The Museum of Beverage Containers and Advertising, February 7, 1997

The guy working there was very chatty--even showed us the women's room, which had not just a shower but also a concrete fountain. In the back of the place is a huge warehouse filled with empty cans and bottles.

Apparently the place has a thriving mail-order business, with several employees. We saw the little stand in the back where they photograph all their inventory with a digital camera to put on their Website.

They also have an extensive gift shop. In fact, all these pictures are from the gift shop, where we made several purchases. We never even got into the museum proper.

Came out and we weren't going anywhere in particular fast, so we hung out for a bit, had a snack, cleaned the trash out of the car.

Our visit to the soda-cans place was in lieu of taking a somewhat longer route from Nashville to Memphis, one that would have taken us out of Nashville on the old Natchez Trace--the Indian trail that turned into a trade road for the French and Spanish, then became the route by which U.S. settlers spread into the Louisiana Territory.

If we had taken that route, we would have made it to Tupelo, birthplace of Elvis Presley, but by the time we were ready to leave Nashville it was too late to drive that way, because by the time we got anywhere the tourist attractions would have been closed. So we decided to stay in Nashville, drop by the pop shop, and then make a beeline for Memphis instead.

So from here we headed for Memphis , down in the southwest corner of the state, along the Music Highway, as the road signs proclaimed. Johnny Cash kept us good company. Slowly the sun went down; eventually we stopped at a Waffle House for dinner. As we drove into Memphis , Alex's "Eighteen Miles from Memphis" tape kept us going. When we woke up the next morning, we were in Memphis .

Intro . . . Nashville morning . . . Ryman Auditorium . . . Soda cans (outside) . . . Soda cans (inside)

. . . On to Memphis

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