We left Adventureland (Altoona, IA) early Monday morning, after being rained upon all Sunday night. Mandy and I, and Mark and Sue got moving at about 6:20 AM (!!!) and headed south toward St. Louis. The rain had stopped, but the roads were still pretty wet, and combined with the several detours we had to take through southern Iowa, our white Odyssey toad looked like a chocolate hearse by the time we hit I-70 and headed east.
Due to our early start, we reached the outskirts of St. Louis by about noon, so we continued on down I-55 toward Memphis. We finally decided to stop for dinner at Lambert's in Sikeston, MO about 5 PM (see them at www.throwedrolls.com). Mandy and I had mountainous salads, and Mark had a chicken fried steak (with trimmings) that came in its own frying pan/plate -- needless to say, we had enough to eat!! After a 500 mile day, we crashed at the nearest Wal Mart, knowing we had only 130 miles to go to get to Memphis.
We had reservations at our favorite park in the Memphis area -- Tom Sawyer's RV Park -- and pulled in there about noon. Its right along the Mississippi, and you can watch the huge towboats going upstream and downstream day and night. After we said hi to our friends Richard and Patsy, the first order of business was to wash the 10 pounds of dirt and debris off the car. The Phaeton didn't look too bad (although its probably dirtier than its ever been), and we figured it can wait until we get to Red Bay for its wash job.
That night we all had a great meal of fajitas, thanks to Richard and Patsy, who brought some excellent fajita meat with them from Texas. We also met their friends (and Phaeton owners) Manuel and Connie, who are also heading to Red Bay for a service appointment.
On Wednesday, we headed into Memphis to say hi to our friend Brian Gipson, at Davis Motorhome Mart, who sold us our Phaeton just about a year ago. Even with the slow market, Brian is doing well -- and we'd highly recommend him to anyone who is in the market for a Tiffin Motorhome.
We also spent a number of hours at Mud Island River Park in Memphis, touring their excellent museum, and exploring their 5 block model of the lower 1000 miles of the Mississippi River. As the name implies, the park is on an island adjacent to downtown Memphis, and is reached by a walkway over part of the river -- or by a 90 second cable tram which runs on rails under the walkway (we walked and took the tram, just to try it all!) For us west-coasters, it was a really interesting display, and we enjoyed Mud Island immensely -- we'd encourage anyone who is visiting this area to see it.
This is the Hernando deSoto Bridge over the Mississippi -- also called the Bridge of Lights, as the span and girders are lit up each night. It carries I-40 across the river, and is named for the explorer who was the first European to see the Mississippi in 1541.
This is the I-40 interchange in Memphis just before it goes over the Mississippi north of Mud Island. Behind it is The Pyramid, built by Memphis for their basketball team, but which is now abandoned, since it was poorly designed -- it looks impressive from the outside though.After our time at Mud Island, we met up with Mark and Sue, and Richard and Patsy, and did a walking tour of Beale Street, and the blues clubs there. We ended up having dinner at King's Palace Cafe, since it had a "Cajun Feast" on the menu -- the atmosphere was great, the music was very good, but the food and service were only so-so, so we'd not recommend it or go back to try again.
We'll drive a leisurely 150 miles tomorrow to get to Red Bay, AL and the Tiffin Motorhome Service facility, and get set up for our service appointment to take care of our one year "punch list. We'll probably be there about two weeks, and we expect to be able to explore the area more completely than we did last year. Stay tuned as we'll be adding those adventures to the blog next.
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