Exploring the Deep South
My first Trek America Experience
After an amazing couple of days in the warm sunshine of New Orleans, it was time to move on to our next roadtrip destination. We were 2 weeks into our 3 week trip now so we’re on the home stretch, our final destination of New York growing ever closer, it was hard not to begin counting down the days.
But there was still much to look forward to, starting with one of the stops on our trip I was most looking forward to – Memphis, Tennessee, where we’d be visiting Graceland, home of Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Elvis Presley! Or at least that was the plan. As regular readers of this blog will know, there’d been a lot of surprises and abandoned plans along this trip and thus wasn’t about to change now! But more of that later…
Our journey to Memphis was uneventful. We made a stop for lunch in the state of Mississippi which we were just passing through before continuing on towards the state of Tennessee. Once we reached the city of Memphis, rather than going straight to our motel, we made a stop at Sun Studios for a tour. This tour was one of the included extras on our Trek America tour, meaning that unlike with most of the activities, we didn’t have to pay separately or the activity, it was covered in the price of our trip.
I’ll be honest, I had never heard of the studios prior to booking this trip and seeing the tour listed in the activities list and I hadn’t investigated any further since booking the trip. I assumed the studio would be linked to Elvis Presley in some way but didn’t know what to expect further than this.
After waiting in the gift store/cafe entrance for our tour group to be called, we were lead by our very enthusiastic guide up some stairs to a room housing displays of pop and rock memorabilia from the birth of rock n roll.
Our guide gave us a brief history of the studios and explained that a whole host of well known artists had recorded there including Elvis Presley. After being given time to look at the displays, we descended down another set of stairs to the studio itself, set up with various musical instruments and recording equipment like it would have been in the ‘50s and ‘60s. At the end of our tour we were allowed to take a picture with a replica of the microphone used by Elvis. The tour was extremely interesting and standing in a room where so many rock legends have stood and recorded songs we now hear all the time was a magical experience. I’d definitely recommend taking the tour if you are in Memphis.
As we left the studios, the staff there told our guide there was a weather warning in place for the evening and businesses were being advised to close up early so that staff could get home before the storm came in. We left and checked into our Econo Lodge accommodation in Memphis centre. It was late evening by now but there was still no sign of the bad weather everyone was telling us about. Since we left Texas, our guide had been promising to take us to another great BBQ place once we got to Memphis so once settled into our rooms, we all met up and walked down to Beale Street for dinner.
Beale Street is known as being the Memphis equivalent of New Orlean’s Bourbon Street, a lively entertainment destination lined with bars, clubs and restaurants, but tonight, it was eerily quiet. Most of the restaurants, including the BBQ one we had hoped to visit, had closed on the advice of weather forecasters along with some of the bars. Our choices limited, we ended up at Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. We emerged to find even more bars closed. Most of us decided to walk back to our motel while those who stayed were back within half an hour after the snow did indeed start to fall and the bar they had visited decided to close early too!
Waking up to a snowy view from our motel room 
The motel pool!
The next day, we awoke to a city covered in snow – and not just a bit of snow, a blanket of snow and it was still falling. This morning we were planning on visiting Graceland, something I had been excited for all trip, but at breakfast, we were disappointed to see it listed as one of the many attractions in the city that had decided to close because of the weather.
Our guide telling us not to worry, the attractions could open later in the day and if not, we could visit Graceland before departing for Nashville tomorrow, we instead wrapped up warm and walked into town while she tried to find out what was happening and what our other options for the day were. We spent the next hour building snowmen outside the baseball stadium and having a snowball fight on Beale Street before warming ourselves up with hot drinks at Starbucks – the only place we found open – where our guide told us that Graceland had now confirmed they would be closed for the entire day. Our alternative options were few but the Museum of Rock ‘n’ Soul which was just across the road from us had just opened so most of us decided to go and take a look at that.
The museum contained memorabilia from the birth of Rock n Roll through to the present day (I was most excited to see some *nsync costumes on display!) and being in no rush, we took our time going around the displays, listening to the commentaries on our included audio guide handsets.
Meeting up with the rest of the group, some of us decided to go to the Peabody Hotel to watch the famous March of the Peabody Ducks. The Peabody Hotel is a Memphis landmark which again, has links to the city’s Rock ‘n’ Roll history and Elvis Presley who signed one of his record contracts there. Now, the hotel is home to a group of mallard ducks who live in their own duck penthouse-paradise at the top of the hotel. Each day, at 11am, a ceremony is held during which the ducks descend in an elevator, walk across a red-carpet laid down in the foyer and hop into the central fountain where stay happily swimming around, until 5pm.
The Peabody Ducks arriving in the foyer from the elevator 
The ducks reach the fountain
At 5pm, the ducks hop back out of the fountain, march back along the red carpet and into the elevator to return back to their penthouse suite! It’s just as bizarre as it sounds and we loved the pomp and ceremony of it all with the ducks being treated like little celebrities! Definitely one of those things that needs to be seen to be believed!
After watching the Peabody Ducks, we were given the option of being driven out to a nearby mall for the afternoon or just staying in the city. Those of us who decided to stay went in search of somewhere for lunch ending up at the Rum Boogie Bar, where the service was less than amazing but I’ll put that down to it being busy with it being the only place we had found open! We then spent a while walking around in the snow before deciding to go back to the motel for a bit.
Not long after getting back, the rest of the group arrived back after finding that the mall they’d visited had also closed with the snow. Some of us decided to return to the Peabody Hotel to watch the ducks march back to their room and then we wandered up to the river just as the sun started to set.
With the snow continuing to fall, dinner that evening was at Hooters, one of the few places open and was followed by an evening spent socialising back at the motel seeing as Beale Street was closed for business.
Watch my Trek America adventures in Memphis here:
Unfortunately, the conditions had not improved the following morning and the tourist attractions including Graceland and the Civil Rights Museum remained closed. Even breakfast at a local restaurant, which we’d been promised had the best waffles, had to be cancelled when again, nowhere opened up. Disappointed, we set off for Nashville, making do with a Waffle House stop along the way. The journey took a lot longer than it should with road closures and diversions around the snow but as we neared Nashville, the snow seemed to be disappearing and we were pleased to see it had mainly disappeared in the city itself.
Our accommodation at Nashville was a hostel but it was definitely the nicest hostel of the tour and we were pleased to find ourselves in a quad room with just us 4 girls from our Trek. Having just over an hour to explore before we had to meet for dinner, there was no time to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame or any of the other activities recommended on the Trek itinerary so instead we walked along Broadway, souvenir shopping then walked up to Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge for views over the river before heading back to the hostel to get ready for our evening out.
Tonight was one of the night outs I had most been looking forward to as we were going line dancing. We had a table booked at the Wild Horse Saloon, a country music live venue and restaurant. Over the course of the evening, a variety of live country music bands played interspersed with hourly line-dancing lessons which anyone could join in. The whole group got up and had a go at the dancing. There was a lot of bumping into each other at first but we soon got into it and was a really fun evening. The BBQ style food wasn’t bad either but, like the drinks, a bit overpriced and after a while we decided to move on to some of the bars along Broadway where the drinks would be cheaper.
We walked back to the hostel at the end of the night via another walk across the Shelby Street Pedestrian Bridge to take photos of the Nashville skyline all lit up before spending some time in the hostel common room playing pool and just chilling out.
I’d really liked Nashville and it was shame the weather had stopped us from spending a little more time there. I definitely planned on returning there at some point in the future along with Memphis to visit all the places we’d missed out on.
Watch my Trek America adventures in Nashville here:
My first solo travel experience
My first small group tour travel experience Part 1
My first small group tour travel experience Part 2
My first Trek America Experience Part 3
Miss Travels 
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