Mark and I left Jill’s at about 11:30 after a relaxing morning and some good conversation. We continued west on 70 and made our way to Indianapolis.
As we were pulling into Indianapolis, we stumbled on Long’s Bakery. Mark, a speed draw with Yelp, found that locals liked the place so we decided to stop in for a donut. We didn’t know it at the time, but this would become a bit of a recurring theme throughout the trip.
The Pennsylvania Dutchman in me couldn’t resist – I went for the Apple Cinnamon glazed and Mark had the Cinnamon Glazed.
They were, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, delicious.
Once we’d finished sating our sweet teeth, we headed a short distance over to the IMS or Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
It’s kinda a funny stop for us since neither of us are much into racing, but we were looking for something quintessentially Illinois / Indianapolis to do, and honestly, we couldn’t think of anything more appropriate. Sadly, we were not able to go round the track which is a service they offer for just a few bucks. They sold out shortly before we arrived. We did manage to spend some time browsing the museum.
I found the older cars of far more interest for their style and form. They will almost certainly (as I explained to Mark) show up as reference for some sort of pulp fiction sci-fi image from me in the future.
Once we felt we had a solid sense of the Speedway and the museum there, we continued down the road. Before long, we made a pit stop to get some White Castle.
Yeah. White Castle. Just call us Harold and Kumar. The truth is that Mark had never had White Castle from a brick and mortar shop before, and since we were in an area that had them, I kinda coaxed him into it. Why not? Randomness is good the road trips.
While I drove, Mark did some planning for the Memphis portion of our trip. We knew we were going to visit Graceland (I’d been once, a while back but Mark had never been) but we didn’t have much more than that figured out.
This arrangement, of course, played to our strengths. I drive for my job. The long hours I put in there make me capable of doing very long stretches – even on boring midwestern highways like route 70 and route 57 without suffering terribly. Mark, on the other hand, is much better at figuring out where the best places to go and/or see are. As long as he was able to keep a cellular connection up, he did some digging. He’d occasionally call out a couple of different ideas and we’d weigh the options, but mostly, he did a lot of filtering out bad options while I kept my eyes on the road. It worked very well indeed.
We listened to music after The Memphis Plan was decided on.
We talked briefly to Mark’s wife Moriah once The Plan had been pieced together. Just hearing parts of their conversation reinforced my opinion that they’re both remarkable people who are deeply supportive of one another. It’s enough to give a guy hope for the future.
We landed in Memphis at about 11pm. We ditched the car and our gear in the local DoubleTree hotel. I’d purchased our two night stay with membership points. Having been someone who lived out of hotels for five years straight does have its advantages. With our stuff secured, we walked down to Beale Street, which was a bit of a shock to me.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, exactly, but Beale Street reminded me of Bourbon Street. It was closed off and had a bit of a block party vibe to the whole thing. That’s kinda funny since it was a Tuesday night and there weren’t many folks out and about. It gave you the sense that you arrived at the party after the fact – the red cups are all used, and the keg’s tapped. Should have arrived sooner, dude.
We were on a mission, though. Mark had a very clear mental picture of what he was looking for: A Memphis bar with a lone musician on stage. They’re plucking at their guitar and feeling the music more than they are playing it. That music would drift out of the place and draw us in like the floating cartoon characters following the scent of their favorite foods. The lights are low, and people are dancing to the blues. Something up tempo, but still blues. He’d find some willing partner and they’d have one really good, really connected dance, and we’d go.
My thoughts for the mission? Pretty much the same, but add me at a corner booth sipping on a nice cold whiskey.
That’s not exactly what we found. What we found was cover bands and desperate prostitutes just trying to find some work in the empty street.
We were approached three times. We politely turned them away three times. One even rubbed on my belly like I was the Buddha before I could make it clear that I was not interested in what she had to offer.
My paranoia sufficiently stoked into overdrive, I confirmed that my wallet was still securely in place as we made our way back up the street until we found ourselves at the Blues City Cafe for a little snack.
Mark got the stew, and I got the gumbo. Both were quite tasty. When we were done, we left the money on the table. Our server seemed overly busy with his other tables, so we just let him know the money was on the table as we headed back out.
We poked our head inside BB King’s Blues Club and found that the cover band who had been playing James Brown tunes earlier in the evening had wrapped and were packing up. So, we decided to do the same and walked back to our hotel for the night.
This post is part of a series describing the Road Trip west I took with my best friend. To read about our travels on the previous day, click <<<here. To read about our travels on the following day, click here>>>(Coming Soon).
