On the way to Memphis, we intended to eat lunch at Noshville, a normal deli in Nashville with a funny name. However, we found out that the Memphis Riverboat ride that we wanted to take at 5:00 PM was only available Saturdays and Sundays and that the weekday time was limited to 2:30 PM. We weren’t going to even bother trying to get to Memphis by 2:30 PM and even drove through Nashville to stop for lunch. At the last second, we decided to skip lunch in an effort to maybe, hopefully, possibly make it to the boat before it pulled out onto the Mississippi.

Time was going to be tight, even though we gained an hour upon entering the Central Time Zone on the way to Nashville. It was almost 11 AM Central when we got to Nashville and lying between us at the 2:30 PM boat was a 3-hour drive to Memphis, checking into the hotel, unpacking our luggage from the car (we weren’t sure is this was necessary, but then the hotel gave us a not-so-reassuring pamphlet that said “Stow it. Don’t show it.”) and, finally, running in the hot Memphis sun to the riverboat, which, with a little luck, wouldn’t be pulling away when we arrived.

We made to the dock with just six minutes to spare at 2:24 PM. Out of breath and hungry, we boarded the ship, stood in front of a giant oscillating fan and ordered some hotdogs and a cold drink. The 90-minute cruise aboard an old-time riverboat was worth it for the scenery, the breeze and the monotone narrator who had the soothing voice of a tired southern storyteller. Although I could’ve sworn it was a recording and told George that it must be when said that he thought the same thing, we discovered that it was really a man on the second deck of this three-deck boat. Toward the end of the ride, he humorously remarked, “Some people think I’m a CD, but nope. I’m a real person.”

At 5:30 PM, we went to the famous Sun Studio at took the final tour of the day where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins recorded. The tour was insightful and reminded me a lot of a music history course I took at Penn State. I recognized a lot of the black blues musicians that Sam Phillips recorded (even though it wasn’t popular to do so at the time) during the 45-minute tour through the upstairs museum area and the actual downstairs studio portion. Thankfully, I was able to take my camcorder on the tour even though video and flash are banned from the upstairs museum. Our guide was young and she understood that it also takes quality still pictures, so what she called the “mean old Graceland rules” (since some of Elvis’ stuff is on loan from Graceland, where the same strict rules apply) didn’t apply. Anyone else older or unhip might have looked at me with a puzzled face if I tried to explain how my camcorder also takes stills and responded with something like “Umm… I don’t get it. You come back and see the wizard tomorrow.”

The Sun Studio tour concluded in the recording studio where we posed and played with the stand-up microphone that Elvis once used. It’s getting close to dinnertime, so time to end this update and try out some Memphis ribs.