Saturday 18th March 2017
Well if we thought last night was wild, then today was an exercise in organised chaos. All we needed to do was check out of the hotel, store our bags for half an hour, collect the hire car and return to the hotel to pick up our bags. What should have been a 30 minute exercise turned into a 3 hour time warp, from which we could not escape. The Avis/Budget front office staff not only rent the cars, they check in the returning cars which means they have to go out to the car and take the mileage, inspect for damage and spend at least 30 mins signing out the customer. So you can imagine how long it takes them to rent a car, especially when people were turning up cold with no booking. We had booked on line, but had to stand in the queue for 45 mins and then of course the rush was on to check-in returning cars as they ran out of cars-to-go!! We felt like going behind the counter and providing guidance on how to organise their work flows. We didn’t because we had to go back and face the chaos at the Marriott just to collect 2 suitcases.
This all comes as a surprise after experiencing the layers of organisation at restaurants and hotels. The elaborate system extending from the front desk to “seater” to “captain” to “server” to “bus boy” and the knock on effect to constructing a tip, stands in contrast to the “do all” approach of car hire. At least with Budget-Avis.
We finally left New Orleans behind and drove north across Lake Pontchartrain on a 3 lane wide causeway (the longest causeway in the world at 28 miles). There was another parallel causeway going in the other direction back to New Orleans. We stayed on the freeways today as we had a few miles to drive to make it across 2 state lines (Louisiana/Mississippi and then Mississippi/Tennessee). We arrived into Memphis, Tennessee, dropped our bags and headed “downtown” to Beale Street. Similar to Bourban, but thankfully so very different. It was Saturday night so it was very busy, with the street closed off and live music in every bar and restaurant. It had such a good feeling to it. New Orleans is jazz and Memphis is all about the ‘blues”. We listened to a great band whilst we ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe then wandered down Beale and paid a cover charge to listen to 2 bands in the Rum Boogie Cafe.
Lake Pontchartrain causeway
Rum Boogie Cafe
Beale Street