The day started with a beautiful morning in Cathedral Caverns Campground – the only serious problem we had was the 1/4 mile walk (in our case drive or take a bike) trip to the bathhouse.  We were determined to take advantage of John Hubbard’s advice to check out Shiloh battlefield, so we went straight there from the campground in the morning.  It was on the way to our next destination – Memphis.  Specifically, Graceland Campground.

For lunch, we planned to eat leftovers in the visitor’s center parking lot, but along the way near our stop for diesel, Tom saw that “Jack’s Family Restaurant” advertised roast beef sandwiches – in Alabama.  However, when it came time to eat, we were in Mississippi and found a Jack’s there.  Tom mentioned he would like to try Jack’s, so we stopped. Our plans to sample their roast beef were foiled because unlike most other fast food chains, local Jack’s stores can customize their offerings and they didn’t have roast beef at our stop. They were also short on help and only had burgers and rib sandwiches – like the McRib. Other offerings, like chicken were behind schedule. The restaurant was COLD – like 65 degrees (we found it common in the South for restaurants to be overly air conditioned.)  But we were there, so we both ate rib sandwiches, which were OK, along with fries and fruit/cheesecake pies (like they serve at McDonalds.)  Scott neatly wrapped up his unfished sandwich to save for later, and when we got up to leave, Tom threw out the contents of the tray, including Scott’s sandwich. Scott looked into the trashcan, forelorn, but decided attempts of retrieval weren’t worth it. We left schooled in the vagaries of Jack’s and felt outsmarted two times. Unfortunately, we missed many opportunities to document our experience with photos. As we often say, “If you don’t have photos, it didn’t happen.” Do you trust us?

Shiloh is a National Military Park, and Scott was excited to dust off his Senior all-access National Park card.  The very helpful ranger explained that it was all free of charge, which was a bit disappointing.  The battle of Shiloh was epic, savage, and disturbing.  More men lost their lives in this one battle than all previous wars in the US.  The visitor’s center showed a 45 minute video that explained what happened in a pretty realistic, graphic way.  Before and after the video we went through the exhibits and displays.  We recalled John telling us of an ancestor that was supposed to be at the battle but was given a medical deferment – if not for that John might not be with us.  We returned to Kahn and did about half of the tour of the battlefields before heading to Memphis.

You would think that staying in the Graceland RV Park and Campground would involve staying in Elvis’s back yard and peering into the windows of Graceland.  Turns out it is a pretty standard urban campground with pretty standard rates, though it is across the street and a bit down Elvis Presley Blvd.  Since both Tom and I have been to Graceland at least once (Scott at least twice,) we plan to sample other sites and attractions in Memphis this stay.