World United States Tennessee Memphis

OUR RETIREMENT TRAVELS 2007

Onward through Tennessee...Destination Memphis Oct 7, 2007

We are meandering our way towards Alamo, Texas.....to our next volunteer assignment at the Santa Ana Nat'l Wildlife Refuge. We are staying at KOA's and find them comfortable. We are taking little side trips and one of them was to Hurricane Mills, TN to the home of Loretta Lynn. They made a replica of her childhood home that is still in Kentucky where her relatives give tours. I toured the replica home and it was quite cozy and well decorated for the times and poverty they lived with. They also had a replica of a coal mine that her father worked in. Her large plantation home is beautiful and sits on the hill. They used this in the movie, Coal Miner's Daughter, and it is filled with tons of collector odds and ends. The house is currently a museum piece as she and her husband built a one level smaller home behind this home. The home she currently lives in is much easier to maintain. We continued west and stopped in Jackson, TN at Chili's for a reunion lunch with a long lost cousin, Stephanie and her family. We had a wonderful visit and found Stephanie to have grown into a very confident, self sufficient woman with a great family. We are currently in Memphis. We spent an afternoon at the FedEx office visiting with Gene's gang there and had a nice time. I was able to go "shopping" in their closet and stocked up on FedEx T-shirts, caps, windbreakers and even a couple polo shirts. My closet will be happy for the next couple years. While in Memphis we took the opportunity to go out on a river cruise and learned a lot about the mighty Mississippi River and Memphis. The cobblestone parking area was something to behold........very steep and difficult to walk on. After the cruise we wandered downtown on the famous Beale Street. It was daytime and we were hassled by panhandlers all the way, so wasn't that comfortable of a walk. There are definitely bars with the blues music coming through loud and clear though. We stopped at an Irish pub and had a brew and some nachos and then headed to Tunica, MS for a night of gambling pleasure. Was a fun day/night. Graceland will be my next journal entry. See you there!

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