I was walking in Memphis...

Beale Street
Originally uploaded by Olivia Linkel

Tuesday was an interesting day. Around 2 am, a huge storm rolled through Nashville and woke me up. I immediately was listening for the sound of hail, then a tornado, then rushing water. Normally, I am not so paranoid about the weather but it was nearly a year ago that Nashville had its historic flood and the campground where we were staying had been under water at that time. Of course that was after 19 inches of rain had been dumped in 2 days and the Cumberland River overflowed its banks. After I rationalized all of this, it still took me about 30 minutes to go back to sleep.
I woke up to the alarm at 6 and got the kids up by 7 to take showers for our 3 hour drive to Shiloh. The drive was pretty uneventful except for the passing of 7 dead armadillos and a little rain. By the time we got to Shiloh National Battlefield, the rain had cleared and we had a nice walk on the grounds and cemetery. The kids completed another junior ranger badge. To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the civil war, the NPS created a junior civil war historian patch that you get if you complete 3 of the southeast region junior ranger programs. The kids were excited to get another patch for their vests. This marks our 78th park. 
From there we had another 2 hour drive to Memphis. We had been watching the weather and knew to expect storms this afternoon and evening but had really been hoping to get to spend a little time on Beale Street and in downtown. The hope was to hit Sun Studios or the Gibson Guitar factory but it was already 5 o’clock and the skies were very dark on the other side of the Mississippi river. We found a surface parking lot (not always easy with the FunV) and walked over to Beale Street. We had heard of a place called Miss Polly’s Soul City Café that was supposed to have great fried chicken. When we entered the bar, there was no one else in there. We asked the one waiter/bartender where everyone was and he said that the tornado warning was keeping them away. That’s when we noticed the 2 TV’s with local weather (big red, yellow and green splotches). The guy took our order and we watched the storm on the radar as it was just across the river in Arkansas. I had been worried about the fact that the river is expected to flood but had not even considered the severity of storms in Memphis. We ate our dinner and of course the kids began to worry about us being in a tornado. “Are we gonna die?” We decided to skip the fried pie in favor of getting to our campsite before the worst of the storm hit. I asked Scott if he would drive towards the river just so we could have a look at how full it was and about the same time, we heard the tornado sirens go off. I have never heard that sound before and it scared the crap out of me. The crazy thing is, you can really hear it all over the city but the interesting thing is that the residents don’t seem to respond to it. They look up to see if something is coming and then go back about their business. It beats all I have ever seen.
We decided that we should skip the river overlook in favor of getting the hell out of dodge – er Memphis. We drove to our campground, which is right across the street from Graceland and parked. By that time though, the rain was coming down and the lightning all around was very ominous. I sat in the cab of the camper and watched the storm out the front window while Scott hooked the kids up with games on the ipad and iphone to distract them. The emergency plan when you are in what essentially amounts to a trailer park, is to not stay in the trailer but both the mens and womens restrooms were already full of old men and women (60’s and up) drinking in their camp chairs with their cats in carriers and dogs sitting next to the bathroom stalls. We decided that hanging out in there which just make the kids more nervous so we checked the radar on our phones, watched the skies and were prepared to run for the bathroom should we need it. We made it through that storm but the sirens continue to go off and I don’t expect to sleep well tonight. I am looking forward to Graceland tomorrow but not to the long drive north to Kentucky. I wish we had planned more time in Memphis but we can always stop on a different trip west.

PS – We survived the night but it is still raining. It’s all better thought because we are now head to Graceland!!!