Mud Island and Memphis Memories

On Thursday, August 20^th, all six of us piled into our truck and headed to Memphis. Believe me, it was a tight fit….and that was before lunch! We probably looked like sardines in a can! Our first stop was Mud Island, located on the Mississippi River by downtown Memphis.

To get over to Mud Island required us taking the Monorail. We got on and waited, and waited and waited. They told us it ran every 10 minutes, but obviously Southern clocks run much slower. You think we would be more patient since we have all the time in the world, but my patience was wearing thin by the time this thing got in motion.

The Riverwalk is a portrait of Old Man River in miniature. The 1000 miles of the Lower Mississippi is reproduced in a half mile concrete sculpture. One mile is represented by 30 inches. It shows the changes in elevations and all the holes, bends, sandbars and oxbow lakes that surround the river channel. Also included along the way are maps of towns and cities.

Here is a closer view of one section. The model is one huge jigsaw puzzle, made up of 1746 precast concrete panels. Each panel weighs 8 ½ tons!

Sandy and Jerry are standing in West Memphis, looking for the spot where we are staying at the Tom Sawyer Mississippi River RV Park. The bridges to the left are the ones we took to Memphis.

Sandy found the spot….do you see where she’s pointing with her toe? She didn't leave her flip flops off long, it was way too hot that day!

We found the map of Vicksburg, our next stop in our travels. At the bottom of the map is the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Memphis has a lot of quaint, old trolleys and I wanted to ride one of them. However, we all decided that it was way too hot this afternoon to even consider riding one of these. The only air conditioning they have are open windows. Those don’t work so well when it is 98 degrees outside with the same amount of humidity. I had to be content with just taking a picture of one passing by. : (

Blues and BBQ

Yesterday afternoon, we braved the heat and humidity and walked around Beale Street in Memphis. Needless to say, there weren't many people out here walking around. Guess they're a lot smarter than we are...
Look at this building! It's only a facade, and you can see the trees in the background.
Thought this was "note" worthy picture. This bronze musical note was in the sidewalk. We saw one for BB King and other people names that I didn't recognize.
So, what are Memphis style tamales???? Are they filled with BBQ or with Southern fried chicken and collard greens? We didn't try them, and I don't think they could be as good as the tamales we get in Arizona.

Gary and Sherry had wanted to go to Neely's since they were fans of theirs. The Neely's have their own show on the Food Network. We were all hungry for BBQ.
Here the are, headed in for a great meal. The pulled pork was especially good.

Amazing Graceland

One of the top attractions in Memphis is Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley. We just HAD to go there (well, I HAD to go there, Don just went along to keep me company). Two days before we got there, it was the 33rd anniversary of Elvis' death. If he lived he would have been 75 years old. It is hard for me to imagine him as a 75 year old man.
Above is the pool room, which was covered in fabric, including the ceiling! Some of the rooms had carpeting on the walls. We were surprised that the kitchen was not that big, compared to today's standards. But in 1957, when he bought this at age 22 for $100,000, the kitchen was considered huge.
I loved the stain glass pictures in the living room. If you look by the piano, you can see what TVs looked like in the 1960's. No flat screens then!
Besides Elvis, his mother, father and grandmother are buried here. His grandmother outlived all of them. An interesting fact was that his parents and grandmother all lived here in Graceland with him; they didn't have separate houses. I wonder how many super stars today would take care of their parents like that.
There were floral tributes outside from many different countries, including the fan club of Denmark. This picture is for my Danish relatives in Jutland.

Sittin' on the Mississippi

Above is the entrance to the Tom Sawyer Mississippi River RV Park, our stop for this portion of our summer travels. Obviously, you'll never see that in Arizona.... Saguaros don't look good draped in vines.
We're backed up to the Mississippi River, and the weather is a "tad" bit humid. At least there is a nice breeze coming from the river.
Two barges going in different directions, with their respective loads.
Another barge slowly going past us.
Jerry Wayne (we go by first and middle names here) made this wonderful peach cobbler. My part was to cut up the fresh peaches. This calls for a repeat performance!
Jerry Wayne, Sherry Ann, Gary Wayne and Donnie O enjoy the peach cobbler while we have a strategy meeting. We needed to figure out what things we're going to do and where we'll be going from here after looking at the weather reports. The consensus is to drive south to Vicksburg and then New Orleans. However, things may change after I do this post.

Gary Wayne and Sherry Ann are enjoying the quiet time by the river.
I waited for sunset to come so I could get a few pictures with the beautiful pink clouds. I wasn't disappointed.
What do you think this building is??? Well, it is the laundry room! Washing and drying here are free (amazing, isn't it?), but you have to lug your wash up and down the stairs. We're going to take advantage of the free laundry while we're here for 3 days. Our sheets were in the washer at 6:15 this morning!

Take care, ya'll. We'll be gone today doing the tourist stuff.

Lorrie Jo and Bubba (our names for while we're here)

Bummed out in Branson

This is one the hills that we had to climb on our journey to Branson. Jerry, our brother-in-law, didn't like the mountains on I-70 across Colorado, and he sure didn't care for these either.
The picture looks like we all jockeyed for a front row position while checking in. Gary and Sherry are on the left, while Doris and Gary are definitely in the #1 spot with their rig. In the back are us 5th wheel owners. At times when we traveled, we were miles apart, and even wound up taking different exits from the interstate. But at the end of this day, we got to the Ozark Country Campground within 5 minutes of each other.
We were really looking forward to see some shows after hearing from friends how good they were. Every show that we would have liked to see was not in Branson this week (the Platters, Oak Ridge Boys, Noah-the Musical, Andy Williams, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Gatlin Bros., Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers, etc.) I was bummed out, but there was nothing I could do about it. All the ones I checked on said they would resume Sept. 2nd or later. Drats! We had some consolation in the fact that on Monday all of us would be doing a train excursion out of Branson. So what do you do to drown your sorrows? Go wine tasting!

Gary and Sherry are contemplating the taste of the last wine that was poured. Wonder if Sherry is going to give this high marks? Hmm.
I guess Jerry is concentrating more on swirling the wine while Sandy has opted to go straight to tasting it.
On Sunday night, Gary and Sherry M. went down with us to Branson Landing to watch the fire and water show. We were sitting fairly close to the fountains, and you could feel the heat when the balls of fire came to life. I got some awesome pictures.
Monday morning arrives! We all get our tickets on the Branson Scenic Railway for a two hour trip into Arkansas. Boy, we're all excited, especially Gary Sherwood since he has an interest in railroads and one of his sons is a railroad engineer. It's 11:20 and they should be letting us board for our 11:30 scheduled trip. Alas! The conductor says the air conditioning quit on them and all trips for the day have been canceled. Drats again. So far, we are batting zero for doing the fun things Branson is noted for, unless you count a trip that we all made to Walmart for supplies. : (

I hope things turn out better at our next stop.

No longer Spring in Springfield

Yep, it is still hot here. Spring seems so long, long ago. We decided to make a quick trip to Springfield to visit Don's cousin, Lee, who is in the hospital here and also do some sightseeing. One of the places we wanted to see was the Lincoln Home. Guess you could tell that by just looking at the sign, huh?
This is the only home that was owned by Lincoln. He and his family lived here for 17 years. The home was donated in 1887 to the people of Illinois by Robert Lincoln, the only surviving son. It is now run by the National Park Service and guided tours are free of charge. Don and I had been in the Lincoln home in the mid-60's and at that time they didn't allow flash pictures. Somewhere in the last 40 some years, they changed their minds......so I took quite a few pics inside the house.
We had lunch at the Cozy Drive In, the birthplace of the corn dog! It's located on Historic Route 66 in Springfield. Ten guesses what we had for lunch, and the first nine don't count. : )
I loved this sign up on the wall. The cute little dog is getting his daily mustard bottle.
The old state Capitol Building is where Lincoln launched his 1858 Senate campaign with his famous "House Divided" speech.
Sandy, Doris and I stopped to pose in front of a statue of Lincoln situated in Union Square Park. Jerry took the picture while Don stood under the shade of a tree.
This grand old building was formerly Union Station, built in the late 1800's and used until 1972. The view is looking a the front of the building, and the tracks ran along the other side. So much to still see here, but it was just way too hot to walk around downtown Springfield, unless you did it before 8 AM.

Hamel Happenings

You have to make your own fun in Hamel. This town has 600 residents and one police car who seems to go up and down the street every half an hour. We gathered at Janice (cousin) and Buck's home to do some down home cookin'. Mary has her recipe and is checking to be sure Dale is doing everything right.
I wonder why in the world Jerry is standing in front of that boiling pot of water. It must be 99 degrees outside with 99% humidity. One thing for sure, after posing for the picture, he went back inside the air conditioned house!
Dale and Mary check the pot while Doris, Don and Jerry look on.
This is the end result! Boy, was it ever delicious. Shrimp, Kielbasa, potatoes and corn make for a wonderful meal. Mary and Dale had put paper on the table, and as you ate, you discarded the shells and cobs on the table. When we were finished, all we had to do is roll everything up into one big ball and throw it all away! No dishes, plates or utensils to wash!
After dinner, we tasted wines made by Dale and Jerry, along with Hatch green chili wine that Doris and Gary picked up in Deming, New Mexico We tried gooseberry, tomatillo, persimmon, grape and blackberry wine.

I think Gary is giving the signal that his glass needs refilling.
Jerry pours some of his famous blackberry wine. By the time we were all finished eating and sipping, the local policeman had gone to bed.