Day 58-60, Lay over in Memphis

If I were to live in Memphis the local yacht club is where I'd call home. As far as the amenities are concerned its nothing glamorous but the tenants are a breed to themselves. The dynamic seems to be working here and most every night there are afew people hanging out in the pavilion. We arrived on Sunday evening and William the engineer played a movie through a projector.Everyone gathered around to watch. Southern hospitality picked up whereMidwestern nice ended. Tara, who is as sexy as she is salty let us borrow her car even though we didn't have any errands to do. "Just turn theair conditioner on and drive," she said. She didn't have to twist our arms too hard so we sped off in her little red Chevrolet. Not having any goal in mind we just got lost in some back neighborhoods and then drove across the I-40 bridge so we could check out the river. Donny keeps giving us homegrown tomatoes at a rate that we can barely eat up. Another annual tenant and genuine man named John very graciously drove us to Graceland and to a grocery store with a side tour of some of Memphis' more regal estates thrown in. After a few nights in a row of wakes, mosquitoes, mud, barges and anchor problems it has been a reprieve being here. At first I had only planned to stay two nights but it's so comfortable and relaxing we are still here. Most of our days have been filled with site seeing. We visited the Peabody Hotel and saw their world famous Peabody Ducks. They are a group of five Mallards that enjoy the cool waters of the lobbies fountain during the day. At 5 pm. the duck master herds them out of the lobby, into the elevator and up to the roof top where they spend the night in the Duck Palace, which is actually just a cage. Mud Island' river walk and museum have been a highlite. There is a scale model of the Lower Mississippi with water twisting through the bends and sloughs. I met a lady upstream that had told me the model was a "total let down." Not so. Last night we joined several thousand people on Beale Street to gawk at the motorcycles and their rally bound drivers. It was a scene to behold. There were low riders and trikes, lit hand bars and enough chrome to cover the Empire State Building. Kathy and I walked aimlessly for a while before we found a roof top restaurant to enjoy the event.