Road Trip 04-15-09

04-15-09
We had lunch at "Leonard's Bar B Que". They are famous for putting cole slaw ON the sandwich. That's ingenuity. The place is fairly large it seats about 200 or so in 4 different rooms. Every room was pretty well filled up when we got there at 12:20. We had to wait about 10 minutes and then we were seated right next to the meat portion of the buffet. They have several stations, like on a crusie ship, one for the salads, one for the sides, one for the meats, and one for the desserts. Every station had a wide selection of everything and everyday they vary the items a little, all priced about $10 for all you can eat, good deal. We chose the menu item of small bbq pork sandwich platter with beans and fries and a small beef brisket sandwich. 2 ice teas unsweet. The pork sandwich was great probably a little too much cole slaw and not enough meat. The beef brisket was a little tough. I always compare everybodies beef brisket and compare it to Fred Walden's, Fred's is the best , moist, flavorful, and TENDER. Leonard's had everything but the tenderness. Everything was good but nothing outstanding. If you are hungry choose the buffet. Drove to the Sun Studio and I forgot to recharge the camera battery so naturally it went dead right after we arrived. Got two pictures of us outside and that was it for the battery. We said we'll go back and take some picture, I doubt it, but we said it. The original Studio is in the left half of a building. It still has the original greeting room, then the studio where Elvis,Jerry Lee Lewis,Johnny Cash,Carl Perkins, and many others cut their records, and then the control room where Sam Phillips recorded the music. The right side was a boarding house and cafe where a lot of the musicians hung out and stayed while recording. Sun studios stopped using the building in 1960 and moved to bigger digs behind the studio. The amazing part is that even though the rooms were rented out as a barber shop, even a dive shop throughout the years no one ever remodeled, they kept the original sound board walls and ceilings intact, so we get to see it as it was in 1956. The building has been declared an historic landmark so you can go see it forever. The tour is done by the good looking young tall girl (not that I really noticed her) that sells you tickets $12 each, she does a great job of bring back the enthusiasm that must have been there in it's heyday, make sure you tip her. There is an upstairs museum and the studio downstairs that would be nothing without the narration. When we were there we saw two Elvis impersonators, ground zero for Elvis sightings. We are officially old now, we had to buy one of those little compasses that you stick on your windshield so that you know which direction you are going, I guess I can apply for my handicap parking sticker tomorrow. We went by the "Loraine Motel" where Dr. King was assinated in 1968 over 40 years ago, fourty years, god I am old. They have set the motel up as a museum, we went to go in at 4:30 but they close at 5 so we'll go back tomorrow. We also went by the "Burke Estate" that was used for the underground railroad moving slaves to the north. Same dealeo on that, they closed at 5. So now it's happy hour, yeah somethin that we are good at, got to find a place, we go to a place that over looks the Missisippi River "The Pier". We check it out and nothings going on, when we are leaving this guy back into a cars side quarter panel he looks at it and then just drives off. We got his tag number but the car he hit already had damage everwhere else on the car we figured it did not matter if he had another small hit. We then go to a place called The Blue Monkey, it's slow there also The bartender Becca said it has been slow at night lately but good for lunch, we had driven by it several times and it never looked busy. We then find out why no one was anyplace but Beal Street. Tonight was their first wednesday bike night of the year and the place was packed. Thousands of bikes, they had 3 motocross riders jumping over jumps OVER Beale St. doing flips, 360s and every thing else. Pretty cool. We hung out at The Patio, had a few Big Ass Beers and listened to their band, it's an outside bar with $4, 24 oz. miller lites and a good blues band but they keep trying to sell their CDs to you, we did not buy any. So now it's 9 oclock and we're hungry so we go to Gus's World Famous Chicken. Our GPS, when we arrived says we are at Gus's World Famous Chicken, it must be famous if the gPS knows it. We walk in and the first thing you know your nose goes into overdrive, the aroma is delicious. They only cook chicken, nothing else, no beef, no pork, chicken only. We both ordered the 3 piece white meals with beans and slaw and fried rice. We are watching our cals so we order ultras. What can I say Great moist, midly spicy chicken and sides. Dixie brought one of her breast home for breakfast. I ate them all, how can you just eat 1 breast when 2 of them are staring at you, and they were really BIG BREASTS, I just love saying that. That's why they are world famous. Time to head back to the Coach and chill out. See Ya Brian