Not a discouraging word, either

Oh, give me a home ...
where the buffalo roam
and the skies are not cloudy all day...

And where might that be? In this particular case, Shelby Farms Park, just outside Memphis, where a herd some 30 or so head strong, roams. Been there about 15 years, I read. Yes, according to the Famous Niece from Memphis, who ushered me to this scene, there once were buffalo even east of the Mississippi. Once upon a time, that is, though not in the numbers found in the Plains States..

Would you like to meet this big guy head on?

Well, then, how about the little fellow. It was the only youngster that we saw. According to the newspapers, four young were born last year to this herd.


After posing for a few pictures, taken by the FNFM, the collective began moseying away through the tallish grass. Perhaps we hadn't offered them sufficient inducement to stay for more photography. Maybe they're headed for the Great Plains, where wildlife is moving back to replace the lost people population.

Choice Linkage: Hoarded Ordinaries found a cross-dressed Ken doll in a box at the door of one of her professorial colleagues. Beware -- The Truth Is Out There, thanks to Rick & Debbie's Place. Ballard Avenue discovered one of those old neighborhood mail depository boxes and Touch the Wind located a cat mural done in tile, to die for.

Water towers here & there

Sometimes one looms just above the trees, like a cruising UFO scouting for a likely landing spot.

At other times, they're quite out in the open. But what I was quite aware of while driving the Memphis environs with my nieces was the ubiquity of water towers. Here, there and yonder. Often with the name of the particular suburban municipality (or other owner).

What's that all about, I asked my hosts, displaying my ignorance. Why all the water towers? Answer, of course, is for the same reason we have those tanks you don't really notice here in Prescott. To store water. And store it high up, giving the system a good head. Doh.

Up here in the mountains, we simply don't need all those girders and that steel. A good substantial hilltop will do quite nicely, thank you. Nor do we have to paint them a screaming white for visibility from aircraft. The tank I depend upon is pictured above. It's the Indian Hill facility that the city wants to expand, a project that has some neighbors up in arms. Unsightly, they say. (They should look at those Tennessee municipal tanks up on stilts!) Actually, friend Patty and I had to circle the tank quite carefully to find a spot or two where I could get a good shot. Furthermore, she had never even been aware of the tank's existence, though she drives the area regularly.

Here's another local tank picture I found among my archives. Again, the tank, on a hill just east of the Frontier Village shopping center, doesn't impinge on the eye nearly as much as that gouge in the mountainside at right. Perhaps it's the bluegray color, matching the chaparral, because the big white tank (below) on the ridgeline among all those houses is very, very evident. No doubt there are other water tanks around town, hidden in plain sight.

Linkage: the recent pelican post prompted Lucy to locate her photos from a trip to Australia, which she has posted at Box Elder. Wow, such elegant birds! Quite unlike the drab brown fellows that I photographed down in Louisiana. On the subject of birds, World Photos recently offered a look at a nesting stork and her young. Another subject: I tend to avoid Causes like the plague; however, if I were going to take up a cause, guerrilla gardening is a likely candidate.

At last: Elvis

I'm sure that every one of you out there has been waiting breathlessly for this post. After all, how could one visit Memphis without paying respects to The King. I should have posted sooner, but spent too much time trying to locate a photo of me and the Memphis sister-in-law (we're divorced) at Graceland 10 years ago. It has disappeared down the same rabbit hole as the picture of me with a Chinese lion in Beijing. Bother!

The Famous Niece from Memphis and I cruised the city to collect assorted Elvis mementos. Item: Sun Studios (above), where he cut his famous records. Elvis is a 2-plaque tourist attraction. Plaque #1 below; #2 is at Graceland. Who knows -- there might be a third and a fourth somewhere else. There is a statue of Elvis that I missed; it's at the Memphis visitors center.

Nearby is an empty building advertising one of his hits. No data on whether or not this structure actually was a down-at-the-heels hotel at one time.

The drive was long from the studio to Elvis prime; signs that we are arriving in the neighborhood above and below. The Estate/Amusement Park apparently does operate its own Heartbreak Hotel.

The Sign tells us we've arrived. Barely visible in the background is Elvis' private jet.

The gates (above) and the mansion (below). No, I didn't tour the buildings and grounds this visit. Once 10 years ago was enough time to dedicate to the essential tackiness of show biz glitz!

Ah -- here is plaque #2.

However, the dedication of the fans over the years is, to me, remarkable. Inscriptions cover the fence at the front of the property -- and part of the sidewalk, too. New messages take the place of those that have weathered over the years.

In one of her incarnations, my SIL (WD) was publisher of the weekly newspaper in Tupelo, where the rock & roll star was born. She gave me this copy of a special edition (complete with a report of a civic meeting attended by Klansmen in robes -- not mentioned in the daily) as a memento of my recent visit.

Plus a set of two Elvis T-shirts. How can I repay such thoughtfulness. Perhaps I'll gift her a Whiskey Row T-shirt of her very own or, even better, a selection from my stock of genuine Arizona scorpion paper weights.

Steps from Here to There -- and Nowhere

Stairs, like railroad trains and highways, are links between Here and There. Once in a very great while the There is obscure; usually, we're talking about the usual Up and Down. Example: these RR ties made into steps from the street up the incline to a yard here in Prescott.

Similarly, the pair of steps here (above and below). What caught my attention was how the stairs were integrated into the driveway. An interesting local innovation.

Back last month on my trip to Cajun country, which is also oil country, I scored these shots. I find stairs mounting a great tank (above) to be absolutely elegant and was pleased to get a replacement for pictures I took last year in Flagstaff, lost when my hard drive crashed. However, the tangle at the bayou oil collection point below is a bit of a puzzle. (One problem with Prescott is that we really have no interesting industrial stuff to photograph, except maybe old mines.)

But best of all in my stairway folder is a set of steps that deliberately go absolutely Nowhere. At all. Found at the National Ornamental Metal Museum, a favorite hometown showcase of the Famous Niece from Memphis. Names of cities and companies are featured on each rung; we couldn't figure out if all were steel mill towns/companies or not, though that's what we suspect.

Memphis in bloom

Warning: I'll be hopping back and forth across the USA probably for another month, as I continue to share my recent trip with you while, at the same time, recentering myself on Prescott (before I embark on yet another excursion, this to the OmegaMom family up in Alaska.) Today, I'm back in my sister-in-law's garden (we've been divorced, as she puts it, for many, many years but are still best of buddies.)

Nothing could be more Deep South than the magnolia grandiflora, a sometimes huge tree that bears lovely white blossoms with a heady scent. It's the state flower of Mississippi and Louisiana. Wikipedia offers this fascinating tidbit: Magnolia is an ancient genus. Having evolved before bees appeared, the flowers developed to encourage pollination by beetles. As a result, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are tough, to avoid damage by eating and crawling beetles. Fossilised specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae dating back to 95 million years ago. Another primitive aspect of Magnolias is their lack of distinct sepals or petals. The term tepal has been coined to refer to the intermediate element that Magnolia has instead. Magnolias are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Giant Leopard Moth.

Yet another blossom symbolic of the Deep South -- the honeysuckle. Again, Wikipedia fills in the blanks. It turns out that North America and Europe each claim 10 different native species, but some 100 (count 'em--100!) are native to China; there's even an Asian variety for the cats (it contains the same ingredient, nepetalactone, as catnip). When you were a kid, did you carefully pull out the nectar from honeysuckle? I did and now discover that the Crooks Corner Restaurant in Chapel Hill NC features a honeysuckle sorbet on its desert menu. Oh, the wondrous information The Google serves up!

Having lived in Florida long ago, both magnolia and honeysuckle are very familiar to me. Not to mention that my mother lived on Magnolia Street in Riverside CA when she was growing up. However, here's a tree I really knew little about -- the tulip poplar. This guy, with beautiful tulip-like blossoms, was growing tall and full in the yard of the Famous Niece from Memphis.

Had to get close-ups of the flowers. Yet another state tree -- in Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. I can see why. BTW, did I mention that everywhere except in the newest subdivisions, the trees in and around Memphis were HUGE!

Foolishly, I did not write down the name of this curious flower from a shrub at the sister-in-law's.

A brilliant red maple, given to the SIL by my mother. It's named Marguerite in mom's honor and has grown mightily, but can't keep up with the natives!

And, just because of the enthusiasm my recent iris picture enjoyed, here are a couple more iris shots. It is indeed a voluptuous subject.


Oops -- what is this pink evening primrose doing in a Memphis post? Isn't it what we call Mexican primrose here in Arizona? Very well and good but the fact is that I saw this same plant growing wild all over Louisiana and Tennessee. So there! Below, as a finale, is one of the SIL's excellent specimen-quality poison ivies.