Dermot woke up at 9 a.m. and headed over to St. Mary’s church in downtown Memphis for the 10:30 mass. After mass everyone met up downtown to head to Flying Fish Café for brunch. They had a $0.25 oyster special so we ordered two dozen and ate them all. After brunch we headed over to the Peabody Hotel to see the famous ducks. The hotel has ducks that live on the roof of the hotel and are brought down to the fountain every morning via a red carpet.
We headed back to Will and Ginny’s, packed up our stuff and then hit the road to Birmingham, AL. We filled up our gas tank before we left Memphis. Unfortunately the gas station was all out of scratch tickets, so Tennessee would not be added to our collection.
With a full tank of gas we got on route 78 and didn’t stop until we hit Birmingham. . . . per Will’s suggestion. Our car was in desperate need of a wash, so we stopped cleaned her up and then headed up to Katie’s high school friend Eleanor’s place. At the house, we were greeted by Eleanor, her 3 year old daughter Cromwell and their 180 lb. English Bull Mastiff named Balfour. Eleanor’s husband Claude got home soon after we arrived. We headed up to their upstairs deck for an amazing view of Birmingham. After they put Cromwell to bed, we headed downstairs for dinner. Claude cooked up some amazing steaks and Eleanor sautéed some mushrooms and southern vegetables. Katie and I agreed that this was the best dinner that we had all trip (including all the restaurants in which we dined). Kudos to the chefs.