Nashville/Memphis

Monday, March 12, 2012

Today we slept in a bit, then let the kids swim again in the morning. 

I lost track of time and then we were scrambling again to get to our 10am back stage tour of the Grand Ole Opry House.  It was right by our hotel but the roads were all blocked off intentionally so that they only way you could get there was to drive the entire perimeter of Opry Mills Mall, an exact replica of Grapevine Mills Mall.  I had no idea that the Gaylord owned the Grand Ole Opry House.

We got there late and had to join the tour in session but it was great!  We got to go back and see the dressing rooms, the green room (aka the family room) then go out on stage and stand in the wooden circle.  Ryan and I very quietly sand Row, Row, Row Your Boat so that we could technically say that we sang on stage at the Grand Ole Opry House.  The tour was not part of our original vacation plans but was a great audible because we had a lot of fun. 

We left Nashville at 11 and headed to Memphis.  Somewhere in between we stopped and ate at a Subway.  Then afterwards we ran "high knee" sprints up a hill behind the restaurant to blow off some steam. 

We arrived in Memphis around 3 but couldn't check in until 4 so we took a detour by Graceland.  Grant was a complete wreck about this time, spilling water in the car, screaming, etc.  So not knowing anything about Graceland, we paid $10 to park, went into some ticket area then realized that Graceland was directly across the street and that we could have driven by it for free :-)  Oh well...still glad we did it.

Can you tell by the expression how fun Graceland was?

We arrived at our hotel in downtown Memphis at 4:30 (the Hampton Inn right off Beale Street) and then raced up to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks march from the fountain to the elevator via a red carpet at 5:00.  The kids were thoroughly unimpressed by this whole thing and thought it was lame but I enjoyed it. 

So now it's 5:00 and we hit Beale Street.  We ate dinner at Miss Polly's Soul City Cafe and just listened to the music in the air.  Well the next few hours were my favorite of the entire trip.  There were two young boys out in the street doing flip flops for money and the kids were mesmerized by them.  Ryan and Grant kept jumping up from the table and going out to watch and imitate them.  One of the boys was shirtless so Grant stripped off his shirt and both Ryan and Grant literally started dancing in the street.  A few other folks joined them.  Grant kept trying to do flip flops but it was a pretty poor attempts.  After a few beers and some greasy chicken, we headed another block east and a band was playing in an open courtyard area right across from our hotel.  They were great and we stood and listened and danced for a while.  We were about to leave when they started playing All Along the Watchtower so we stayed and danced some more.  It was a magical moment for me.

We got back to the hotel and all four went down to the indoor pool and hottub and just had a really great time.  Ryan kept serving me snowcone cups full of water and we all just enjoyed each other.  This was by far, my favorite day.