Day 33 Saturday 20th September, Memphis, Tennessee

This morning is our last morning on board and we only need to go to the airport to pick up our hire car so we didn't need to do the early rise with some of the other passengers. 

We are staying in Memphis for the next couple of days. BUT today Dale decided to come to breakfast really so we could say our goodbyes to a lot of lovely people we have had the privilege to travel with this week.  We have made some friends here and we are hoping to keep in touch. 

We finally left the Boat after a bit of confusion with cab arrangements and headed out to the airport to collect our hire car. We then drove back to the Welcome Centre for some more information on the city and recommended sights.  Today is hot and humid - the general feeling is that the weather is a bit screwed up as it shouldn't be quite so humid now.  Hoping for relief as we move north over the next week.

Decorated egg commemorating the Faberge eggs brought out as part of the Russian artifacts tour last year. 
This is just outside the Welcome Centre.

View of the "Queen of the Mississippi" from the monorail operating between Mud Island and Memphis.

We then caught the monorail over to Mud Island so we could walk along the scale model of the Mississippi River. This is a reasonable accurate map of the river (given that it changes from time to time) in a scale of 30 inches equals 1 mile. This might seem small but the model still stretches for about ½ mile. The model includes depictions of major towns like New Orleans and Baton Rouge and even has water running in it, the depth varies to show channels etc and is extremely well done. It was made of 1,746 separate concrete sections weighing 81/2 tons each and assemble like a giant jigsaw puzzle. An average 1.2 Million gallons of water flows through the system (Dale does like his stats!).

Mississippi sculpture, Gulf of Mexico end

Centre part of the model viewed from 3 stories up

Even the depth and flood plains are depicted

Near Vicksburg showing how the River has moved, during the Civil War the River ran in the narrow channel close to the city on the model

Shows how the river twists and turns

Near Baton Rouge

Headwaters of the Mississippi

Tonight we had a BBQ Rib dinner at the Rendezvous (the place to go!) with some great people we met on the boat - Chuck and Nancy (Washington Sate); Bill and Sheron (Washington State); Don and Judy Gold Coast Australia.  This a messy feed but delicious.  We were supposed to meet them at the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks leaving th elobby pond to go to bed at 5 pm but got a little lost around Peabody Place.  Oh well maybe tomorrow....... 

Taking advantage of the warm evening we walked to famous Beale Street to take in the atmosphere as this is the heartland of the blues.  Perhaps a little early but the night life was starting up and the street is blocked every Friday and Saturday with police out in force. I imagine it would be jumping around midnight but there was no way we would be able to stay awake given the walking we had done today.