Memphis Vacation: American Dreams & American Soul

Tuesday, March 29th
On Tuesday Amy had arranged for use to go on a tour of Memphis with her friend Tad, who does the American Dreams Safari, in which he drives you around in an old pink Cadillac named Mansfield, which is autographed by a bunch of musicians. We didn’t take pictures because it was grey and gross and rainy that day, but it was still cool seeing all these parts of the city we wouldn’t have otherwise.

Taylor in Mansfield (American Dreams Safari Tour)

Taylor did take pictures of the indoor trailer park Tad has in a warehouse downtown though.

Indoor Trailer Park
Indoor Trailer Park
Indoor Trailer Park
The rumpus room?
More indoor trailer park
More indoor trailer park
Alcenia's

Before the tour we had lunch at Alcenia’s, a restaurant where macaroni & cheese is a vegetable. I don’t know about that , but the french fries were AMAZING.

French Fries @ Alcenia's

After the tour we absolutely did not plan to explore the Sterick Building, and instead went to this gross AmVets thrift store out on Elvis Presley Blvd with Amy and her friend David, and then had a dinner at the Young Avenue Deli. I had a sandwich with cucumbers and sprouts and felt west coast-y again.

Wednesday, March 30th
On Wednesday we were supposed to go to some better (rean: non-skanky) thrift stores and go for Mexican ice cream with Amy, but unfortunately she had to work. Instead Taylor and I went to the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Now, everyone had been telling us to check it out, but we were a bit “meh” about it since we aren’t big music people, but we both really liked it!

Stax Museum

That night Amy wasn’t really in the mood to hang out- she’d had a crummy day and just wanted to drink alone, but I had the perfect idea to cheer her up! See, the day before our copies of Sweet Valley Confidential arrived and we’d planned to read them together, so that what was we did (well, the first nine chapters).

So, what can I say about this book? Um, how about IT WAS TERRIBLE. Like, we weren’t expecting fine literature or anything, but there were just dumb, glaring continuity errors that drove us into a rage frenzy. For example: Lila Fowler’s father is named GEORGE, not Richard. AJ Morgan moved to Sweet Valley during junior year and therefore could not have touched Jessica Wakefield’s breast in the seventh grade, and he was a redhead, not a blond. And the thing about Suzanne Devlin crashing her car while under the influence of champagne and multiple sclerosis medication? Okay, that happened, but she didn’t die in the accident and as it turns out, NEVER HAD MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Basically the book was NOWHERE near as good as the ideas that Amy and I came up with for a SVH sequel back in 2004.

tanieamysvhdiscussion

Obviously we should have written this.

One Reply to “Memphis Vacation: American Dreams & American Soul”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *