I (Jake) was Walking in Memphis!

I am a first time blogger, long time reader. Vanessa insisted I write this post myself for posterity sake. This past weekend I did a guy’s getaway to the Delta Blues’ city, Memphis , Tennessee . I have always been intrigued by the south and wanted to check it out. I was eager to experience the awesome BBQ pork/Ribs, fried food, Graceland , blues music, southern hospitality and even thicker southern accents, which we most certainly did. I went with my father-in-law, Norris, a good family friend, Larry Bingham and his brother-in-law, Tony. The main event of the trip was to attend the World BBQ Championship, which is held along the bank of the mighty Mississippi River, there in Memphis . Our sabbatical motto came to us right when we arrived in town via this sweet southern sister (the shuttle bus driver) who asked, why we came to Memphis . We let her know we were there to eat the southern food. “Ya’ll came to Memphis just to eat!?" The rest of the trip we kept repeating that line in our best southern draw, “Ya’ll came to Memphis just to eat” several times a day as we stuffed our faces. Hilarious stuff, I guess you would’ve had to have been there. The World BBQ Championships is attended by thousand of people from around the world who watch over 200 teams compete for the best BBQ fare. We met tons of interesting folks competing in the event, many whom my father-in-law affectionately referred to as “rednecks”. These mostly southern good old boys would let us sample their homemade BBQ sauce (tasty stuff, the best ever), cut out the ribs from the pig right in front of us and give us discourses on the inner-workings of good BBQ. It was a fun event to check out. One true redneck uttered this classic line to us when we asked him if we could taste his BBQ sauce. Speaking of how good his sauce was, “Yu’ll hate your daddy for not givin it to you when you was a baby”. I still love my dad, but he did make a damn good BBQ sauce. After the BBQ competition, we made it our mission to seek out and find the best BBQ restaurants for dinners and the best southern breakfast diners in Memphis . I believe we found them all and I am afraid to get on the scale now. I was able to eat some of the best BBQ ribs in the world and other interesting southern cuisines like fried pickles with ranch dressing, hush puppies, twice baked potato salad and a bowl of grits with biscuits and gravy. Along with all the eating, we found some time to take in some of the local sites like Graceland , which was the home of “The King”, Elvis Presley. I am not the biggest Elvis fan, but it was still cool to see. Elvis did more in his short 42 year life than 10 people could do in a life time. We also checked out the world famous Beal Street which is home to the Blues style of music and has live music coming from all the bars and restaurants day and night. Overall, I quite enjoyed this adventure to the mid south and found the folks friendly, warm and down to earth. I am looking forward to going back some day, until then I will work on my southern draw…
More pictures to come!

I thought I saw the ghost of Elvis in Graceland! Look in the top right window. (Gotcha!!!)