Today was a very fun day!! We started out seeing the Rock and Soul Museum. They really did a great job setting up all the exhibits. It was a totally self guided audio tour, which was the best way to see it! They had music at every station by artists of the period, and you could listen to as many as you wanted, as much as you wanted! Great stuff :) They also had juke boxes from different decades filled with music for you to choose. The history of the blues here in Memphis is really interesting. The way that the black music was embraced by the white folk, and the way that music brought all the people together with it's universal language was awesome! The new sound of Rock and Roll began right here in Memphis Tennessee. I wish that we could have taken pictures inside, but we were not allowed to. It would be great if they could make a coffee table book from their museum - I'm sure that a lot of people would be interested in it!
Next we went to the Gibson Guitar Factory for a tour of the actual assembly plant. Bryan was in seventh heaven! We had to wear protective goggles and stay between the safety lines - very cool! We saw all the stations - cutting the bodies, molding the wood, gluing, drilling, clamping, painting, etc., etc. They actually finish about 35 guitars each day. Each guitar takes a total of three weeks to complete. Bryan got to play a $6,000 custom acoustic - sweet! I was very impressed with his talent, he has improved a lot while away at school. I asked him to make me a CD of some of his stuff - can't wait! Good listening for those quiet days when they are all off at school and work! Again, it was too bad that they didn't allow pictures :(
When Rich and I went to Hawaii, we were at the Arizona Memorial on Veterans day - talk about going at the most crowded time ever. Well, just to keep tradition alive, we arrived in Memphis on the anniversary of Elvis's death. We really arrived early in the day (about 10am) so it was still very quiet, and it was also Sunday. They were starting to put the barricades on Beale street when we were finished with both tours. We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe and hit the road for Jackson. I'm sure it was crazy there by that evening!
When we arrived in Jackson, we met Brett for dinner at "Cheddars". I almost forgot about the portion sizes in Mississippi! We had enough food for 12 people - but it was sooo good! After dinner we drove to an empty parking lot to take Lindsey's car off the trailer. Thanks Brett for finding just the right hill to manage the ramp and braving the mosquitoes :) She and Brett drove off to the school and we went to the U-haul to drop off the trailer. Our campsite was really close and it was very nice. It was actually camping in a Mississippi state park. We were out in the woods, very quiet, backed right onto the Pearl River. The fish were jumping and there were turtles and cranes and lots of squirrels and birds. I saw something suspicious in the water, I'm not sure, but it could have been an alligator. Seriously, it was around 5 or 6 feet long, and it swam in an "S" motion - not like a snake moving forward, but bending from side to side. There were signs everywhere saying no swimming, so maybe it could have been (I'm just saying....).
Bryan certainly does look like he's in heaven!
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