Today's episode is about Cate and I experiencing historical greatness, delicious southern food, and basking in the love of a fellow road tripper in Memphis, TN.
This road trip podcast series is for you, adventurous one, someone who loves leaning, meeting new people, and growing from those experiences.
We hope you enjoy!
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/
https://betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
Today's episode is about Cate and I experiencing historical greatness, delicious southern food, and basking in the love of a fellow road tripper in Memphis, TN.
This road trip podcast series is for you, adventurous one, someone who loves leaning, meeting new people, and growing from those experiences.
We hope you enjoy!
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/
https://betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
Hey guys. Welcome to Cuppa Connections. I'm Portia, and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe, Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. Hello guys. This is day two of our our Epic and 19 day road trip, which starts in Asheville, North Carolina. At this point we are waking up before the sunrise and we needed some coffee. Yes. So we. Had that Starbucks that was right in the parking lot. And
Cate:They were fabulous.
Portia:We walked up in there and of course this, it was like five o'clock in the morning and there was nobody in Starbucks except for the manager and maybe two other people. You know, this is what coffee shops are about. I don't care if it's a Starbucks or, um, a small business owned, cafe, or whatever you wanna call it. You always want someone or a group of people to welcome you, and to make you feel like you're special.
Cate:And they, they definitely did that. They were, they were energized, happy. I mean, I wanted to go work with them.
Portia:She wants to work with everybody.
Cate:Not everybody,
Portia:especially animals.
Cate:Oh yeah, especially those animals. But, I love people that up early in the morning and they're happy.
Portia:Yes.
Cate:And they exude it and they, you know, I. I know I'm like that in the morning and I get on everybody's nerves and
Portia:She's like, that's how she's in the morning. But what was so special is that, he wanted to know where we, what we were doing and we told him, right.
Cate:I mean, it was cool.
Portia:And he, we took pictures with him and, and we, he turned around, he wanted to show us the back of his t-shirt And he just, and then they wanted us to sign their guest book. He made us feel like we were some kind of special people. And he was so excited about our road trip and he just listened to us and, that's what baristas does and, and these people that are in the coffee shops, they really, you know, they get to, to hear your life story almost, or who, who you are. And it started our day off perfectly. So we get our coffee and we're off. Right?
Cate:And I'm driving, in the mountains of North Carolina.
Portia:It was before the sun rose. So. And at one point you couldn't see much. No, but I remember even at the beginning of the trip, I had told my wife, cuz she'd never driven cross country, and I said,
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:just remember this because you are going to see the difference of the topography. Every state is different, you know, like when you're driving through North Carolina and Tennessee, some people could get claustrophobic because they're nothing but trees. People love the greenery, but everything is so close to you. And then when you slowly move into another state, the topography changes.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:So I, I, I said, Cate, make a mental note of how things are gonna change. It's gonna wow you, like when you drive through Oklahoma or Texas and you see the sunrise or the sun sunset, it's amazing.
Cate:And you drove all the way to Memphis?
Portia:We did.
Cate:And I scared her.
Portia:Well, it's because we were going through the, um,
Cate:The mountains.
Portia:the, but it was something more than that. You know, I never told her, but I would have nightmares before our trip. I was afraid we were gonna drive off the cliff or just drive too fast or, I was having some control issues. I still have control issues, but it, it stemmed from fear. And so when we were driving along uh, 40 through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and I'd be telling her, slow down, slow down, slow down.
Cate:And, I was doing the speed limit, maybe five over.
Portia:Yeah. And it was just, um, it was a hard time for me because it all stemmed from when I was adopted. It's just so crazy how as you are an adult and you're fine one minute, and then certain things trigger you. I don't know. I get, I guess it made me think about what in the hell is going on. I mean, I've driven cross country before. I, I've driven through mountains before, and then all of a sudden my wife is driving and here I am just about holding on for dear life, saying, oh my God stop, stop. Stop. While I'm still admiring the the beauty, don't get me wrong, and she bless her. She was so, patient with me and she wasn't probing about what was going on with me. You know, we were both trying to enjoy the trip, and finally, you know, I would, it would subside and I mean, how could it not. We're on this vacation. We're on this 19 Epic Day road trip. I mean, it's, I'm not gonna let something, I don't care what it is. I'm not gonna let something like that stop me, nor my wife from having a great time.
Cate:Amen.
Portia:Right.
Cate:Amen. Yes.
Portia:And so we finally, we get through the mountains and, we find ourselves in Memphis, Tennessee.
Cate:Yes. Good old Memphis.
Portia:Where the blues was born.
Cate:Yeah.
Portia:We were camping on that day. Um, our campsite was the famous T. O. State Fuller Park, and it is it was the park. It was the first park in the United States that allowed African Americans to enter. There was this, uh, native American museum next door to the camp grounds where we were. But we decided not to, you know, go to the accommodations first. We needed to go to downtown and see all of that because we broke up our trip.
Cate:Yes. We needed to.
Portia:Yes, because.
Cate:All that driving.
Portia:All that well. My wife has a back issue. The plan was to go from Asheville, North Carolina to Memphis, Tennessee, then to Oklahoma. Do you remember?
Cate:Oh yeah.
Portia:We were gonna camp two nights. But I knew that she, you know, camping like back to back, something just told me that wasn't gonna be a good idea and we were going to Santa Fe, New Mexico and we were gonna stay at this wonderful resort. So I said, I gave my, my wife these options, I said, well, we can camp two nights. We can go from Memphis to Oklahoma and camp both nights. Or why don't we just drive at the full four 15 hours and stay at a resort for two nights? We decided, okay, we're just gonna suck it up and we're gonna drive 15 hours. See, my wife is a trooper. She will do anything once. But I knew.
Cate:Except Angel's Landing.
Portia:Yeah, she didn't do that. We'll talk about that later.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:But, on that second day we arrived in Memphis, Tennessee and we said, let's do everything we can for a few hours in downtown Memphis. Everything was very inexpensive to park, and we found Beale Street. I didn't realize that Beal Street was one of the most iconic streets in the US.
Cate:I didn't realize that either.
Portia:It's the home of the Blues.
Cate:The home of the blues. They went to this record store. Oh. And it was so cool. They had all kinds of stuff. It reminded me of, uh, record store in the mountains of North Carolina when I, I was at school, it had everything.
Portia:It did, it had everything, stuff on the, on like the columns. There was no inch of that place that that had an empty space.
Cate:Right.
Portia:And I don't know who asked. We were starving at that point. I don't know who asked if it was me or you, because when I'm hungry, I'm hungry.
Cate:She's always the one that thinking about food.
Portia:So I asked this lady, I was like, cuz I wanna know where the locals go to eat. The woman pointed next door to us, she was like, that's where I go.
Cate:I forgot the name of that place.
Portia:I forgot the name of the place too. But it was across the street and, we walked in and it was packed. Thank God.
Cate:It was a good sign.
Portia:It was a good sign. It wasn't a waiting line, but it was packed. And we go in and we had the best server. She was on point, honey. She bought our plates back, and I had ribs stacked up like this and, and catfish on it and hush puppies.
Cate:And I had some good hush puppies.
Portia:Oh, it was good. It was so good. It was down home, great food. Mm-hmm. you know, I think I had some collard greens too, and I just realized.
Cate:I don't remember what I had.
Portia:You had some rim ribs too. Oh, mm-hmm. But we both, before this, we were eating pretty clean and um mm-hmm. not eating as much. We definitely were eating as much fried foods and all that type of stuff. Yeah. But on this trip, We knew that we were just gonna succumb to whatever is out there. We're on vacation.
Cate:Yeah, you only live once.
Portia:Right? And so.
Cate:We can behave when we're home.
Portia:Which we don't do.
Cate:Cuz let me tell ya. This girl can fry up some fish? Oh my god.
Portia:That's for my mama.
Cate:Mouth melt.
Portia:That's from my mama. Okay. I mean, I'm from the south. What do you expect?. So anyway, after we finished, we couldn't eat everything, so we took it with us. Yeah. But our, our server told us we wanted to go to the Civil Rights Museum. Yes. We weren't quite sure where it was. Mm. And I'll be honest with you guys, I honestly, I didn't wanna go to the Civil Rights Museum because it was painful. It still is painful. It is to me. I don't understand how people can be so hatred, hateful, and, but my wife, she wanted to go but no,
Cate:I said it's paying respect to my, it's my history.
Portia:It is. I just
Cate:Even though it was painful
Portia:Absolutely. And me, I had to check myself. I'm a black woman, not even wanting to find out. About my history, so I am,
Cate:You're a beautiful black woman in there.
Portia:Well, thank you baby.
Cate:You're welcome.
Portia:But I had to check myself and it's like, no, you take your butt into the Civil Rights Museum. This is what you need to do. I think it was probably a good 15 minute walk, not very far from downtown where Beale Street was located. You have the Civil Rights Museum, and then you have the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, uh, was shot. When we walk up and we see this, police officer.
Cate:Mm-hmm. she was nice. She, she was very friendly.
Portia:She was trying to get a little break cuz it was hot as Hades. Hot as hades.. It was like, record temperatures, it's over 90 degrees every day. So anyway, this woman, she was there in, in,
Cate:She was in the shelter.
Portia:And I don't know how we got on it, but we ended up giving her, her our food,
Cate:our leftovers cause they were gonna spoil, and I wanted to donate the food to somebody, a homeless guy or a homeless person.
Portia:Mm-hmm.
Cate:Just so they can have a good hot meal. And she knew somebody right off.
Portia:She, she yelled across the street.
Cate:She did.
Portia:Uh, he was like, Hey. Yeah. And he, she's like, I got some food for you over here. Like she knew this man and he was like, yeah. And I mean, he was homeless, but it, it was just that close community type to where, hey, that was where our food went. And then
Cate:I was happy about that. It went to help somebody else.
Portia:Yeah, it really did. So we walk up, uh, a little ways, maybe like a half a block. And we see it's this long grassy walkway down to the museum and the hotel.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:and either side they have these poles
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:where they had, um, a display, and each one represented some iconic person, like Rosa Parks was on one pole. The next one was another iconic person. And, and you just takes you down this, uh, walkway and then all of a sudden you see the Lorraine
Cate:The Lorraine Motel.
Portia:Motel and then the, um, the old cars, those are car. Oh, right. Yeah. They were the same cars that were there, um, back when Doc Dr. King was killed.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:We go into the museum, and it's beautiful. It's so well run. I was reading that every 15 minutes that they let people in.
Cate:Cuz of Covid.
Portia:Yeah. Cuz of Covid. And you know, you don't wanna be on top of everybody.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:You could take photos, but you could not video. You get your admissions, your tickets, which is$18 for adults. You know, it's a timeline type of museum from the beginning of times of when slaves were brought over. So that's where the tour starts. You go into this room, and It's detailed so well. And, I was hot. It just brought up so much anger for me.
Cate:It did me too and sadness.
Portia:Yeah. So I was walking around, it's a small room, And all of a sudden I I hear, um, Spanish and I turned to my right. It was a, a Latin family. It was two kids, two adults, And the kids were, they were teenagers.
Cate:Teenagers, yeah.
Portia:Right?
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And they,
Cate:They were explaining to their parents
Portia:Yes.
Cate:Or grandparents, whatever, that didn't speak any English. They were explaining to them about the history,
Portia:Mm-hmm.
Cate:about what they were reading.
Portia:it was such a beautiful thing to see.
Cate:It was beautiful.
Portia:I was kind of invading their, their moment, but I was just, um, happy that they were there, and they were explaining to,
Cate:Yeah.
Portia:you know, their people. That's finished and you have to go into like a theater.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:And it's, basically, a synopsis of what the tour is about. And then, they Finish. And then, we're off. Then, that's really where you are uninterrupted. You can go at your own pace. Mm-hmm. God, you can stay in there for hours if you wanted to.
Cate:Then we went to this, a bus that was, had been on fire. Somebody set that thing on fire, and they had that on display.
Portia:They had everything on display.
Cate:Everything.
Portia:They had the, the bus that Rosa Parks was on, pictures of the Civil Rights Movement, from Woolworths here in Greensboro, North Carolina. This,
Cate:Yes, greensboro was on the map in Memphis, Tennessee. Yes. Where these
Portia:college boys, college young men.
Cate:Excuse me.
Portia:A&T. From A&T.
Cate:Yes, from A&T. They were making a statement in a restaurant.
Portia:Here in Greensboro.
Cate:Here in Greensboro, and I don't remember the name of the restaurant.
Portia:It's Woolworth's.
Cate:Woolworth's.
Portia:It was so brilliant how they laid it out. You, when you, when you look at the museum on the outside, it does not look big at all. Nope. But every room, every space was accounted for. I mean, every room, every wall, there was pictures and timelines of dates. They didn't miss anything, it seemed. What I liked about this is that, you know how if you go down a tunnel, you're kind of forced to go one direction. But in this particular civil rights museum, it's one way and everybody's going that direction, but they're going at their own pace because they're stopping and they're reading. So you remember the, the room where they had the walk in Selma. Do you remember that? You are going around and then up on the wall you're seeing all these pictures and you're seeing all these people. They're walking in Selma. And then you go around the corner into another room and there's another part of history. The timelines keep growing. Mm-hmm. And, it comes to the modern era of President Obama's time. And I'll never forget, I was so surprised when I got to the end. You get so lost in this beauty of this transition and this tour and then all of a sudden the very end, we were in the Lorraine Motel.
Cate:They've kept his rooms. He had two rooms, didn't change a thing. And they had Precious Lord playing.
Portia:Yes. Yes.
Cate:And it was just powerful. I was crying.
Portia:Everybody was crying, honestly.
Cate:And, I'm just remembering it. I'm whew.
Portia:I mean, how can you not. I remember that was That's an old hymnal, and that was one of my, my mom's favorite songs. I remember walking up, and then you realize, oh shoot, we're in the hotel. How do we get, we're at the beginning to the hotel, and then you hear Precious Lord and honey everybody was, there was not a dry eye in the place. But right in front of the rooms on the outside there was a display.
Cate:It was the balcony.
Portia:No, no, no, no. It was a display of the description of the funeral and yeah, about, the song choice. So this is one room on the side and it's flowing in one direction, right? And then all, I don't know how you felt, and there is the balcony where Martin Luther King was shot. I'm just standing there thinking I'm in. This is, I could, I'm speechless. I'm speechless now, and, and I was speechless then because it's just so much sadness.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:My heart was heavy.
Cate:Yes.
Portia:But, there were so many, um, ranges of emotion. I was pissed when I started and that subsided, and then I became inspired because of the history and seeing so many people fight for my right, and here I am, I didn't wanna go. But I would tell you right now, I'm so grateful for my wife mentioning that. I'm so grateful that we chose to go to this direction because this is one of the, the moments in the trip that I will never forget. It just keeps me going and the things that I wanna do in life. To realize that these people. They sacrificed their lives for me and for so many other people on this earth, and it was such an empowering feeling to experience that. And so we, we finished the tour and we thought we're running more.
Cate:Yeah, we thought we finished. Well, there was more across the street.
Portia:I didn't pay much attention to it, but Kate did.
Cate:Well, you know what caught my attention? And we see this 1965 Mustang White, which they considered was the getaway car, but that's my car. I love that car. I wanted that car. I wanted to drive it away. But then,
Portia:yes, what it was was,
Cate:That was the hideout.
Portia:Well, wait a minute, Uhuh, I'm not even gonna let you get away with that, honey, because lemme tell you something. We see this guy, he's standing. I'm, I'm gonna lay it out for you. Which, you know, at one point I was saying, I'm not going up there. Um, it was like, Nope. it was so eerie to me.
Cate:It was very eerie. It was.
Portia:So, you're seeing this door and you see this man. Right. And he's just standing there. And Kate was like, well, why is he standing there? And then you see people kind of going in. And, and so she's like, she's the adventurous one when I'm not, and vice versa. And at that time I was like, Hmm, I don't know about this one. So we go up and he's like, yeah, well this is the second part of the tour. This is where the gun man stayed for days planning out his attack. We walk this long coridor, and then you see this decrepit, um, you see this decrepit elevator, and Kate was pushing the button and I was like, and it was all dark. I, I believe it was dark, and stuff. I was like, oh, hell no. I'm not going in that. I am not gonna get stuck on some elevator. You crazy up in here? In this particular, no.
Cate:Well, I've been stuck on an elevator at the North Carolina Prison.
Portia:Hello. See, wherever it was, you didn't enjoy it.
Cate:It was stuck.
Portia:Okay. It was stuck. I mean, it's either to take the elevator or the steps. Well, I'll be honest with you, steps seemed like it was more creepy than the elevator. Well, thank God it wasn't that high. I think it was only, what was it two flights up?
Cate:Two flights? Yeah.
Portia:And then you come and then you. It's, it's like an open floor plan apartment. Uh, you, you come around the corner to your left, and then that's where you see this beautiful white convertible mustang. It gorgeous. It wasn't a convertible. It wasn't a hard, it was a hard time. And you see, again, you see a timeline from the moment, or the idea of wanting to, end Dr. Martin Luther King's life and, uh, who this person was. And,
Cate:You see the gun, see.
Portia:Well, you see the bedroom first. You see the bedroom. It's a tiny room, tiny room.
Cate:Bathroom.
Portia:You see the bathroom and you see the window where he was, where he shot out. And then you turn around in the back of you, uh, then you see the display of the gun. You see the bullet. It was disturbing.
Cate:It was.
Portia:It was very, very disturbing and I'll be honest with you, by the,
Cate:I cried in that one too.
Portia:I was spent, I was mentally, emotionally spent.
Cate:That was a very powerful time.
Portia:Yeah. It was.
Cate:For us.
Portia:Mm-hmm.
Cate:You know, learning about the history, seeing are we, African Americans, the people that fought for rights.
Portia:It stays with you. Mm-hmm. I was speechless then, because there was so much that you have had to take in. But it was one of those moments where I just encouraged anyone who's interested. The one who didn't wanna go. Now I've seen the light. I mean, I can't imagine myself not ever seeing that.
Cate:You had, you had to go.
Portia:Yes. It is one of those moments that
Cate:I was not gonna let you not go, because I know you would've regretted it.
Portia:This trip, kind of peeled back the layers of fear. And it started with going to the Civil Rights Museum. And there was another moment, and I don't know know if you even know it. So when we finished with the, um, the museum we got back to the campsite and we were gonna freshen up.
Cate:Uhhuh.
Portia:And then
Cate:we meet this lady who was just, she was an inspiration.
Portia:Her name was Holly.
Cate:Holly. All she did was camp.
Portia:Oh my goodness. Holly, I'm 52. Holly is probably a good 10 years older than me, maybe even a little. And at first I went into the bathroom and I was freshen up. You know, my wife, she can talk somebody's head off like I can.
Cate:Normally, she's like, bye.
Portia:Yeah. So I was, no, I, I was, I was saying bye cuz I wanted to freshen up. But you were still talking when I came back out. But
Cate:she was intriguing.
Portia:She was so intriguing because Holly, let me tell you the story. I don't know if you remember the, But she told us, um, you know, we were telling her all what we were doing. She was so excited about what we are, our road trip, right? Mm-hmm. And we were telling her that we were gonna go to Asheville, um, not Asheville. We were gonna go to Austin, Texas. She was like, oh my God, I wish I would've known, I would've given you my house. We did not. We didn't know this woman. From talking to Kate first and then myself, she was willing to give up our house just for us to stay for the two nights. But she had ha found somebody to rent it out.
Cate:Yeah.
Portia:But the reason why she was there, like she was like, first of all, I've done the marriage thing, I've raised my kids and now all I do is I look forward to going camping and going road tripping. By herself.
Cate:By herself.
Portia:So she just came back from California. Yeah. And so she stopped at this park and you know, when we, Kate and I were driving out of the park, you know, just to get some food in the gas and stuff, I remember seeing this little, little, little tent. I was saying, who's staying In that? It was in the woods and you know, in the woods, all these mosquitoes and stuff. And I was looking, I was like, it is this big. I was like, who's staying that? Well, sure enough, it was Holly and she was this big Oh my God. I said, she was like, yeah, I saw your tent. It's so big. And I said, yeah, I saw your tent. I was like, wow. That was you. Huh? But the story, do you remember the, when I was saying along the way there moments that, were peeling back the layers of my fear.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:She was one of those moments.
Cate:Oh,
Portia:I know.
Cate:That's awesome.
Portia:Because
Cate:I wish we had her number.
Portia:I know. We never got it.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:But the story, and it's, it's such an endearing, sad story, honestly. The reason why she was on that trip, she was going to the British Columbia and because of Covid it was closed. Right. Yeah. But you know, this was in the heart of summer. Normally, Austin is so hot, in mid-July, she starts to get anxiety attacks. And she was saying that the reason why it started was because her son, he was 15 years old and he was killed by one of those big garbage trucks. And so she said she had gone to doctors and she, she. She had found out that that was her trigger, like the, the heat in Austin triggers this anxiety attack, and so she has to leave and
Cate:I've forgotten about that.
Portia:Yeah. What was so endearing to me was that she was so forthcoming and telling us her story. She's this big, an older lady, and she was doing these things by herself. It was so inspirational. She was just telling us the story of, yeah, well sometimes I, if I stay overnight or, or if I stay in a place that's, Uh, for, say a long weekend or a week or so, then I'll take a big tent, like what you guys have.
Cate:Mm-hmm.
Portia:Today I wanted to just, I knew I was gonna stay overnight, so I just had my little tent and I said, to her, her, I said, Holly, Are you afraid of bears out in the woods and stuff? She looked at me, she was like, no. She said, I found if they don't, if you don't mess with them, they don't mess with you.
Cate:And that's true. That,
Portia:yeah. And, and that was what was from that conversation. I kid you not, It's just like that fear was kind of leaving me a little bit at a time just to see this woman who was out there by herself. She's traveling to British Columbia, she's traveling to all these places. She's hiking and camping in the wilderness by herself.
Cate:By herself.
Portia:It was so inspirational. To hear this woman. Mm-hmm. I mean, just having the moments of the Civil Rights Museum and then also just at the very end of our stay in Memphis, Tennessee, and you see this woman and you, you hear this woman's journey.
Cate:It was powerful.
Portia:It was very, very powerful.
Cate:God has a way of bringing the right people at the right time.
Portia:Yeah. That was true in your lives. That was so in your lives. Well, that was day two. It was an emotional fun. It was everything bottled up into one. Mm-hmm. Um, and we had to get, uh, going for a night's sleep, you know, and all through that day, I never had a cup of coffee, except for when we left. I had researched other coffee shops. We just didn't have the time. Like there's some other coffee shops that I, I would wanted to, to see mm-hmm. Like, there's this, uh, coffee shop called, Butterific Bakery and Cafe. I wanted to try, I would love to try And, there's,
Cate:We gotta go back.
Portia:The French Truck coffee house that would love to try, but it was just that we just didn't have the time to go to see, you know, to any other place. And we had to leave, yes, within five hours. So, day three, stay tuned because it was freaking exciting. See you soon guys.
Cate:Bye guys.
Portia:I'm Portia White, and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I'd like to give a special thanks to our sponsors betterwithacupofcoffee.com and peeztees.com. If you want to be our guest on our show, email me at cuppaconnections@gmail.com. And if you like what you heard, please rate and review our podcast. And, join us again soon on Cuppa Connections.