A very, very long day...

So today started at about 7:30 this morning and we didn't get into our hotel until about 9:30 this evening. Granted we spent a lot of time in Memphis and Nashville, but it was still a very long day. However, it was a fun day, and not as tiring as it may sound. So anyway here's a recap.



I woke up early ran to the store to get some breakfast, packed the car, said goodbye to Dave, and then got Ellie out of bed and put her into her carseat. I wanted her to sleep part of the way to Memphis, which I just realized she really didn't do. She was a little bit of a zombie for the first hour or so, but she wasn't asleep. Instead we played a lot of the game, "What's in that truck?" The best answer was when Ellie told me that a tractor trailer was taking a bunch of ducks to a farm. There was nothing on the truck to indicate that ducks would be in the trailer, so I have no idea where that came from. However, it was a really cute answer.

Anyway it took us about 4 hours of driving to get Memphis. We stopped once in some small town in Missouri to grab breakfast at Starbucks. Even though we had a ton of driving to do today, we ate it there and spent awhile there before getting back on the road. Before we actually got out of the car in Memphis, we took a 20 mile detour to Mississippi, so Ellie and I can now both say we have been in Mississippi. I think we were there for about 90 seconds, but we were there and that is better than landing in some airport and saying you have been in a state.


In Memphis we did 3 things. The first was go to eat at Rendezvous. They had the best pulled pork I have ever eaten. Thank-you Amanda Schadrack wherever you are for telling me about this place. My dad will be happy to know I am bringing him home a bottle of sauce and dry rub. :) I even liked their beans, which is surprising because I am not a big fan of beans, but these were very tasty. Ellie this evening said her favorite part of the day was the bread they served at Rendezvous.

Item number two on the agenda was to walk down Beale Street, which is the happening place in Memphis. It looked like they were getting everything ready for tonight, which happens to be Friday night. My guess is there will be a lot of fun going down. The bad thing about Beale Street was that it was almost as hot and humid as St. Louis was yesterday. We walked down to one end of the street and I put Ellie in the middle of the street to try and get a picture. She willingly did it, and yes the street was closed to traffic. We walked back up to the top to get a 2nd picture looking the other and she was having none of it. She was just miserable. Once that happened we ran back to the car, and drove to the temple, which was 20 miles away and item number 3. We got there, jumped out of the car and took a couple pictures before heading off to Nashville.

The drive to Nashville was quite nice. It is about 2-1/2 hours and the freeway is in the middle of a forest, which is something we had not experienced so far. The drive was quite easy and time went by fast. It was during Ellie's nap time so it went by quickly for her as well. We got to Nashville and we went to the Grand Ole Opry, because it is the only iconic thing I can think of in Nashville. All we did there was take a couple pictures, buy Ellie a little bear, and some postcards and we took off to get to the temple. I was concerned about getting to the temple in a timely manner, because the sunlight was going away, and the pictures in St. Louis didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.


We got there fairly quickly, tried to find a parking space, which was a bit of an adventure because the parking lot was packed. That didn't bother me though, as I think the temple parking lots should always be packed. It makes me sad when I go to the Los Angeles temple and there are 5 cars in the lot. Anyway, we took a bunch of pictures, Ellie wandered around for awhile and that was that. I was hoping to find a park with a playground, so she could get out some of her nervous energy, but that didn't happen, and the McDonalds we ended up eating at didn't have a playground either.

So finally, we hit the road for one last time and drove 90 minutes to the town of Decatur, Alabama. We pulled in around 9:30 and Ellie immediately started jumping on the bed. I don't know why I didn't take any pictures of that... I am an idiot, but what else is new? I organized my suitcases, gave Ellie a bath, and am doing the blog. So there is my day...

Final stats 670 miles, about 9-1/2 hours of driving (About an hour more than expected due to our Mississippi detour and trip to the Opry), 4 states, 2 temples, and 2 accidents (Ellie is going to kill me if she ever reads this). Tomorrow we are off to Gainesville via Birmingham and Atlanta. It is about 100 miles less of driving, but I am excited. We have some big plans for the day, such as the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coke and Centennial Park. Fun times...