New Madrid to Memphis

Day five of The Great Down South Loop (a.k.a. Quarantine on a Boat). The lower Mississippi River is a twisting-turning river. There are a lot of ox bows in the river. We looked at one on the chart that is less that a mile across at the base but 11 miles around the bend. I am sure these barge companies could go in to buy the land and cut a channel through the narrow part. But I guess that would cause a whole new issue with river flow and what not. I guess if they cut out all the ox bows that would have to redo all the mile marks for the river. Oh well, we just take them in stride. We know we have 840 miles on this river.

The Memphis Pyramid is one of the first things you spot arriving by water. It is one the iconic landmarks in Memphis. Built in 1991, it was originally built as a 20,000 seat arena. It now houses a Bass Pro Shop. But why a pyramid? The city of Memphis was founded in 1819 by John Overton, James Winchester and Andrew Jackson. They named it after the ancient capital of Egypt which sits on the Nile River. Since the city's namesake in Egypt is known for its ancient pyramids, why not a pyramid.

Day six was another rain out. The forecast was fore severe thunderstorms, so we decided to stay another night at Memphis Yacht Club. Although the rain didn't come until late in the evening, we were glad we exercised extreme caution. We pretty much had the dock to ourselves and enjoyed the day reading and self isolating. A few people came and went throughout the day, but everyone was practicing good social distancing. Phillip and Amy were on the boat right behind us. They sat on tithe back sun deck of their boat while we sat on the dock. We found that he is dreaming of doing the loop. We discussed our experiences while doing our loops.

Phillip told us about Mud Island Park, which is adjacent to the Marina/Yacht Club. Inside of the park is a scale model of the Mississippi River. We walked over to the park. It is a beautiful park. The scale model of Lower Mississippi is about a third of a mile long. It is very interesting model. The detail is incredible. This was done in 1982, before 3-D concrete printing any other digital help.

By the way, Mud Island is no longer an Island. A levee was built up on the north end of the island.

We wished we could have gone down to Beale Street, but the Coronaviris isolation orders had it all closed up. We did enjoy some ribs and brisket from Rendezvous, thanks to Uber Eats.

Day seven of the Down South Loop we hope to conquer another 100 miles of the Mighty Mississippi.