Day 8 – The Trip to Greenville

Posing with Kermit the Frog

We started the day with a short 50-minute drive from Batesville, MS to the Memphis airport to pick up Megan and Steve and then stopped for lunch at Leonard’s Pit Barbecue in Memphis. Thursday is their all-you-can-eat rib buffet and the meal was great. The buffet allows you to answer the age-old question of which is better, dry rub versus wet? In truth it doesn’t matter as both styles were fantastic. We then drove approximately 150 miles south to Greenville, MS in about 3 hours. We did make one stop in Leland, MS to tour the Jim Henson Museum. This was Jim Henson’s boyhood home and also the birthplace of Kermit the Frog as the creek where Jim Henson played with frogs as a young boy is just behind the home. The museum isn’t big but it does give you a chance to get your photo made with Kermit.

Judy, Claude, Megan, Steve, Jeanne and John

In the evening we attended the opening event of the Hot Tamale festival which was the welcome gala of the Literary/Culinary Mash-up, which brings together some of the South’s most influential writers and chefs. In attendance were Jeanne and myself, Steve and Megan, Megan’s parents Claude and Judy and Megan’s sister, Kathryn. The location of the gala was a former cotton gin which was recently turned into an event center, but you can still see remnants from the former mill structure.

Jeanne and Roy Blunt, Jr.

The food at the gala was excellent but Jeanne’s favorite moment was meeting Roy Blunt, Jr. I suppose you would call Roy a Southern humorist and author, but we know him best from the NPR radio program, “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!” And to make the night even better, when we went in to for dinner, we ended up sitting right next to Roy. It's not stalking if it's by accident, right?