We are certainly in country music USA. They say this part of the country is not really about the sights but about the atmosphere. Music, music, music! As we have travelled we have crossed the great Mississippi River a number of times and coming into Memphis we spent quite sometime creeping up and sitting on top of the bridge due to an earlier accident which was completely cleared by the time we passed. Surprisingly we have seen few boats or ships on the river and certainly no huge paddle steamers which we expected to see. Obviously we are in the wrong area for that. There is a Great a River Road that follows the Mississippi River for 3,000 miles through ten states from Minnesota in the north to Louisiana in the south. We have driven sections of this road and the border between Arkansas and Tennessee is in the middle of the river as it passes Memphis. In Memphis we stayed in T.O. Fuller state park which is on the southern edge of the city and very convenient. The drive to the park had us wondering though as it passes through a very run down residential area. As the Lonely Planet book states "Sadly poverty is rampant - Victorian mansions sit beside tumbledown shotgun shacks (a narrow style of house popular in the South)' and we certainly saw evidence of this. However, the camping ground was in a lovely setting and we never felt at all unsafe. Saying this, we have had a lot of conversations with Americans concerning their thoughts on the gun laws in the USA. Following the recent spate of college shootings there is a lot of discussion on radio (remember we don't have television in the van) on whether College aged students and the staff (read university) should be allowed to carry disclosed weapons on campus for personal safety. Surprising to us, most of the people we have spoken to fully support the carrying of disclosed weapons for their own safety. We wonder just how many of our fellow campers had guns in their RV's or vehicles. We were fortunate that although the weather is now much cooler we have not had any rain. The days have dropped to the mid 70's and the nights down to a low of around 50 deg. We have been fortunate that we have a gas ducted heater in the van (something we have never had before so seems a real luxury) which we can switch on for the cooler mornings. Our neighbours at the State Park were from Alaska and they were loving the cooler days and nights but not us. Stax Museum was our first visit. This museum has been purpose built on the land where the old Stax Studio stood and was the centre of soul music (along with Sun Studio) back in the 60's. There are videos, exhibits, a dance floor and many displays familiar to most of us. Stax today is not a recording studio but has a music academy and charter school providing educational opportunities for the local community of mainly African American youth. Mud Island is a very small peninsula that juts into the Mississippi and is adjacent to downtown Memphis. It has a park with a bridge across the River that has a monorail hanging underneath. We first saw the monorail as we were parking to go into the visitors centre and wondered what the noise was above us. The visitors centre has a statue of who else but Elvis of course - if you happen to stand too close though there is a loud pitch siren sounding which interrupts the videos of Elvis singing. It was interesting to see that the tour bus passengers were holding beepers to tell them when to return to their bus (the same type that some bistros use to advise that meals are ready for collection). There were certainly a lot of beepers going off. I was keen to attend a service at an African American church and the visitors centre staff were able to provide me with details. Surprisingly the Lonely Planet book also gave details of the same church with services at 11.30 am and 4 pm - the suggestion was "join in the whooping 'hallelujahs' but don't forget the tithe'. 4 pm sounded perfect for us as we had tickets for Gracelands for 9.45 am. What do you do in Memphis on a Saturday night but visit Beale Street which is a pedestrian only 24 hour carnival zone of music and entertainment. Now anyone that knows me well will know that bars are not my choice of entertainment, however sometimes there are exceptions. We enjoyed watching the sights of the crowds (some of the choice of clothes for the evening were very interesting), the street music, the street entertainment and listening to some of the bands in the bars - like the Jerry Lee Lewis Honky Tonk Cafe. Apparently very few locals bother to visit Beale Street for entertainment but the visitors certainly do. The police were very much in evidence - numbers of cars parked with groups of police standing by but we saw no evidence of trouble but people out enjoying their evening. So after our Gracelands visit we set the GPS bound for the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church - yes it is in a very rundown section of the town not too far from our camp. However, when we got there we knew the details supplied were obviously not correct - the huge carpark was empty. No 4 pm service these days just the morning one. I was particularly disappointed as I had wanted to attend an African American gospel service or concert while in the US and they were few and far between. A drive around the area checking out the many churches didn't help - no services were about to happen. I was further disappointed when a friend of Cam's, who had lived in the area, said it was a "must do" and worth considering waiting another week in Memphis for. This wasn't going to happen so certainly something still on the bucket list. So no church so we went to a hotel. No not to drink but to see the ducks! The Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis to see five ducks file from the marble lobby fountain along a red carpet to the elevator to retire to their penthouse for the night before making their way down again next morning to spend their day happily splashing in the fountain. The "march of the ducks" dates back to the 1930's and has become a Memphis tradition and draws crowds. We arrived about 4.30 pm for the 5 pm return march and certainly all the seating around the fountain was gone and we watched from the upstairs balcony. Great source of income for the hotel I must say with that many tourists visiting the lobby bar twice daily. Relaxation day in the State Park with a planned visit to a nearby Indian Village which didn't happen as it is closed on Mondays. We are not very good at planning ahead obviously. Still a day walking and checking out the park, relaxing, even some cleaning and chatting with fellow campers didn't do us any harm. Life can be tiring being a travelling tourist! As we left Memphis following the spaghetti junction of highways an overhead sign caught my attention. It said "Pickups rock they also roll bucket up". How appropriate for cowboy country.