This week Santa Ana came to California.
It’s a catabatic wind, that is, downslope winds sinking due to gravity, from the north east. As the airmasses sink down towards the coast they’re adiabatically heated and become warm and dry. Unfortunately that also brings an increased risk of wildfires of which we currently have a couple raging in both northern and southern California. They have been incredibly devastating claiming lives and destroying whole towns. San Diego is safe for now, but it is tragic to see.

This las Friday I left California and headed towards Tennessee.
Two flights, two timezones and a temperature drop of about 40 degrees (fine 40° Farenheit, something like 22° Celcius) later I landed in Memphis where my grandfather lives with Pam. (He’s from Skåne, but has been living in the US for the last 35 years, and Pam is from Memphis).
Farfar and Pam – if you’re reading this: thank you so much for having me!

Memphis served up some cold (very cold if your inner thermostat is set on San Diego temperatures), clear weather and pretty fall colors on the leaves whirling around. We visited Shelby Farms, an old jail combined with peanut farm, that has now been turned into a park, and Thor, a welsh terrier who sure knows how to beg for food (he weighs the same as 1.5 welsh terrier, but has an ego like 5), tried to mess with a german shepard about twice his size. No luck there.


I also got to go on a roadtrip through pretty much all of Memphis in a scavenger hunt for murals and walk along the Mississippi watching the sun set over Arkansas in the west.




Memphis is said to be known for two things, barbecue and Elvis. The former I covered by having some tofu, and the latter of course meant a visit to Graceland. The mansion, the air planes (yes, Elvis had more than one airplane), the automobiles and the costumes. The Full Tour. I cannot say that I’m a hardcore Elvis-fan, but I will say that it sure was an experience.





I’ve not only walked along the Mississippi but also crossed it on a new walking bridge, thus technically speaking, I’ve been to Arkansas as well (I mean, who doesn’t have that on their bucket list?).


When Monday brought rain (Veterans Day, which is a federal holiday) we visited The Civil Rights Museum by The Lorraine Motel where Marting Luther King Jr was shot. It was most thought provoking and well set up, and it will sure take some time to process all I learned about how terribly wrong people used to be about the worth of different people (hint: we are all equal), and how horribly people used to treat each other, as well as how incredibly brave those who fought for civil rights were.

After that it was time to head to Memphis Airport where these lines are written. The smell of french fries is positively all pervasive (it smells like a McDonalds kitchen, times a hundred) and comes from the four different food places here (BBQ, Hamburgers, BBQ with chicken or BBQ with sports on big TV-screens). Hopefully I’ll be home in San Diego tonight despite being rerouted via Dallas due to delays.

As always, thank you for reading all the way down here, and have a great week.

Adios!