After our week in Kentucky we went back to Tennessee. We stopped in Nashville and stayed in this cool park, Grand Ole RV Park. Jan had pre-arranged for a guy to wash and wax our truck and rig; both long overdue!When we arrived we learned that they have live music in their office/store every night. As we walked up the steps to get our seats, we heard the music start; the guy was singing one of the songs from our wedding, I Cross My Heart by George Strait! We were blown away, Jan cried a little, as our 23rd anniversary was just the week before. BTW, the banner behind him is hiding the store shelves with RV supplies! He was great, played lots of variety. After getting a good nights sleep we woke up to snow and frozen rain all over our newly shined truck & trailer! What a bummer! Luckily we didn’t have to go anywhere early and later in the day it warmed up enough to dry off the roads so we didn’t have to get the truck dirty already!The second evening we were there we decided to go see some Nashville entertainment. We had gotten a tip to go to the 3rd & Lindsey Bar and Grill to see their show because they said that on Monday nights Vince Gill often showed up to jam with the band; that’s him on far right!Here’s a closer picture. He was definitely not all spiffed up like at concerts; just one of the boys! We thought he’d stay for a song or two but he stayed the entire evening! They played for two and half hours. We only stayed in Nashville two nights and then moved on to the Memphis area. We stayed on a Navy base there; Midway RV Park in Millington. It was a really nice park and the commissary and NEX were very close by!As you can see it was also pretty empty.While there, we went to see the Memphis Cotton Exchange Museum.This is where they did all the business of selling cotton, it was much like Wall Street except for just the commodity of cotton.The ledger board where they displayed all the current prices and such!The phone booths where the deals were made; no cell phones or computers back then!Some of the wares of the time all made from cotton.The telegraph office.Another place we visited was the Memphis Metal Museum.The current artist whose items were on display was Sarah Perkins. Beautiful things, its hard to believe they’re made of metal and a glass veneer over it! All done with lots of talent and painstaking attention to detail!On these next two pieces she made the bowl image to match the painting you see on the wall behind them; amazing!Another artist made these huge metal bugs, this one is a cricket I think.Very intricate detail!And of course this being cotton country; a pair of Boll Weevils!This was another amazing piece. The artist had to get the medium up to 1800 degrees to get the colors and effects she wanted!Outside was pretty cool too. That’s the Mississippi River in the distance.Some pretty artistic metalwork here.Even the local birds like the art!This piece was, shall we say, “different”?Nothing says “I Love You” like a piece of rebar through the eye socket!And last but not least, a giant ant with a doughnut/bagel/Cheerio?On another day we ventured on to Beale Street, the Home of the Blues music in Memphis.There we visited the Rock and Soul Museum.Lots of great memorabilia and artifacts to tell the story!An old Seaburg Selectaphone jukebox that played 78s from 1934.A little more modern jukebox that played 45s from the 1950’s and 1960’s.Some early Elvis memorabilia.Country star Lee Adkins memorabilia.Some of the multitude of memorabilia from all the soul and blues musicians.And some not so pleasant reminders of the times.After the museum we went to find lunch and I snapped of few street pics.We found a great place for lunch, Silky O’Sullivans. They advertised oysters so we had to go there! Very cool inside, it was a bar years ago during the 1920’s. They had 14 bartenders all working at once back then!This caught my eye, pretty funny I thought!And our reason for the visit, cheap oysters, $16/dozen!
