urban bicycle journeys

I like trains. My relationship with Amtrak is like that with a mythical demented relative. You love them, you nourish them, but it is exhausting and you sometimes silently wish it would all just end. There is a daily Amtrak called “The City of New Orleans” that runs New Orleans to Memphis to Chicago, taking twenty hours, a longer transit time than sixty years ago. The New Orleans to Memphis portion is a scheduled eight and a half hours while you could have driven a car on I-55 in only six hours. Nevertheless I find trains relaxing. I rode Amtrak up to Memphis for a two day / three night soiree by bicycle around the city.

I took me about twenty minutes to cycle my fat tired Kona bicycle the one mile from our New Orleans condo over to Union Station. The Kona rides well on the bumpy streets of New Orleans and, it turned out, the bumpy streets of Memphis. My folding Bike Friday remained in the closet, at least for this trip.

Union Station was bustling for our 2:45 PM departure. The train was full and several hundred people were waiting to get on, most seemingly going just to Memphis.

Bicycle policies on Amtrak vary not only by train but by individual station. I had paid twenty dollars each way to check my bicycle as luggage. They insisted the baggage handlers roll it to the baggage car. I was required to remove any bags.

Amtrak does not let you book your specific seat in advance; seats are generally first come first serve. Seating is much more spacious than an airliner. I ended up sitting next to an unusual character. His clothes were a little ragged. He had on a leather three cornered hat.

We had a nice chat but he soon got up and walked back to the lounge car. I also love that Amtrak feature; you can walk around.

An hour into our journey, somewhere around Hammond LA I also went down to the lounge car, just to watch the world go by but with bigger windows. My seatmate was down at the other end of the car when he pulled out his violin. This video is ten seconds long.

Live violin is atypical for an Amtrak lounge car. Because his music was so gentle, and he only played for about five minutes, no one seemed to mind. He put his violin back in its case then looked to fall asleep in the lounge chair.

I went back to my regular seat and stared out the window. Near the Mississippi state line, an hour and a half into our eight and a half hour journey, the train lurched to an unscheduled stop in what we later learned was Osyka, Mississippi (population 380, less than its peak population of 850 in 1910.) Not pictured: a random dog walking around unleashed.

We sat for fifteen minutes before getting an announcement of a vague problem. Still motionless half an hour later, they announced that the train needed maintenance and they would advise. I walked up to the lounge car and talked to one of the Amtrak crew. I knew that a couple of hours earlier there had been tornado level weather in this very area. Someone later confirmed on the PA that the train had hit a fallen tree sitting on the tracks. We had to wait for a maintenance crew to drive to Osyka from ten miles away and remove a bent snow catcher on the front of the locomotive.

At 5:30 PM we had been sitting in Osyka MS for an hour and a half. It was cocktail hour. The atmosphere in the lounge car was jovial. Despite our failure to keep moving, the train’s A/C and other functions seemed fine. I walked to the cafe downstairs and bought a nice IPA for eight dollars. Interestingly, especially in this situation, no one else upstairs seemed to be drinking. I set my beer down while I walked back to my seat to get my cheap ukulele.

I do like to occasionally perform singing but I am NOT someone who randomly starts singing in a public place. Ever. In fact, in my sixty nine years this may have been the first time I ever did this. It would be something my brother Alex would do, not me! Until now.

There is a song about this very train, City of New Orleans, written in about 1972 by Steve Goodman. It was recorded by both Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson. I stood up with the ukulele and sang all three verses. Its refrain Good Morning America how are you? seemed so appropriate, not to mention This train’s got to disappear in railroad blues. A passenger took it upon herself to film a clip or two, and she later texted them to me. This video is fourteen seconds long.

There was light applause and several people came up and congratulated me. I put the ukulele away.

Forty minutes later, after having been sitting two and a half hours, the train started moving. Again; light applause.

We had been scheduled to arrive Memphis at 11:40 PM and the train was going to be very late. I had brought my own dinner, chicken and sausage jambalaya with a side of cooked mustard greens, both prepared that morning in my New Orleans kitchen. I washed it down with half a bicycle water bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

At about 11:00 PM we stopped for a few minutes in Greenwood MS. I had never been to the Mississippi Delta. Amtrak said the train would sit ten minutes and we could get off “to smoke” if we didn’t go too far. I don’t smoke but did walk down the platform. Night time in the Delta.

About midnight I called my relatively expensive Memphis hotel to tell them I would be arriving late. Unbelievably, the man said they had been trying to contact me, that even though I had a confirmed reservation, there were no rooms left, and that in calling around, they could not find a room in any other downtown Memphis hotel either! I told the guy I was showing up in two hours and was going to sleep in their lobby if he did not find me a room in his hotel. He said he would work on the situation.

Luckily, when the train pulled in at 2:10 AM my hotel had somehow managed a room. As a converted train station Central Station by Hilton’s front desk is less than fifty yards from the actual train. I checked in and wheeled my bicycle up to the room.

This is what Central Station Hotel looked like the next morning.

I had two days to cycle around Memphis, staying the second night in an Airbnb in Midtown. In hindsight, Memphis has two neighborhoods of interest to a visitor; the downtown area and Midtown which is three miles away. I first cycled up and down Main Street of the downtown area. The far south end of Main Street near my hotel looked the liveliest. I stopped first for coffee and croissant at Hustle & Dough.

One forty-something super tall guy walked in and ordered coffee. There had been a Memphis Grizzlies NBA game here the night before and that might have been why the hotels were so full. The tall guy sat outside with a younger much shorter guy. The tall guy seemed to be doing a sales pitch of something basketball-related to the shorter guy.

Memphis must have felt forward looking starting a trolley line on downtown’s Main Street in 1993, using historic streetcars purchased used from Porto, Portugal. This line was later extended a few times but suspended during COVID in 2020 and then stopped again in the summer of 2024, due to “brake problems.” They say they are trying to restart it. I cycled along the streetcar route on Main Street, the tram stations unused. Many storefronts looked vacant. There were not a lot of people around on this Sunday morning.

Some of the skyscrapers appeared fully utilized, some not.

I admired the Modernist thirty-seven floor 100 North Main which opened in 1965. Notices at street level say someone is working on its renovation but Wikipedia says it has been this way, empty and abandoned, since 2016.

The Peabody Hotel, with their ducks.

I had been cycling Main Street which more or less parallels the Mississippi River. I eventually changed directions and started cycling east, away from the river.

At a hospital just east of downtown, Elvis Presley Trauma Center.

Three or four miles east of downtown the Midtown area is more prosperous, a mix of tract 1920’s bungalows and sometimes larger houses.

Nationwide only about 1,500 all metal Lustron houses from the 1940’s still exist. This one had a sign in the window STOP GENOCIDE IN GAZA. Political note: I saw almost no Trump signs in my two days of cycling Memphis, but did see quite a few Democratic or liberal ones.

The Greenline is a rail trail about ten miles long, extending eastward from Midtown to the large Shelby Farms Park.

I cycled most of the rail trail on an up and back.

It was time for a late brunch. The Liquor Store, on the eastern edge of Midtown, is not an actual liquor store but a diner that serves cocktails. It had good online reviews. It could not seem to decide if it was upscale or not, which I found enticing.

There was a diverse multiracial clientele at 2:00 PM on a Sunday, some looking like Gen X hipsters; others were older couples in their church outfits.

The Filipino Breakfast was two fried eggs on deliciously seasoned rice, accompanied by thick rind-on bacon and sweet fried plantains. I paired it with one of their signature cocktails.

I spend the next hour or two cycling around Midtown Memphis, including its spacious Overton Park.

In a dense city block I heard the unmistakable sound of live music. I parked the bike and walked into a place called Huey’s to hear “Mendocino” originally by the Sir Douglas Quintet. The musicians were old guys; the singer guitarist had to play sitting down. Still, there was an undeniable Sunday afternoon groove.

Not far from Huey’s was my Airbnb. It looked iffy from the outside but was a safe and clean two bedroom apartment for much less than the cost of a downtown hotel four miles away. I could open the windows.

That evening I walked to a nearby Midtown restaurant block for pizza at the bar of Bosco’s. These two women were hosting the entrance.

I needed a bicycle destination for the next morning. In my two days in Memphis I did NOT visit:

1. Elvis’ legendary home Graceland
2. National Civil Rights Museum (former Lorraine Motel)
3. Stax Museum of American Soul Music
4. Sun Studios, where Elvis and others recorded

It was going to be a beautiful day. I wanted to bicycle Memphis, not visit museums. Graceland especially would have involved cycling on busy arterial highways. I did bicycle five miles over to 1034 Audubon Drive, an address in an otherwise normal suburban upscale neighborhood.

1034 Audubon Drive was the first home Elvis Presley purchased. He lived there with his parents for one year 1956-57 before they tired of harassing fans and bought the more remote Graceland. In 2006 an out of town Elvis fan bought the house for a million dollars and donated it to the local Rhodes College’s music department. The pull of all things Elvis continues. I stared at the house for two minutes, then moved on.

I cycled back to Midtown, part of the way along a rail main line. I am the rare cyclist weirdo who enjoys watching trains. Double stack containers! This video is nine seconds long.

I sought out one of Memphis’ signature dishes for lunch at Central BBQ, a local chain. The competing hole-in-the-wall joints all seemed closed on Mondays. People lined up at the counter. One guy pontificated about barbecue.

In North Carolina they saturate the pulled pork with vinegar sauce. Here in Memphis the sauce is thick and tomato based. It was fine, just not all that special.

I cycled around Midtown. Next to a church was this tiny slice of decaying Modernism.

Memphis has miles and miles of attractive 1920’s arts and crafts houses.

I turned and cycled back to downtown and the riverfront, looking for a spot

on the Southside, high up on a ridge / just a half a mile from the Mississippi bridge

Chuck Berry was from, and lived most of his life in St. Louis, four hours north of here. Nevertheless when I think of Memphis I think of this song.

I cycled onto Mud Island, a sand bar in the Mississippi created across from downtown naturally by the river in 1899. In 1982 Mud Island became connected to downtown by a bridge. Developers built an entire New Urbanist “town”, or to quote my friend Tom C., a “fauxville.” I bicycled around. Supposedly a bunch of the NBA players live here. People have riverfront property.

We Stand With Ukraine. I saw those signs all over Memphis, including here on Mud Island.

On the way back to downtown I passed The Pyramid which opened in 1991 as a twenty thousand seat arena. When Memphis wanted an NBA franchise they were told The Pyramid was not up to “NBA standards.” In 2001 Memphis was granted an NBA team by promising to build a $240 million new arena only a couple of miles away. Afterward and miraculously, Memphis found someone for The Pyramid, Bass Pro Shops, and it is now a hunting and fishing store. Of course I had to walk around inside. On a bicycle there is never a search for a parking spot; you just lock your bike right next to the front door. Inside was mostly just a Bass Pro Shop, which are always huge. There was a line of folks waiting to pay eight dollars for an elevator to the top so they could take in the view.

I cycled back into downtown Memphis. The north end of downtown is not as vibrant as the south.

At the far south end of downtown is Beale Street, billed as the Home of The Blues.

Around the corner is the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It is now the National Civil Rights Museum.

Nearby is Central Station by Hilton, and I chose to stay there again. Easy access to an Amtrak scheduled for 7:40 AM the next day would be less stressful.

I walked to dinner about ten blocks to Catherine & Mary’s. The livelier south end of Main Street still has repeated empty storefronts, many of former restaurants. I was struck how difficult it is to open a restaurant in America today. People have high expectations. When someone pushes the buttons successfully, it’s then a great business. Catherine & Mary’s was Italian, expensive, packed with customers, and generally fun and delicious. I was lucky to get a seat at the bar where I met several interesting people. Life was good.

First course was ribollita soup; simple, light, and delicious.

The next course was scrumptious spinach agnolotti; stuffed pasta with tomato sauce. Restaurants in America usually give you way too much food, and the fancier the restaurant, the smaller the portion! Here it was small even by my standards.

I filled up with a side of garlic bread, then cheese for dessert. Coffee.

Everything was chill. I eventually picked myself up and walked back to the hotel in the dark, passing empty restaurant spaces while Catherine & Mary’s was still packed at 9:05 PM on a Monday night.

The train ride the next day was faultless. I stared out the window at the Mississippi Delta; flat, productive, and poverty stricken.

The train had a scheduled stop in Marks MS eighty miles south of Memphis. On Wikipedia I looked up surrounding Quitman County MS. There were 26,000 people there in 1950 but now it has only 5,500. Maybe that’s a good thing. Hand agricultural labor, as in picking cotton, is a brutal job. People have, I hope, moved on to something better.

I was home in New Orleans in time to cook dinner for Tootie and myself.