The entire downtown is being redeveloped but the trolleys are staying
Rollin' on the river
A great art museum with a complete collectionWhile Memphis is a raunchy, “happening” city at night, it does have another side. Memphis’ Brooks Museum of Art is one of only 3 US venues to present the "Pissarro – Creating the Impressionist Landscape exhibit". This touring exhibit explores Pissarro’s transformation from his early works to the development of his Impressionist style and, is very well done. The museum is located in a leafy neighbourhood of palatial homes on wide boulevards, all surrounded by the Galloway Golf Course, an established, rolling terrain, unique in the flatlands of Memphis. No blues musicians (or BBQ) for miles!
Cruising the Mississippi, one is taken by the 8 knot current and the huge rafts of barges plying the waterway. Some of the largest “tow boats” on the lower Mississippi (which oddly enough PUSH the rafts) can have engines to 10,000 horsepower and handle up to a maximum of 60 barges rafted together. One barge can hold 1500 tons of cargo or, the equivalent of 60 tractor trailers. If you do the math, a very large tow boat can propel the equivalent of 3600 tractor trailers or, a bumper-to-bumper line of trucks 35 miles long. Now THAT’S efficient!
Memphis has an interesting history full of triumph and disaster. In addition to all the Civil War stories, there was the decade long Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1870’s which killed ¼ of the citizens; the formation of the NAACP in Memphis; the automation of many cotton growing and processing techniques; several horrific floods and; the sinking of the “Sultana” which, contrary to popular opinion, was the single largest loss of life in a maritime disaster …….. ever. (Move over Titanic and Lusitania). The Sultana was a Mississippi paddlewheeler, designed to carry 376 people, but loaded with approximately 2,000, mostly freed Union soldiers liberated from Confederate prisoner-of-war camps. A boiler blew up just north of Memphis causing the loss of about 1,700 lives. A terrible tragedy then; an interesting trivia fact today.
After a bit of a “snow delay” in Denver, we flew back to Salt Lake City to find everything as it was left. It’s time to start seriously heading south!
Cruising the Mississippi, one is taken by the 8 knot current and the huge rafts of barges plying the waterway. Some of the largest “tow boats” on the lower Mississippi (which oddly enough PUSH the rafts) can have engines to 10,000 horsepower and handle up to a maximum of 60 barges rafted together. One barge can hold 1500 tons of cargo or, the equivalent of 60 tractor trailers. If you do the math, a very large tow boat can propel the equivalent of 3600 tractor trailers or, a bumper-to-bumper line of trucks 35 miles long. Now THAT’S efficient!
Memphis has an interesting history full of triumph and disaster. In addition to all the Civil War stories, there was the decade long Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1870’s which killed ¼ of the citizens; the formation of the NAACP in Memphis; the automation of many cotton growing and processing techniques; several horrific floods and; the sinking of the “Sultana” which, contrary to popular opinion, was the single largest loss of life in a maritime disaster …….. ever. (Move over Titanic and Lusitania). The Sultana was a Mississippi paddlewheeler, designed to carry 376 people, but loaded with approximately 2,000, mostly freed Union soldiers liberated from Confederate prisoner-of-war camps. A boiler blew up just north of Memphis causing the loss of about 1,700 lives. A terrible tragedy then; an interesting trivia fact today.
After a bit of a “snow delay” in Denver, we flew back to Salt Lake City to find everything as it was left. It’s time to start seriously heading south!
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