

The Sun Studios Cafe and a gift shop are next door with all kinds of merch including an Elvis Presley Mississippi driver's license ($6.50). 

The best thing at the cafe was the washroom.

From Sun Records the bus drove to the Peabody Hotel, a posh hotel, which features "The Peabody Hotel Duck March".  The inside of the hotel is beautiful - check out the amazing ceiling.

The duck march, a major tourist attraction, goes back 90 years. Five American Mallard Ducks (one male and five females) march from their duck palace on the roof 

down the elevator and into a fountain in the lobby. They do this at 11 AM and 5 PM every day. Before we went down to watch the ducks, I got a real nice shot of Ellen on the roof of the hotel.

And the city of Memphis as well.

There was a huge crowd for the march. 

We found a viewing spot on the mezzanine level. 

The original ducks were trained by someone from the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.  In 1940, Bellman Edward Pembroke, taught the ducks march to music (Souza's "King Cotton March") and then splash around in the lobby fountain. He became the Peabody Duckmaster and had that job until his retirement in 1991. Today,  it's still a spectacle with an audience member (a kid today) becoming an honorary Duckmaster.  It's pretty quick with the actual march taking about five minutes.  Later on, they march back to the roof.  Every 90 days a new team of ducks arrive to spell the previous cast which are then released in the wild

A custom-built, 1838 Knabe & Gaehle square grand piano commissioned by Francis Scott Key sits on the mezzanine level of the hotel just down the way from out view point.

Our last stop was the Memphis Pyramid (aka The American Pyramid, Pyramid Arena, the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid). 

It was officially opened on November 9, 1991, originally functioning as a 20,142-seat sports and entertainment arena before being converted into a retail and tourist attraction in 2015. The Pyramid is 321 ft high with each side of the base measuring 591 ft. It is the 7th largest pyramid in the world.  The pyramid would have been history (about to be torn down) when two men, one the CEO of Bass Pro Shops, went fishing on the Mississippi.  The CEO, aware of the potential fate of the Pyramid, bet his partner that if he could catch a 25 lb catfish before the end of the day, he would save the Pyramid.  According to the tale, the man did catch said catfish and the CEO turned the Pyramid into a vast Bass Pro Shop.  Good story.

We went inside - the place of course is full of outdoor stuff for sale 

but is also a kind of amusement park.  There were lots of people wandering around a sizable pool.

Inside we saw the world's tallest free standing elevator, 

several aquarium and water habitats some complete with gators

a pond with various kinds of fish and a rare albino sturgeon.

There is also a hotel with log cabin rooms lining the interior pyramid walls. I suppose those rooms would be pretty noisy considering all the activity going on in the store, Certainly amazing. We did a circuit of the store as a group and then back on the bus.

We decided to do the drop off at Beale St - an area with Restaurants and bars. 

The street is like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here, stars and legends of Country Music are immortalized by having their name on “Notes” in the sidewalk.  I only recognized a few of the people – The Staple Singers and of course, Elvis Presley.

 

We went looking for a place to get lunch. My worst fears were realized when we couldn't find anything to eat in the two blocks comprising Beale St. We looked at a hotel a few blocks away hoping they had a Restaurant. They didn't but they did have a bathroom, which saved the day. We finally went back to Beale St and into the A. Schwab dry goods store. The store established in 1876 had all sorts of merchandise but more importantly, it had an old fashioned soda fountain. We shared a banana split ($6.95) so we didn't starve. The banana split was very good. 

There are some dodgy folks (down on their luck) on the street as well.  While we were enjoying our banana split, two Memphis cops approached two men and took them in without incident. The police were alerted by watchers on Beale Street.  They are there to keep the tourists and locals safe and, hopefully, to provide the street people with some shelter and food.  

At 1:35 PM, we went to pick up spot at Beale and 2nd avenue. In a few minutes the bus arrived and 15 minutes later we were back in the cool AC of the boat. We cooled off in the cabin until dinner (I was listening to Pandora on my phone using my Bluetooth ear buds).

We went to the Restaurant at 5:30 PM for dinner. Our streak of being able to get a table for two almost got broken when a man wanted to join us. Ellen told him we wanted to eat alone (not to worry as we will probably never see him again). Ellen had the foofoo salad on the menu and I had my special order iceberg wedge with ranch dressing.  We both had the mushroom penne entree w special order Salmon. The fish arrived under so sent it back. When my dish came back it had no mushroom sauce – just penne. The waitress brought me some mushroom sauce.  Isn’t that odd.  We both had the flourless chocolate cake. The cake was too chocolatey for me. Overall, the dinner was good (especially the piece of salmon).

Up outside on deck 4 now. There's a breeze.

I started 10 days of augmentin because I can't shake the sinus pain, dizziness, headache, and overall yuckiness.  I always carry the antibiotic when I travel just in case. There is no medical facility on board this boat.

We went to the River lounge to hear the headliner, Israeli vocalist, Omer Shaish. Here's his blurb from the ship's app.

Best male vocalist we have seen on a ship. He focused on Las Vegas entertainers. Celine Dion ("My Heart Will Go On"), 

Frank Sinatra ("My Way"), Adele ("Rolling in the Deep"), and Elvis Presley ("Can't Help Falling in Love With You"). He also did a riff on "Liza With a Z" with "Omer With an E". Terrific show. After the show, we introduced ourselves and chatted quite a while with him.  He was very personable and probably glad to see some kindred spirits on the cruise.  Omer told us that he wrote "Omer with an E" while stranded at an airport during an extended delay.

A beautiful sunset capped off a wonderful, albeit hot, day in Memphis.

A lot of walking today – total 7111 steps (now that’s a lucky number).

Lights out at 10:30 PM.