“I’m looking up hotels in Memphis,” I texted one of my too-many group chats four summers ago, alongside a screenshot of a quote from Time Out: “It even has its very own swamp, complete with live alligators.”
My updates about my forthcoming trip that my friends would not be joining, but had to hear about nonetheless, didn’t stop there; I’d learned one could stay in a room with a screened balcony overlooking a large Bass Pro Shops store designed to look and function like a real swamp. “Imagine telling your children they were conceived there!” my friend Caity responded. “Born 2 shop.” I cannot be sure this was the moment I became aware of the Big Cypress Lodge, the hotel inside the Memphis Pyramid, a—yes—large stainless-steel pyramid on the Mississippi River in Tennessee. It houses both the hotel and the sprawling store, with forsale pontoon boats inobservation deck at The Pyramid’s apex. But it was the moment my fate was sealed. “We might have to stay at the swamp,” I wrote. “I think I’m sold.”
