Paris was worth leaving twice.

As the advance party scouting out the hidden treasures of Western Tennessee, we were forced to stop.  At Knot's Landing.  And eat.  Blue plate specials served on chipped restaurant china that had once been white and once had a lacy vine of blue flowers around the rim.  I had something called "barbecue riblette," while Cynthia had some rubbery fried okra.  The rain stopped while we were eating and a very tall, very overweight woman in an iridescent green velvet pants suit had settled nearby, so we left.  We continued on.  To Memphis. 

An anniversary trip.  We knew it was our anniversary because Cynthia's Mother had called to remind us.  It was just as well she did;  until then it had slipped our notice.  The next day Farmer Sue sent us a lovely bouquet for our twentieth anniversary. 

In that it was only our nineteenth, we took this as a hopeful sign.  With all the nagging, we figured we better do something to mark the occasion.  So we scheduled a road trip.   One of those wandering things we do, where getting there is not the point, the camaraderie of the trip is.  We took the two lane roads as far as we could, which is pretty much a description of our marriage, too.  Booked into a motel and then ventured into downtown Memphis in the rain.  Beale street.  Home of the blues. 

If you wandered around Beale Street in the rain and fog on a cold March evening, you'd get the blues, too.  Even after a couple of $4.00 beers it was too early to eat, so we asked a fellow barking for one of the touristy restaurants how late the trolley ran and such.

The loop trolley runs about a mile up the main street along the now closed shopping area, then loops around and comes back down the river.  The Mississippi.  The return trip down the river is a really pretty ride on a sunny afternoon.  So our guide claimed. 

This was a foggy, rainy evening.  The great mirrored pyramid was reduced to a squat truncated platform rising from a rain slickened parking lot.  The railroad bridge that soars over the Mississippi faded into the fog until all that remained visible were two faint arcs, like a lightly drawn seagull in a charcoal sketch. 

And the soaring on-ramps of the downtown I-40 interchange simply melted into the sky; incomplete and unfinished, never merging with the mainstream - not going anywhere, not getting anywhere.

Hold that image;  we'll come back to it.

The trolley ride took us past the old industrial and commercial part of Memphis along the river and we are proud to report that the city is making a very fine effort to convert these abandoned old red brick building into livable loft and condominium spaces for lawyers and bankers.

Back at the Beale Street Trolley Station we alighted directly across the street from the bank parking lot where we had paid a  gapped toothed lady with a head cold $5.00 to park for "as long as you want..."   Private enterprise.  I suspect the bank  received no part of the money.  But then they should not;  they had no  part in the enterprise other than the unwitting donation of the lot itself after working hours.

We sloshed down Beale to the restaurant where we'd gotten the trolley tour directions.  Finally settled at the third table we tried - the first was a bench booth with no spring left in the springs - through which we sank into a position I hadn't seen since Vietnam.  The second table's chairs each had two or more legs that were only in temporary and uncertain contact with the ground.  The third was, to quote W.C. Hadley,  "just right".   So we sat and ordered our porridge.  Mine was the best rib dinner I've had in quite some time, a highpoint of the day. 

Later after $12 worth of beer in various bars and what seemed to be the obligatory splashing through puddles, we felt we had sampled enough of the Memphis Blues Experience to know that more would not be better.  Beale Street is a two block long imitation of the French Quarter.  A poor imitation.  The only part they seem to have copied accurately is the part about separating the tourist from the money.

I'd forgotten to bring my own pillow along, but managed to sleep soundly.  Another highpoint. 

In the morning we only had to drive about 18 miles, get lost twice and ask directions three times to end up at an IHOP for a romantic anniversary breakfast.  Our leisurely breakfast was followed by a very nice drive across Memphis on Summer Street, which for most of it's length is a wide boulevard through a series of pleasant neighborhoods of large old houses divided by a wide, tree lined mall. 

This brought us out on the river at the Memphis Pyramid.   In the diffuse daylight the pyramid had regained its pointed top and a sign saying it was not open for tours because they were getting ready for a giant revival meeting that evening.  We didn't stay, although we were getting to be in need of revival.

Instead we rushed a few blocks down the riverfront to the entrance to the Mud Museum.  This was the actual goal, the reason for the trip to Memphis.  We had glimpsed the pyramid while crossing the Mississippi with the U-Haul full of stuff we had stored for five years in my mother-in-law's attic that it turned out we didn't want, didn't have room for, and didn't need.  Later, we had miss-read something that said the pyramid was the entry point to the world famous Mud Island Museum.

The world famous Mud Island Museum presents the history of the Mississippi River, it's formation and development, the history and culture of the peoples who have lived along the great river, and a below ground tour including glass walled viewing of the Mighty River.  Very interesting and educational.

We had lots of time for the comfortable breakfast and lovely drive through the city on this last day of March because we knew the Museum does not open until 10 AM on Saturdays.

It also does not open until April 14th. 

Rather than let this become a complete disaster (the food, the rain, the fog, the tawdry tourist bars, the closed pyramid, the closed mud island, the forgotten nineteenth anniversary) we decided to drive back across Memphis to the Dicksen Institute and take in their collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist art.

It was closed.  A new show would open on April 8th.

On the way home we stopped at the Lowe's Hardware in Jackson and bought a venetian blind.  The trip was now a success.  Postcards of places we couldn't get into and a venetian blind.  Memories.

And then, driving along the two-lane highway 70 a little way from Rock Pile, TN, we encountered a rather full grown bull wandering down the road.

We didn't hit the bull.  It made for a good trip.