day seven

...i sincerely hope you guys aren't getting tired of these posts. i am a little bit, but they're almost over. we have made it too far to give up now!

day seven remembers our short little road trip to memphis back in september. we had (surprise!) a concert to attend with (surprise!) kelley and her friend alex. since the show was on beale, we decided we might as well make it an overnight stay and have some fun in memphis. since it's so close, i don't think i have really explored the city much. there is a very large portion of the city better left alone, but there are still a few things i'd like to go back and do.

we drove up (over?) on friday afternoon, pleasantly surprised by the traffic we did not encounter. kelley and alex met us at silky o' sullivans where we ate fried seafood and drank a "world famous" diver bucket outside on the patio amongst the diving goats (yes, actual goats). what's a diver bucket, you ask? no one really knows the exact ingredients - which really doesn't seem safe now that i think about it - but it is assumed to contain lots o' liquor and beer and juice and maybe sherbet? god, i love the south. it will also kick your ass just a little bit, so bring a crew for back up if you want to try it out.

notice the large bucket of alcohol as our centerpiece

fast forward to us walking (stumbling a bit) over to the new daisy theater to see the alabama shakes play. y'all, i don't play for that team, but if i did, it would be for brittany howard (or emma watson. or jennifer lawrence. or natalie portman. or rachel bilson. okay, let's not do this.) that girl is going to rip her vocal chords apart one of these days and it is going to be SO TOTALLY WORTH IT. the venue was pretty tiny (which i love) and really sweaty (which is okay) and a bit smelly (not as cool), so we got to stand pretty close to the stage to see her jam.

do you think she'll like me back?

aaaaand here's a video of her singing my favorite song of theirs right now. we just straight up fell in love with the band. remember the festival i mentioned that we are attending late this summer with kelley? guess who's headlining.

so we said farewell to the girls that night and jett and i toughed it out in memphis (didn't get stabbed! yay!) for the night. we woke up the next day and decided to hit up rendezvous for lunch since it is so popular. i didn't love it the first time i went, but my taste buds are more refined now. or something like that. we were one of the few people there when we went because we went so early, and our waiter was so great! he suggested that we try the dry rub ribs and some of the local beer. think it was called ghost river? both were quite delicious and he brought us some red beans and rice for free, which makes for the best tasting food. we so enjoyed our trip and i am thinking i know what the fuss is about!

here i am with all my memphis goodies

we said farewell and met up with my friend bobby for a quick beer and to watch the hogs lose at his favorite local gastropub called... local gastropub. then we decided we would hit the zoo before we headed home. we ended up basically moving into the zoo because we had SO MUCH FUN and we are children so it's exactly our speed. we saw the penguins and the polar bears and the snakes and zomg the pandas.

zomg, panda

we realized that maybe we weren't acting our age when we asked a mother of three to turn her attention from her own children, who were waiting to see the polar bear observation bubble, to take our photograph instead.

but it turned out so cute so there

so we said, hey. maybe it's time for us to go. so we rounded up our hopes and dreams and kicked rocks all the way to the front of the park. BUT HOLD UP. is that a camel? that's a camel. does that say camel rides? that says camel rides. honey, get your wallet. it's only $500 a ride (okay, not quite, but comparable). we then had to convince not one but three consecutive employees that yes, we were serious. we want to ride the camel.

here we are on a camel, duh

some poor, pimply-faced* high school boy had to lead us around a little dirt track while the most overworked and likely underpaid camel had to tote us along. it was really a beautiful moment. we stepped back onto the platform, the camel breathed a sigh of relief, and then we got to pet him and another pimply-faced* kid took pictures.

jett insists the camel was named carl

we finally made it back out of the zoo and to our car. alas! the tire was flat. we put on the spare tire without fighting and, without fighting, decided that we would try to find a new tire before we left memphis. we did all of this without fighting.** we ended up finding a firestone that stayed open late for us so we could get back home safely without having to stay another night. also, it was in the ghetto and we were very scared.

another day, another adventure!

*i had more pimples than either of the aforementioned high school boys.

**we were fighting.