Traveling

I had an opportunity last week I’m not sure I might ever have again, y’all.  I was whisked away from St. Louis to Chicago via a private jet for a one-day (work-related) whirlwind.  A private jet taking off from a private hangar is pretty sweet.  I can see why those jet-setters do it.  

Since I was up there for a lot of work (non) fun, I kept those pictures in the work folder.  However, I did take a quick picture of the glorious view from one of the 10th floor furniture showrooms I was visiting in the Merchandise Mart.

It was perfect weather and we had a long lunch at Fulton’s.  Not sure if that is a tourist trap or not. Not sure if I care.  But, if you ever have the opportunity to fly on a private jet (8 seater!), do it.  It will be worth your jet-setting while.

In other traveling related news, JT and I also took a recent mini-vacation down to Memphis and Clarksdale, Mississippi.  Memphis is a fairly quick 5 hour drive from St. Louis, down Highway 55.  The we traveled another hour and a half past down to Clarksdale, home of the crossroads (junction of old Highway 61 and Highway 49).  It is now also home to a Church’s Chicken, a furniture store and Al’s Barbeque.  

The neatest part about Clarksdale was not necessarily the crossroads, but the place we stayed for the night, The Shack Up Inn.  It is like adult summer camp and a junker’s paradise combined into one.  Situated on the old Hopson Plantation, the owner’s have relocated various old cotton sharecroppers shacks into a compound of sorts.  The heart of the compound is the old cotton gin where they have live music on the weekends.

It’s also where you go to get your beer — at Shack Up, B&B stands for bed and beer.

It was pretty amazing.  I took too many pictures.  I’ll try to speed it up here . . . We stayed in Electric Blue.  

We saved a big sliver of paint that was hanging out on the porch floor and lo and behold, when we got home it was almost a match to the blue we painted the front door.  Maybe Living Analog should be renamed Electric Blue?  Maybe not.  But we had an awesome time there, would definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone and can’t wait to go back.

After our glorious and restful time at Shack Up had ended, we headed back up Highway 61 towards Memphis.  But not without a pit stop at Tunica first . . . .

Luckily we walked out of Tunica with our hats (and actually a little ahead, if you count $10 as a little ahead).   Back in Memphis we did all the things a music tourist would do: Sun Studios (2nd visit, had to pry JT out), Stax Records, Gibson Guitar Factory tour (had to really pry JT out, he was about to work for free) and the Rock n’ Soul Museum.  We have already been to Graceland and didn’t want to shell out the $$$ for another Elvis visit so we skipped that this trip.

(I noticed when I went through these pictures later that the only ones I got of Stax have unflattering views of the man changing out the marquee.  Sorry dude.)

We also walked across the skybridge to Mud Island, saw some live music and lots of motorcycles on Beale Street and happened onto the Peabody ducks (we stayed at the Holiday Inn across from the Peabody and had “ducked” in to the shops around the lobby to bide some time during a quick rainstorm.) All in all an amazing and much to short vacation . . . now that we’re back at the grind we need to schedule another so we have something to look forward to.  I’m campaigning hard for New York in the fall . . .