Got back to Floyd late Sunday night, or perhaps it is better to say, Monday morning since it was nigh onto 3:30 a.m. when we finally pulled in and stumbled down the path to the house. We had left Floyd last Friday morning headed for Memphis Tennessee. There was a weekend contra dance starting on Friday night and going through Sunday afternoon. A 10 hour drive each way, which may seem like a lot to most people, but this dance had the Great bear Trio playing the music and Nils doing most of the calling. So Rima and I both thought it was worth it to go... and now that it is over with, we both still feel that way, so it must of been a fun time.





   Friday was just one long drive west from here. But the weather was good, lot's of sun and even some real warmth as we travelled west and then south. We motored into Memphis by 5:30 and got checked into our hotel. A 'Quality' Inn; it was within walking distance of downtown Memphis and only a little more than a mile from the dance hall in the other direction. The 6' high iron fence all around it, as well as a high security presence on the grounds of the hotel were a little disconcerting at first. But it soon became apparent that this was pretty standard around most of the downtown area, and even out to some of the outlying areas, and it soon faded into the background of thought, like such things often do.




   We soon headed out towards the dance hall with the intention of finding some dinner to eat along the way. As we drove east we came across this little Vietnamese restaurant in the middle of an old strip mall. Keeping company with a laundry mat and insurance office, among other things, it wasn't much to look at... but what a find. Opening the menu one of the first things to note was that they served not only the very common 'Pho' styles of soup, but also the less well known, 'Bun', which just happens to be my all time favorite. Rima and I both had a bowl, which in this case, consisted of shredded lettuce, cucumber, bean sprouts and pickled carrots along with B-B-Q pork slices and a chopped up egg roll. All placed in a large soup bowl with fish sauce to pour over it. It was wonderful... and a perfect meal before a hard, hot night of dancing.






   The dance was in an old stone church just outside of downtown Memphis. It has only a small floor for dancing, so the number of dancers is somewhat limited. Still, it was a nice full evening with 3 solid lines of dancers for most of it. Of course the 'Bears' are always in top form it seems, so dancing was fun right from the start. Nils has a rather laid back way of calling which usually means a minimal amount of instruction and starting to dance right off the bat. As long as your mind is still functioning, it is a great way to maximize how much dancing can be done in any one evening. Of course by the end of the night, when you are hot, tired and dehydrated, and brain cells are just dying by the millions right out there on the dance floor, or so it seems, a little more walk through is often needed as well a switch to some easier dances. Or so it seems to me.




    We danced from 7:30 until 10:30 by which time I was moving more like a zombie than a human. But it is wonderful what a few hours of sleep, a hot shower, some good drugs and some food will do for you. We were up and going early on Saturday again. After a quick bite to eat at the hotel we headed west towards downtown Memphis. It was only a total of 10-12 blocks from where we were all the way to the Mississippi River. We wandered down Union Street, one of the main east-west streets in and out of town until we  could cross over to Beale Street and walk down all of its length to the river. Not much goes on it seems, early in the morning on Beale Street. It may be that it is just normal for nothing to be open before noon on a Saturday morning.... or it may have something to do with to much fun and excitement until late the night before. I am inclined to believe it is the later. But no big problem as we just wanted to stroll the area and read all the history signs they have up, and look at some of the famous places that are still standing. Over on Union Street was the original 'Sun Records' building where Elvis walked in one day and had his first meeting with the owner. The rest as they say 'is history'.


  We wandered over into the center of town and spent an hour or so touring the 'Cotton Museum', located down where the original cotton exchange once was. Very interesting to learn about one, if not thee, most important crops of the south. Memphis was built on the fortunes made and lost in the cotton economy of the late 1800's. Wrapped around the whole story of cotton of course, was the parallel economy of the slave labor that made it all possible. Put it all together and you can still see what all the different pieces are that now make up the modern city of Memphis, as well as much of the rest of the south. Along with artifacts from the old cotton culture there was also information on the modern day cultivation and harvesting of cotton. One interesting tidbit of info I read about was that where as it would once take one person 10 minutes to pick and separate the cotton off of 6 cotton plants, there are now row pick machines than can pick, separate, de-seed and neatly pack into bales, the cotton from more than 6,300 plants in 10 minutes. All while sitting in air conditioned splendor, perhaps listening to some Delta Blues on the stereo. It also seemed like it was mostly propaganda put out by the GMO cotton seed manufactures to push their Round-up ready products. For me though, one of the most interesting pieces of information in the exhibit was the admission that already there were Round-up resistant weeds coming on, as well as 'Bt' resistant insects, including boll weevils, and for corn crops, the corn root worm borer.






   Once done with the cotton museum it was time for a little lunch. We found a pleasant little café just off main street and ate outside while watching trolly cars and horse drawn carriages go up and down the street. I had some pulled beef hash over potatoes and onions with a fried egg and some kind of spicey sauce over it all. Rima on the other hand had fried chicken and waffles. Now I know it sounds a little strange, but really it tastes pretty good. Really! Add in some bourbon blueberry compote and make the waffles with sweet potatoes and you have a pretty tasty meal.






   After lunch we still had a couple of hours before dancing started up again so we went and found the Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art, in the basement of one of the downtown hotels, to visit. Not knowing what to expect we were surprised, no, actually astounded, to stumble across one of the best art museums I've ever been through. The Asian section made up most of the display with several large rooms just full of jade, ivory and material works of art. It would of been amazing to see one carved elephant or mammoth tusk in the detail that these works of art showed. But in this case, there were dozens of them, some even carved in pairs. Each one showing incredible detail that must of taken years and years to carve. Add to that incredible statues, vases, tea pots and other art objects made out of beautiful jade of all colors including white, black red and tigers eye. Every single item in the display was worthy of a place of honor in a regular museum, here though you had hundreds of them. After a while it almost became to overwhelming.




    Secondary to the Asian Art, but still an important part of the Museum, was a whole section on Judaic art work. Large paintings and statues created by historic and ancient as well as modern Jews. It is a very interesting exhibition and I am not sure of the whole story or history of the Museum, but I do know this about the collections. The Asian and Judaic art was collected by a Mr. Jack Belz and his wife Marilyn starting in 1968 when he was CEO of Belz Enterprizes. They decided to donate their art in 1995, and by 1998 had created a foundation to deal with the intricacies of making it into a museum.  In addition to the original Judaic art, the museum is now in the process of creating it's own Holocaust exhibit compleat with documents, photos and testimonials of those who were there that lived and died. In any case I would highly recommend going to the museum if you happen to be in the area. Not only is the art impressive, but at $6 as an entry fee, it is also remarkably cheap to visit.




   Once we finished up at the Belz Museum it was time to walk back to the hotel and change clothes for the dance that evening. We each changed and then headed back to the same Vietnamese Restaurant we had eaten at the night before. Rima had the same 'Bun Soup while I switched over to a chicken with lemon grass and spicy green chili curry. Really good food once again.




    Dancing started at 8:00 that night and it was a fun evening for all.... except maybe Nils who had come down with that 24-48 hour flu that has been hitting a lot of people this year. He was out for the night unfortunately, but several locals stepped forward to call, and the evening was saved. I won't say that Nils wasn't missed, because he was, but the locals did a good job and we all had fun along the way.




    Slept late on Sunday morning and then got tricked into going over to an hours worth of waltzing starting at 10:00. Not really that onerous of a job to do, and it was soon over with anyway. Once done there we went in search of some real food as we didn't really have any breakfast to speak of. Found another nice little restaurant just blocks away from the dance. This time featuring Indian food. We were just in time for a Sunday buffet and we took advantage of it to eat some really good food, most of which I can't remember the name of. But it was good and we ate our fill before we headed back for our final couple hours of contra dancing.




   Nils was back for that last session. Yeah! Like most weekend dances these last few hours were some of the very best of the best. Great Bear Trio broke out some of their best songs and Nils supplied us with fun dances that were challenging. But all good things seem to come to an end and this weekend was no different. We hit the road out of town a bit after 3:00 and headed back east for Floyd.


     Rima drove for a couple of hours while there was still light out and then I took over from there. It was a long drive, but nothing out of the ordinary. I turned the I-pod on and dialed up some good tunes. Rima slept in the back and it wasn't long before we were pulling into the driveway and scaring all the deer out of the pasture.


    Needless to say I slept in late on Monday, but not as late as I expected too. It was still an odd day and I didn't do much but catch up on the comics and read my email all day. I did finally go outside while the weather was good and spend a couple of hours trimming up more trees. There are a bunch of blackthorn trees in the lower pasture and I started trimming a couple of them up. It might actually be easier to just cut them all down, but they are so hard and rot resistant that they may come in handy some day as fence posts. It would be easier though if these trees didn't have thorns everywhere on them. Even with gloves on it was a bit 'pokey'.


    Yesterday was a snow day. It started early in the morning and the ground was covered before I even woke up. Probably snowed 5-6 inches during the day, but most of it was gone by the afternoon and the rest will be gone by the end of today. Other than an hour or so outside late in the afternoon it was another day to just stay in and goof off. Being cold out it was time to do some cooking so I put together one of my zucchini cakes and baked it. Soon the whole house had a wonderful smell to it. What was even better was the taste of a piece of it along with a nice cup of hot tea. Also put together a nice pot of chicken and dumplings for our dinner. It was a bit of a spur of the moment dish to put together, but it turned out well and was just right for a cold and snowy evening.


   Today is another snow day as it snowed again last night. Just enough to cover the roads and make driving treacherous on these steep, winding and un-plowed roads. Rima is home again and that is always nice. Otherwise I'll just have to see what the rest of the day will bring. In the meantime... I'm finally caught up... for the moment anyway. Not going to claim it won't happen again, There is just to much to do that is more fun. I do hope to have some more photo's to post soon. But first I need to figure out how to download them off my phone.