Memphis, TN
David and I decided to spent the holidays with his family this year since he spent Christmas with my family the previous year. His father rented a beautiful cabin ( I use that term loosely as it was a 4-bedroom house with dual masters) in the Great Smoky Mountains. If you aren’t familiar with that area, the mountains are located in the small town of Pigeon Forge, TN which is about 40 minutes outside of Knoxville. We decided to make a fun road trip out of it and drive out to Tennessee stopping in Memphis for the night along the way. I had been to Memphis once before when I was in high school, but David had never been. We stayed at the historic Peabody Hotel and y’all, if you ever visit Memphis, please stay at this hotel! It’s absolutely stunning and you have to experience the march of the ducks at least once in your life!
These ducks are everything! Everyday at 11 am, they are are released from their penthouse pools (#goals) and and descend to the hotel lobby in a glass elevator to an onslaught of tourists waiting to take their picture. This is the level of extra I aspire to be on a daily basis! If I can’t descend from a glass elevator to my fans, then is there even a point in showing face?! Anyways, after their diva descent, they waddle across a red carpet that has been laid out specifically for the tiny celebrities to take their place in the lobby fountain. They spend their days canoodling with their fans, then at 5 pm the Duck Master (yes y’all this is a real job) clears their runway so they can make their ascent back up to their rooftop palace.
My sister actually went to undergrad in Memphis, so for dinner that night she recommended Rendezvous. It’s a Mom and Pop shop BBQ joint that happens to be around the corner from the Peabody. The menu is not very big, but everything is tasty! I wish I would have bought some of the BBQ sauce to bring home to put on ribs, but we were going out afterward and I don’t have Beyonce’s “I got hot sauce in my bag” swag. I’m definitely ordering some online and having it shipped to my house
We ended the night with some live music on Beale St of course! I love live music and you will get your fill of it off the historic Beale St. We popped in BB Kings and King Jerry Lawler’s Bar and Grille.