Some Sights from Tennessee - January 2009

ServiceMaster provided us with executive lodging @ The Vineyards in Germantown, about 8 minutes from Jack's office. This was the front of our building, our apartment was under the stairs on the opposite side and faced away from the parking lot. Our door is the second one, w/ the number attached to the door frame on top.

Here's the back of our building, the window on the left was next to the couch in the main room, and the second window was in our bedroom. I probably would have spent time on the little "deck", but it was too cold. The view out the back of our apartment (from the "deck"). This is what I saw out the window, too. We would walk across the grass to the main building on the left behind the BBQ awning. They had a pool, racquet ball, a movie room and a workout room. I spent lots of hours there on the treadmill and eliptical, keeping Bacon and I fit!

This is W.C. Johnson Park. It is one of the things that sold me on Collierville. There are greenbelts that spread for miles, a wooden, raised nature trail that makes a loop out to Wolf River and lots of fields.

Here's a view of the water park. I can't wait to go when it starts getting warm!

Jack, being silly at the water park already! Just wait till Bacon comes!

One Saturday, after being cooped up for a while due to the cold, we decided to take a day trip. We plugged it into a google search and came up with the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale MS. It was a 45 minute drive South.

Bacon and I pose with a wax replica of Muddy Waters. It was small , but pretty well done and we got a start on learning some of the famous blues musicians of the South. They had instruments, figurines, photos, video, art, newspaper articles and videos. Just across the way, we ate at a Blues club. You can see the stage and some guitars hung on the wall behind us in this picture. Every space on the walls and pillars was filled with names, lyrics, messages and doodles. Jack got a chicken sandwich, and I got fried green tomato sandwich. It was AMAZING!!

The bar was behind me and the drawl on the folks in Mississippi is much stronger and deeper than what you hear in Memphis!

Jack and the kitchen. As you can tell, they keep it dark in this place during the day with all of the shades drawn. This was around noon.

Famous Beale Street.

We've been a few times, but mostly when it's cold and no one's out. The street is actually always blocked off, so it is a place where people walk and mingle. This was Valentine's day, when we had reservations at the top of BB King's Club, Itta Beena (I may be butchering the spelling). It was the first time we'd been on Beale and it had been mild enough weather to see it "in action."

This one turned out really fuzzy, but it's the "entrance" to Beale and we ate our SPECTACULAR Valentines dinner just inside those white framed windows in the upper right corner of the picture. That blueish sign is BB King's. The best thing about dinner is that Jack surprised me by making reservations and there were a few live musicians that rotated through the piano bench, filling the loft of the restaurant with sultry sounds.

Another night we got tickets to the Grizzlies game through Jack's work and got to be in the ServiceMaster Box! It's comfy, close to the court, and had all you could eat food!! The mascot even came. He was showing off and throwing popcorn on fans below and then dumped a whole bowl on one of the kids in our group!!

This is just before the throwing began! You can see how close we were...