Jen and Meg's Excellent Road Trip Recap: Memphis

Hello!  I am fresh off my recent two week, cross country trip with my best friend Megan, and wanted to share some of the sights and sounds we encountered, as we covered 5750 miles over 16 days! I'll be doing an entry for each stop, which will hopefully make it much easier to read.


Also, I have posted many pictures to my Facebook page, which you can view here.  Be sure to also check out Megan's blog - she was much better about keeping up with writing each day, so her recaps may be filled with a tad more detail than mine.

Plate of barbeque from Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous

Day/night one of the trip found us heading from Chicago to Memphis.  We were on the road by 7:30am, and surprisingly, didn't hit a ton of traffic!  We touched down in Memphis, aka "land of the delta blues," (yes, we had 'Walking in Memphis' on repeat) around 4:00pm.  We unpacked our things and figured what better way to start our vacation than to seek our some famous Memphis barbeque!  Our hotel was only a short drive into downtown, and we parked a few blocks off the famous Beale Street.  Our dinner destination ended up being Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, which was listed as one of the 7 Best Memphis Barbeque Joints by Travel + Leisure Magazine.  Rendezvous is apparently known for their ribs, so we each ordered a combo plate of ribs + brisket (in my case), and ribs + chicken for Megan.  To wash down the bbq, we also had a pitcher of a local brew, Ghost River Golden Ale.  The beer was nothing to write home about, but as you know, we like to seek out local beer, and it was a nice, cold, complement to the ribs.

After filling our stomachs, we headed out to walk the other famous Memphis attraction - Beale Street.  At first glance Beale Street is not unlike any other, bar/club/restaurant lined street you may find in another big city, but apparently the scene can get pretty crazy, so most nights the local police close off a 5 block stretch of the street to cars so people can walk (stumble) freely.  This also allows you to purchase and walk around with your chosen beverage(s) without fear of ticket.  Being a Thursday, we could tell right away Beale was not going to be hopping as it might on a weekend.  Regardless, there were still a fair amount of people out, especially as the night wore on.  Megan and I bar hopped a bit, trying to take in the city. We made an obligatory stop at BB King's Restaurant / Blues Club, and heard a short set from the band, while enjoying a beer from our new souvenir glass.
Almost every bar we went into had a band playing, which I thought was pretty awesome.  We met and chatted up few random folks in some of the bars, but in the end, we called it a night a little before midnight, knowing we had a long few weeks head of us.

Beale Street by day

Beale Street at night