Day 5: Memphis to Royse City, TX???

Wednesday, we actually got up early (for us). We were out the door by about 10 and headed to the Civil Rights Museum. We came upon The Peabody Hotel at about 10:30 and decided to stop because we were told about a bizarre daily ritual called "The March of the Ducks" which happened at 11 am every day.


We parked the car and headed to the hotel. When we reached the lobby, there were several dozen people surrounding the fountain waiting to see ducks. The story goes like this: one day in the 1930s or ‘40s, the owner of The Peabody went out duck hunting with his boys and got himself pretty well liquored up. At that time, duck hunters would hunt with live decoys that would draw in other ducks. When he returned late that night, he and his pals decided to play a little joke, and instead of taking the live decoys back to the…duck…house, they put the five ducks in the lobby fountain and went to bed. When the owner arose from his coma the next morning, not only were the ducks still in the fountain, but dozens of people were standing around watching them. So, owner man decides that this is a great idea and he’s going to do this every day.

So he brings in this guy, Sir Mallard McDrake or something, who is an animal trainer to teach five ducks (one drake and four hens) how to march from their little house on the top floor into the elevator; then, when the doors open onto the lobby, they march in a single-file line down a red carpet and up some little steps into the fountain where they will remain until 5 pm when they retrace their steps back to the rooftop duck house.


McDrake trained the ducks just as he promised, and every year, as migration is upon us, the ducks are released and new ducks are brought in and trained to do the same as their predecessors. Point: we saw this craziness happen today.

The guy who explains what is happening is EXACTLY like our boy who emcees the Hogway Speedway at the NC State Fair, except he’s wearing a bellboy’s costume, with epaulets and everything. It took 14 seconds for the whole debacle to take place, but it took 20 minutes for us to prep for it. Ducks reached the fountain without interruption.


We then headed to the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.



We thought this would take about 2 hours. We arrived at about 11:30, and left *drum roll please* at 4:00. For five hours, we read signs, watched movies, looked at pictures, and cried a little bit. When we arrived at the museum, we parked our car and walked past the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. It was, to say the least, stunning. I was overcome immediately by the importance of this very place. I couldn’t help but start tearing up.

We then entered the museum and were escorted to a 32-minute movie called "The Witness" which is about Billy Kyles's experience of MLK’s death. He was beside King when the assassination took place. It’s a great little snippet introducing viewers to the concepts that are covered in the museum. We must have walked through a half mile of displays. The museum had gutted almost all of the Lorraine Motel and turned it into this museum. There was more detail than one could imagine explaining everything from the abolitionist movement that began in the 1600s to the civil rights movement of the 20th century to the Chilean Civil Rights fight in the 1970s and ‘80s. There is another exhibit at the boarding house across the street explaining the investigation into King’s death. I stood just a few feet from where James Earl Ray stood to shoot King on that horrible day. It was astounding.

Outside the motel/museum was a women set up with tables and umbrellas who was protesting the museum. She had a display of flip cards indicating how long she had been protesting: 21 years and some number of days. Very interesting (read as: CRAAAAZYYYYYY).


At about 4:15, we decided to just hit the road instead of hitting the other museums we had wanted to visit. We drove and drove through Arkansas until we reached Little Rock. At Little Rock, we decided to take Paul Marsh’s advice (as well as the advice of our Jane and Michael Stern books) to eat at Doe’s Eat Place.

First of all, the place is a total dump from the outside and even dumpier on the inside. It looks like a total greasy spoon on the inside, but it serves amazing steaks. This is apparently, as Paul put it, the place where Bill Clinton and James Carville hatched their brilliant plan. There are pictures of Clinton all over the place, and a handful of anti-Ken Starr bumper stickers like "I slept with Kenneth Starr" and "Go Home, Kenneth Starr."


Hilarious! And, damn, was this meal expensive! However, it was worth every penny. We ordered the tamales as an appetizer. They come with house chili. AMAZING! The tamales are not steamed in corn husks, but are still delicious.


That wasn’t even our whole meal. We ordered the 3-lb T-bone to share. It comes with what the waitress called a "marinated salad," which is an iceberg salad that has been sitting in a delicious Italian dressing all day. Oh, my lord, it was good! Who knew?! The steak came with a bowl of delicious boiled red potatoes swimming in melted butter, a plate of Texas toast brushed with butter and grilled, and a side of French fries. Wow. I may be dead of a coronary before the night is over, but it was worth every second. Dave says that this was among the best steaks he’s ever had. It was wonderful.


From there, we headed toward Texas. Our ultimate goal was Austin, but we knew we’d have to stop somewhere between Texarkana (on the TX/AR border) and Dallas. I originally thought we’d stop at Texarkana, but as our friend Jen warned, that place smelled like a shithole. It was insanely stinky! No Texarkana for us! We kept driving. For my Mammoth friends, we saw a roadside bar called "Beer:30" on the I-30 east of Dallas. I really wanted to stop in, but we were getting tired. We stopped about 25 miles outside of Dallas at a delightfully cheap-ass motel ($48!!!!!). Woohoo! Unfortunately, without wireless Internet, I was not able to post the day's events.

Stay tuned for Thursday in Austin, TX.