louisville, kentucky to memphis, tennessee

3/10/2025

Gas station entertainment

It's Memphis tonight and a work day tomorrow. So much more fun than being in Brookline!

Travelling days have moods. If I had to pick a color to describe today's, it would be grey. It was getting on stuffy - mid to high seventies with a low sky and humidity. Downtown Louisville, like every other American city I've been in over the last three years, was deserted. Most storefronts closed, homeless people and very little else. Urban Flight all over again, I suppose.

In place of this graceful city are collections of big box chains announced on the highway with signs that can be seen from far away, like the one for Ikea on Route 24. Is this where people are spending time?

I went to Churchill Downs and couldn't get enthused about spending a few hours at the museum. Before going, I imagined it surrounded by grass, but instead, it's surrounded by, well, sprawl.

The roads south of there are not pretty for a while, but eventually that beautiful bright green grass that I pictured as Kentucky came into view, lovely rolling hills with daffodils, blooming fruit trees, scenic tobacco shacks and livestock peppering them, as pretty as you'd imagine.

Funny and interesting things I saw today:

Not so many billboards, instead three crosses together, bigger one in the middle
A parking lot called the Happy Birthday Lot
Lots of statues of men
So many UPS airplanes
Lions Den Adult Superstores
A place called Flea Land across from Camping World
A sign that said "Bridge closed at Piney Creek and Hurricane Alley"
A town called Dancyville
Celebrity museums - Mohammed Ali, Loretta Lynn, Tina Turner, Elvis Presley
From my sat nav: "turn left onto North Danny Thomas Boulevard (there's probably a museum for him, as well)

Lest you be jealous, I'm having popcorn for dinner and my room smells like, well, we don't need to go there...