Thank God. We’re home. While I’m glad we got away for a week to just be by ourselves, it would have been time better spent someplace else. Anywhere else.
It wasn’t all bad. Some of Nashville was fun, and some of Memphis was fun. But only about 25% of the trip was fun. No, I’ll be nice. We’ll say 30% of it was fun. The rest was 1) rainy, 2) boring, 3) dumpy (hello Memphis!), 4) small.
In all honesty, NYC is the ONLY place a person can go for a week and NOT RUN OUT OF THINGS TO DO. By our fourth day in Nashville we were desperate for something to do and glad we had the 3 1/2 drive to Memphis to shake things up a bit.
The food was fantastic though – I’ve never had a better pulled pork sandwich than those at Wild Horse Saloon and the Corky’s at the Memphis Airport (yes, I said at the airport). But we didn’t get to OD on BBQ like we thought we would because the World Championship BBQ Festival was kind of like a massive private party that no one was invited to. Seriously. If we weren’t part of the cooking team, you weren’t allowed in the booth. All non-competing visitors were only allowed in this small tent to the side of the whole affair and had to pay an additional $3 to partake of the bbq. When we were there that tent wasn’t even OPEN. Screw you, Memphis in May Festival!
In Memphis we did Graceland (which was actually kind of cool even though we all had to wear these headphones that had been worn by about 1,000,000 people before us and never been cleaned once), and we also took in a Memphis Redbirds baseball game. Sun Studio was interesting, but not fascinating. Our hotel was two short blocks away from the COUNTY JAIL.
Surprisingly enough, despite the general misery, we did a lot of shopping. Last night we brought out all the crap we picked up and I was surprised by how much we invested in two pretty crappy cities. The best things we got? Four pieces of art from local artists – two in Nashville, and two in Memphis. And those were hard to find. For a bustling “arts” scene in Nashville, it was surprisingly lacking. Memphis wasn’t much better – the art we found is stuff we found in ANTIQUE shops, not galleries. We did find one gallery in Memphis that we really liked, called Durden Gallery, but the artist we liked (Michelle Allen) was on the expensive side (her smallest piece (about 15″ x 8″) was $200). One artist I liked Denis hated (Sarah Hightower) – she didn’t paint, she did 3D pieces with glass and metal and was WAY out of our price range.
I’m sure I’ll post more later, and I know Denis will, too. But suffice to say, if you ever plan a trip to Memphis/Nashville for vacation – save more money and go to Hawaii. Trust me.
Well, heck… I could have told you all of that, and it’s been YEARS since I’ve been to either Nashville OR Tennessee.
Hey, you guys like the outdoors? You ALL can come visit in lovely Northern Idaho … heh.
Was researching on the internet to see just who had checked out my art work… Glad you liked it sorry your husband didn’t. Just a struggling artist trying to pay for college. The prices of tuition these days and for supplies to make art are way high. I would however like to mail you a smaller piece of mine that you can put on a shelf or coffee table free of charge. You can e-mail me an address to send it to. Thanks for checking out Durden Gallery when you were in Memphis and for including it in your site.
Sarah