dom.blog

And the sons of Pullman porters, and the sons of engineers
Ride their father’s magic carpets made of steel
And, mothers with their babes asleep rocking to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel

(City of New Orleans)

Memphis, Tennessee

For Randi’s birthday surprise gift thing, I decided to book tickets on an Amtrak sleeper train. Not only would this fulfil one of her stated life goals, but – conveniently! – would also speed me to another freshly visited state. With timetable options on Amtrak rather limited, the most sensible destination ended up being Memphis, Tennessee. I’m stressing that the destination started out as a bit of an afterthought, because I really didn’t know much about Memphis itself… but it turned out to be a wonderful place for a sunny weekend getaway.

But first, let’s talk about the magic of trains: taking dinner in the dining car opposite a stranger, folding down the upper bunk, shuffling down the carriage to brush your teeth, curling up to sleep under a blanket as the night landscape rushes by outside and the double-decker bumps and sways along the rail. Since I had just read The Mask of Dimitrios (as recommended by Simon, King of the Railways) it really wouldn’t have surprised me to find a communist spy in the next room. And while there’s a certain sadness to Amtrak – the feeling you’re just catching a faint echo of glory days long past – the staff on-board our train were phenomenal and fun. I generally avoid the notion that trains are romantic curiosities, because they’re not: trains are the future, not the past. But I make a bit of an exception for sleeper trains, because a little romance never went amiss.

Dining on Amtrak

We arrived in Memphis early in the morning and checked in to the Peabody Hotel, a fancy-shmancy kind of place famous for having ducks swimming around the fountain in the lobby. Each morning the ducks are led down from their rooftop penthouse, and then every afternoon – with much ceremony – they march back out of the fountain, along the red carpet and into the waiting lift. It’s all very cute, and naturally everything else in the hotel is now duck-themed too. (Weirdly, this even cropped up in the novel I was reading this weekend too.)

Procession of the Peabody Ducks

We mostly went to the Botanic Garden for the children’s section

After a much-needed southern breakfast at Brother Juniper’s, we walked off our train legs through a nearby park and then Memphis’s Botanic Garden. Not only was it beautiful and warm, but – in conformity with southern stereotypes – most people we passed actually smiled and said hello. (This was basically true everywhere we went in Memphis.)

Next stop: Graceland, the ‘home of Elvis Presley’ (his death proving no hindrance). I wouldn’t exactly call myself an Elvis fan, so this wasn’t quite a pilgrimage of rock ‘n’ roll, more an irresistible scoop of Americana. (Although talking of scoops: try ordering a milkshake there and you’ll be treated to what felt like an entire tub of ice cream.) The tour of his mansion was interesting, though, if a little bit confusing because the relentlessly positive chronology doesn’t provide any context leading up to his death, so he just sort of… dies, suddenly, for no reason. It did make me want to listen to a few Elvis songs afterwards, though.

(I don’t mean to sideline Elvis, but actually the most memorable thing which happened at Graceland was in the queue, when the couple in front of us suddenly turned round and, in southern accents, complimented my TARDIS phone case. Turns out their entire family are big Doctor Who fans, with children who dress up as Daleks for Halloween and walk around shouting ‘EXTERMINATE!’ at things. We’re everywhere.)

Elvis would have loved Twitter

Live music over lunch

Not moving fast enough

The most famous part of Memphis is probably Beale Street, and while we ended up ditching its big Saturday night crowds for the comfort and cocktails of the Peabody’s lobby instead, we’d already got our live blues fix earlier in the day over lunch. (Fried chicken and catfish, since you ask.)

After lunch we took the monorail to the Mississippi River Park on Mud Island. The chief attraction here is their giant, geographically-faithful scale model of the Mississippi River, which you are encouraged to paddle in until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico and becomes a fully-fledged swimming pool. It’s really, really wonderful.

Monorail

In the model Mississippi!

The next morning, while Randi worked, I took a more sombre trip to the National Civil Rights Museum built around the former Lorraine Motel. It was here, in 1968 on the balcony outside room 306, that Martin Luther King was assassinated: a good place to stop and reflect on what has and has not changed since then. Inside, the museum does a good job telling the story of the civil rights movement, but was all the more meaningful when I could overhear a member of the group ahead of me talk about his own life and memories in response to the exhibits: yes, he remembered Brown v. Board of Education, he remembered the Little Rock Nine and Massive Resistance and the lunch counter sit-ins and the slow toppling of formal, de jure segregation across the South.

The balcony at the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated

The final spot on our Memphis itinerary was Shelby Farms Park: a huge park, about a 30 minute drive from the centre of Memphis with hiking and biking trails, lakes for pedal boats and kayaks, zip-lining through the trees and – allegedly – a herd of buffalo. We did not see the buffalo. But we did walk through the woods and fields to our hearts’ content, before flying home to Chicago.

I can’t quite wrap my head around Memphis. We had, of course, a very touristy experience. If you read up on the city, you’ll soon hear about violent crime, poverty and brutal racism. The same is true, of course, of Chicago. And it doesn’t stop being true just because it’s possible to visit and have a wonderful weekend. But I would recommend visiting Memphis enormously: for the people, the music, the food, the history and the green spaces. And if you really want to make it special, roll up on the overnight train.

Kayaking at Shelby Farms Park

Couldn’t leave without acquiring a duck

Some places defy expectations. Providence is not one of them. It is, as you might think, a comfortable corner of the world replete with beautiful brick buildings, a pretty river and lots and lots of students… at least in the immediate vicinity of the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown, where Randi and I were very kindly hosted by Rachel last weekend. (And some of the students are, y’know, those kind of students. I walked past one woman explaining to her friend how she’d ‘problematised’ something, which is still my most hated academic tic of all time. Please, please stop problematising things.)

So it was that we had a relaxing Rhode Island weekend in ‘mostly sunny’ Providence: eating lots of things with lobster inside, taking a boat tour up and down the river (on which we made up 50% of the tour’s audience) and celebrating Rachel’s completed thesis with sangria. Congrats!

Providence, Rhode Island. Categorically not an island, but at least there’s a river.

My arty bridge shot

My arty ‘need a haircut’ shot

Students!

Somewhat smug police cars

Randi & Rachel (plus sangria)

Oh, and we also saw Zootopia, which was… astonishing. Forget the trailer I’d seen beforehand, which is ludicrously unrepresentative, and marvel that Disney have sneaked out a full-throated social commentary on bias and prejudice… all while being legitimately funny the whole way through. I don’t know how to describe it without making it sound po-faced and terrible, actually, so ignore me and just go see it yourself. If nothing else, as I watched the credits roll it became hilariously clear what a giant cultural gulf divides the country: Zootopia‘s ‘Mammal Inclusion Initiative’ on the one side, Donald Trump on the other.

(Exhibit #2: outside Planned Parenthood in Providence stands one lonely protestor, silently holding aloft his ABORTION KILLS placard. I wonder what he’d make of it all.)

I really did want to end this blog with lavish, heartfelt praise for poor unloved Amtrak, because my train from Boston to Providence really was fast, comfortable and cheap. Unfortunately, my train on the way back was delayed, so with a heavy heart I ended up bailing on my return journey and taking a $60 Uber to ensure I didn’t miss my flight. Which is sad, because it yanked me prematurely out of my Northeastern fantasy of a railway-loving America. Maybe Disney could do trains next.

We need to talk about St. Louis. It’s one of the oddest cities I’ve ever visited. It’s quite possible to completely fill a weekend, as I just did with Jason and Randi, with some really good food and decent tourist spots – including one place, the City Museum, which is truly phenomenal and must surely be world-leading. At the same time, it’s impossible to ignore how empty St. Louis feels. A city which, at its height, was home to over 850,000 people is now below 320,000. The urban landscape sprawls over big blocks and wide roads because that’s just how car-mad American cities were built, but barely any traffic passes through. There isn’t really any skyline to speak of, apart from the arch. Everyone we met was friendly, though, and it wasn’t uncomfortable to walk around… just odd. You really notice what the clouds do.

Suburbanisation is not like shifting tectonic plates or the weathering of sea cliffs – not some natural process which inexorably changes the land. It’s a human decision. If you want great cities, you need to live in them.

Anyhow, after a long evening journey through Illinois – which included hash browns at Waffle House! – we checked into The Cheshire. (Everyone pronounces this chesh-ire, to rhyme with fire, but obviously my readers know better.) I’d booked this the weekend before by scrolling through the few remaining places in St. Louis on my phone and picking the one which looked ‘nice’ without much further thought. It quickly transpired that the signals my brain processes as ‘nice’ are that of a full-on British-themed hotel, complete with Queen’s Guard figurines outside and rooms named after British authors and poets. (Disappointingly, we stayed in James Hilton.) In my defence, it was also very close to Forest Park, so a good base for a wander through this giant and lovely mix of woods and lawns.

Waffle House: another American icon checked off my list

In Forest Park, which is “larger than Central Park” (as you will be frequently told)

One unexpectedly awesome thing in St. Louis is the World Chess Hall of Fame, which had a special exhibition about women in chess (Ladies’ Knight – yes, very clever) and included lots of cool chess-themed artwork. And I don’t even play chess. I don’t really drink Budweiser, either, but St. Louis is the headquarters of brewer Anheuser-Busch and they do offer free tours with free samples, so we also did that.

One of my favourite artworks from the World Chess Hall of Fame

On the Budweiser tour. Extensive Budweiser packaging left intact.

Stroking a Clydesdale

But the absolute best thing about St. Louis is the misleadingly-named City Museum. It’s not a museum, not really, but in fact a giant playground – indoor and outdoor – for adults and children alike. And it’s amazing. Made mostly from reused architectural and industrial products, an entrance fee of $12 buys unlimited exploration around a dense network of tunnels, caves, slides, trains, wire frames, ball pits, fish tanks, castles and even two small planes suspended in the sky. And along the way you might stumble across a café, sweetshop or a bar too. If anyone reading this remembers Kidstop, then it’s sorta like that, only if Kidstop were designed by benevolent crazy artists and played jazz music in the background.

The most wonderful thing about City Museum is the way adults and children interact. It’s a shared, peaceful coexistence: the adults aren’t just there as parents, it’s also crazy fun for them too. But for once, it’s a world built on children’s terms – they have genuinely more competence and skill, being able to run up, climb over and crawl under any obstacle quicker and more nimbly than a big person can. It’s hard to crawl on your knees or squeeze through holes in the floor if you’re old and lame and 26. One little boy even offered up directions when we looked helpless and lost. If I ever have children, I’m taking them to St. Louis so they can feel a smug joy at being children.

Up inside the City Museum’s outdoor section

Impossible to capture in photos, but here’s one attempt

I fly planes now

I feel compelled to offer at least one photo of the arch, so here’s a photo of the arch