On the road. Day three. "We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout."

 J.

Our last morning in Nashville. Up at stupid o'clock again, but made the most of it by taking another early sunrise walk down to the river. Had last Nashville brekkie at Sun Diner - waffles and berries and a final walk up broadway before we head off to pick up our hire car and continue our trip to Memphis. This is truly an amazing trip.

I.

That's the car at Memphis. J didn't want a photo of it at all but I snook one. She just wanted rid. She hates driving abroad. And my insistence on the way down that I really wanted to drive into the centre of Jackson so we could get a photo 'because it would be funny' didn't help. It wasn't even the right Jackson. We were passing Jackson Tennessee, apparently the song's about Jackson Mississippi. 

Lashed down much of the way to Memphis. Driving a nice Nissan automatic. Only issue with that was that after five minutes looking at it at the pick up point I had to grab on e of the girls and ask, "Could you tell me how you make this move?"

Sirius XM on the way. Blasting out Band On The Run, playing classic vinyl tracks. Only problem with that was that, on realising J had found a channel of just Beatles stuff, I got so distracted that I headed for the ditch in the centre. (Neil Young said it was better to head for the ditch rather than sit in the middle of the road. I can assure him that only works in musical careers).

Dropped the car off, headed the hotels, watched the ducks have their march.

Okay, the Peabody Hotel ducks: they've been doing this since about 1920 something. The hotel has ducks. Overnight they live in a replica of the hotel on the hotel roof (bit psychedelic as concepts go), at 11am they come down - by elevator - to the lobby in formation, led by the Duck Master (an actual human being, not another duck) and take their place in the marble fountain in the lobby (it's a very good hotel). At 5pm they head back up. In formation. In the lift. There's a full ceremony. It's a massive tourist attraction. It's genuinely really sound. We saw them go up twice. Didn't see them come down. The twice we saw them come down the whole thing went perfectly. The once we didn't, but our friends (who you'll meet tomorrow, same time we do) did - and it all went to hell. The music didn't play. The ducks, clearly conditioned to react to the music, took over the entire lobby. Ducks became random, chaos ensued. 

Genuinely gutted to miss that one. Sounded great.

First impressions of Memphis, after Nashville, were... not great. It's not Nashville. Nashville's glossy, heads up to the sky, seems organised, determined. Memphis's rougher round the edges. Beale Street seemed just a bit... grim. 

Then we went into a bar. With guitars on the walls and a door that led to a juke joint, where you could smoke if you wanted to. We didn't. We don't. But it smelt wonderfully like the eighties, like every good club you ever went to. And the band were great. We got talking to their drummer before the set, a lad called Skoobi. Contractually called Skoobi as he'd had legal issues when he used the Warner Brothers Cartoon Character spelling. Promised us that they could play anything thrown at them. We didn't throw anything but an old guy at the bar managed to get them (drums, two keyboards, vocalist) to play the funkiest version of Hotel California you're ever going to hear.

Meal at the Blues cafe - Memphis Soul Stew to start. Which I didn't realise was an actual stew, I just knew the song.

For the main? They had catfish on the menu. I've never had catfish, wouldn't dream of ordering it at home. It was great.

And then we decided that Memphis is bloody great. First impressions? Never trust those buggers. 

Tomorrow? 

This place: