Memphis Part II

Katie at the Pink Palace

This is part of the University of Memphis where Katie will be spending a lot of time

It was “Elvis week” ---to commemorate the 31st anniversary of his death-- so that was ......ummmm.... interesting. We did see “Elvis” twice while downtown on Union Avenue (heard that song about walking in Memphis—and seeing him down on Union Ave??). We didn't go to Graceland simply because it was Elvis week. The place was crawling with people who were huge fans.... one little guy had on a belt buckle that was all glittery and said “Elvis” in some red kind of sparkly stones that was about as large as my salad plates and he was a little bitty fellow. The first Elvis we saw was selling newspapers in his trademark White and Gold jumpsuit. The second Elvis we saw was in the same Sun Studio tour group we were in..... and this one had a eastern European accent! Sun Studio was great by the way

We went to the zoo on Saturday and man was it HOT!! Katie said it was the coolest weekend they have had since she moved there in May---whew! Their zoo is magnificent – I want to go back in say--- January or February! The tigers were the best. We stood there for a long time and watched them. It was hot and they were busy playing in the water and with each other. There was a white tiger, a Bengal and Sumatran tiger. They were soooo beautiful. I usually don't like zoos because the animals all seem so stressed and unhappy. These were much better than the last time I was in a zoo. --somehow i do not have the picture of the tigers on my computer---grrrr

Saturday morning Katie took us to downtown and we saw all the tourist spots--- Beale St., BB Kings, Huey's for lunch. A Schwabs. Peabody and Peabody place---

We also ate at some really neat places. It was just fun to see stuff we had never seen YK? We went to the Commissary in Germantown but it was raining and crowded so we went to a pizza place named Girabaldi's instead. This was the Friday night that Michael Phelps won the gold by .001 second. The food was great (yummy barbecue pizza) but the funniest thing was that while we were eating and Michael Phelps started racing everyone in the restaurant (including the employees ) jumped over to see the race. Then there was some whooping and talk about if he did or if he didn't.

Saturday evening we ate at Bosco's which is a local favorite apparently. We were so tired after the zoo that that was pretty much all we did on Saturday-- -The heat drained us-- good food. We went back to Katie's then. i read some on a book i was trying to finish and Katie and Mark watched the Olympics...soon we went to bed because we were just so tired.

Sunday was the day we went to Sun Studio and out for breakfast-- then Katie insisted we leave ---but we made good time and made it home just after midnight---- good trip- good times

The week before we went down there her car started acting up...so one of the first things we did was take a bunch of tools so Mark could check out her car. He tried everything to get the dumb car to mess up---but it would not mess up. Course we left on Sunday evening and the car promptly tore up! She ended up having to have it towed to a garage. It cost $189 to repair it—we hope anyway. And it turned out the only thing they did was replace the battery!!! but at least it seems to be working now.

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