Saturday morning we woke up and I wondered if we were actually going to Tennessee or not. Mr. Mister had mentioned something about possibly staying home, and honestly that suited me just fine. I really disliked the idea of driving all that way for one night. Even if the thought of going to Beale Street appealed to me.
One bummer about not going was that we had planned to stop and eat at
Lambert's Cafe "The Only Home of Throwed Rolls" on the way down.
The phone rang, and it was Mr. Mister's mother. She wanted to know if we were coming down or not? Since he never really said "no, we aren't coming," I knew we were. He made hotel reservations, while I started getting dressed, and more annoyed at the thought of the upcoming drive ahead of me.
We left around noon, and the communication in the car was non-exsistant. Mr. Mister would try every so often to draw me out of my mood, but I wasn't having it. I was really good at staying annoyed! LOL Finally, I started responding with more than one word. We talked about different things, and after a while Mr. Mister pointed out a sign, showing us that we were getting closer to Lambert's Cafe. I started getting a little excited! Not only about eating at the place I had heard so much about, but because, once we got there, we would be at our halfway point in the not so fun driving part of our journey.
We arrived and looked at the parking lot. O MY GOSH! There were people EVERYWHERE!
I was thinking that we would just turn around and go to Wendy's or something. But we decided to check on the wait time. It was approximately 45 minutes. We chose to wait. As they kept calling names I began to think that we were going to end up sitting next to a bunch of strangers. They would call up 20 or so people at a time and take them all back to the tables together. After all, it was family style eating.
They called our name and I rushed so that we would be first in line, at least then we could grab the end of a table, and not be stuck in the middle somewhere. I was very happy when they sat us in a booth by ourselves. They took our drink order and we looked over the menu. I already knew what I was having. I had planned it several days before. The Chicken & Dumplings of course! Everyone that knows me, knows that is what I would be having! LOL
Our drinks came and I was surprised to see that they gave us HUGE mugs full of our beverage of choice. I'm talking 48oz sized mugs.
It was the best sweet tea! I don't know if it was because I was thirsty or what, but I couldn't stop drinking. After ordering, we kept looking around, checking the place out.
Suddenly, we were hearing "HOT ROLLS" "HOT ROLLS" being yelled above the sound of everyone talking. A boy was rolling a cart around full of rolls that had just come out of the oven. People were putting their hands up in the air waving that they wanted a roll. The boy would pick up a roll and throw it across the room at the waving hands. People were catching (some were dropping) hot rolls everywhere.
A girl was walking around saying "Sorghum?" to everyone. She stopped at our table and said "Don't ya'll want a hot roll?" She called the boy's name that was throwing the rolls, and Mr. Mister caught one right away. He threw another one to me, and I was thrilled that I didn't drop it on the floor! I opened the hot roll and buttered it up! The girl asked if I wanted sorghum on my roll. I told her that I didn't even know what sorghum was. She replied that it was molasses. I had never had molasses on a roll before, but decided to try it. YUMMY!
As we waited for our order, several employees were walking around with big silver bowls yelling "FRIED POTATOES" "FRIED OKRA" "BLACK EYED PEAS" and "MACARONI & TOMATOES." These were what they called "extras" and you could have as much of them as you wanted throughout your meal. Not that we needed any extras because, when our meal arrived there was enough food on the plate to feed several people. Mr. Mister had ordered the fried chicken. He had two pieces of chicken, a loaded baked potato, and green beans. I had the chicken & dumplings, green beans, and applesauce.
It was wonderful! I even made the comment that it was better than Cracker Barrel. Again, anyone who knows me, knows that Cracker Barrel is one of my favorite places to eat, so that was saying A LOT!
We walked out the door feeling VERY full, with a can of sorghum tucked under my arm, and plans to stop there again on the way home!
Back to the car, and on the road again for another 2 1/2 hours.
We finally made it to Mr. Mister's mother's house.
We talked for a while, catching up on things, and then we hopped into Mr. Mister's sister's (say that quick three times!) car, and headed toward Memphis so that we could check into our hotel, and "party" on Beale Street.
The weather was GREAT, and it brought everyone out. It was like being on Spring break or something. (Elmo REALLY enjoyed dancing with the girl in the picture. He danced in the street for at least 20 minutes)
After several drinks, and "Big Ass Beers," we were really starting to enjoy ourselves. (Thank goodness our hotel was within walking distance!)
As we walked up and down Beale Street, we saw an artist (Wolf Simone,) sitting and painting pictures. It was awesome to see what he created just by using a few tools and several cans of spray paint. The painting he did in front of us, turned out to be a collage of Memphis attractions, turned into a cityscape, with planets above. It was VERY cool!
We decided to stop at Pat O'brien's for something to eat. When we walked in, there was a fountain with water and fire coming out of it. It was GORGEOUS! The whole area looked like an outdoor cafe, but it was indoors. We sat there for over an hour just talking and having a good time. The atmosphere was perfect!
There was different kinds of music coming from every bar, alley, and available spot along the street. We stopped and listened at many different places, but this blues band was one of our favorites.
Mr. Brother-In-Law was really getting his groove on while he listened to them play!
It was HILARIOUS! We were all cracking up watching him dance!
Unfortunately, we found the band too late, and only got to hear a couple of songs before they started packing things up for the night.
So, we wandered some more. We saw all kinds of interesting things! There were people dancing, people drinking, people doing flips down the road. We even got to watch the police, that were on horseback, arrest someone and take them away!
But the thing that really caught my interest, was seeing some of the girls walking down the street wearing outfits they had NO BUSINESS wearing. I began taking pictures of all of them. My plan was to put them up on my blog to show people what they "should not" wear out in public. But, I have decided not to offend anyone reading this blog by showing them on here. LOL!
Finally, at around 1:30 am, we headed back to the hotel. I was exhausted, but had a really, REALLY good time! (Yes, Mr. Mister has been rubbing that fact into my face ever since!)
BUT, I still was not enthused about the drive all the way back home!
Did someone mention stopping at Lambert's Cafe again??????????
