Walking in Memphis

Crossing over the Mississippi

 

It was awesome!

Beale Street Blue's Club!

 



It was pretty incredible! We had a lot fun listening to the music and walking around.

So cool, they had all sorts of stuff from the early 1900's and new stuff too.

Just a cool little music note on the ground! There were tons of them!

Our pace through the country has been rapidly increasing as we are approaching our deadline to start work with Amazon. Quick note on that- as I was constantly searching the web back in Fallbrook looking for Work camping jobs I stumbled upon a few positions for Amazon. Apparently around October they open up three of their North American warehouses to full time RV’ers. They pay the cost of your campground and utilities if you will commit to working like a slave for a few weeks or months. They pay a decent hourly wage and you work 40-60 hours a week. Jordan and I jumped on the opportunity to make a little money to fund the next leg of our trip. Our choices were Nevada, Kansas, or Kentucky. We signed right up for Kentucky, filled out the applications and within a week we got the job over a phone interview. Our scheduled start date is November 12, 2012. So for the first few weeks of our journey we took our time, spent a few extra days here and there but now we have only a couple days left to get checked into our campsite and get our bearings for our new home and town. We left Wendy’s as quick as we could in the morning which is normally about 11am and headed straight for Memphis. Jordan is very passionate about music and we were both excited to get there. We crossed over the Mississippi River for the first time and were pretty blown away. I know that wasn’t even the widest part of the river but it was pretty huge! Jordan said to me, “Imagine Huckleberry Finn floating down that thing with his little log raft.” We both just giggled as we pictured it and kept on trucking. We got off the main highway onto a road with four different names, something like Hwy 40, 65, 79, 81. Why are there four names for one road? We have definitely been adjusting to things like that. Anyway, on our little journey to find Beale Street (downtown) we drove through a pretty sketchy part of town. I got a little nervous. As we got closer to the city it started to look a little better though. Thankfully we found a place to park Destiny, NOT FUN IN A CITY! It was free too! I got to admit though; this city sure does have a foul smell! We found our way down to the main strip and just walked up and down a few times. There was live music all over the place, real soul music.  Jordan was in heaven! We probably could have stayed all night if we had a little bit more money! A. Shwab dry goods is a must visit if you are broke. It costs nothing and is a great place to spend some time. It is full of antiques and fun knick-knacks from back in the day and you can still purchase things for five cents and weigh yourself with a penny. It is the oldest surviving business on Beale St. and was established in 1867. After we left A. Shwab, we ended up getting one beer and stopped to take some pictures when a homeless man named Joshua came and talked to us. At first he was telling us how he was out here from Texas to visit a relative, but after he took her out all night and bought her things and took her to his hotel she took everything that he had. After talking to him for about 5-10 minutes we figured out he was probably up here for the weekend, got a hooker of some sort and she took everything from him and left him stranded in Memphis. Pretty funny actually. We walked back to Destiny and were going to drive down to the Mississippi riverside and walk around but we got turned around and somehow ended up on the freeway again. We decided not to fight the road any longer and we drove about 20 minutes up the road to a Wal-Mart parking lot where we resided for the evening. I have to say, I wasn’t so sure about Wal-Mart parking lots before this trip, but they are really growing on me, especially when we are in a hurry to get on the road in the morning. Most campsites either cost money or are a ways off the road, but not Wal-Mart. It is usually a turn or two off the highway and you are there! Plus, we found out on one side by the storage containers it stays pretty quiet. We generally make dinner, relax, and then start up the generator for an hour or two to watch a show on Netflix (ALSO A MUST HAVE ON THE ROAD!) or play video games! Nobody ever bugs ya about the generator noise because all the fans and such of Wal-Mart are so loud we are invisible! Oh, and plus they have security cameras all around the perimeter of the building, so we always park in plain view of one of them. So, yes if you are in a bind or in a hurry I would definitely suggest it! I know there are no plugins or beautiful nature surrounding you but hey some nights are just about convenience.