Day 41 Saturday September 14, 2024
We had an easy day yesterday so today we were boarding our Bright Red Chariot this morning at 7:45AM.
I can’t remember if I have mentioned how we are assigned seats on the bus. The Tailgunner has a deck of playing cards and one person from each rig picks a card. If it is a red 2 you set in the second row of seats on the right side of the bus. If it is a black 9 you set in the ninth row of the left. Each day we board the bus we choose a card. I always let Lena pick as she is luckier than me. Today she got a red 2. We haven’t been further back than row 8 yet.
Our driver today was Marcus. He took us downtown St. Louis MO and we got off the bus near the St Louis Gateway Arch. It didn’t open until 9am so we had time to walk around and get photos. The old St Louis Courthouse was nearby but we couldn’t go in since they are doing a renovation on it. It was made famous by the Dred Scott case and also the Virginia Minor case for voting rights for women.
The arch is dedicated to the great expansion of the United States to the West. Because of its strategic location near the confluence of the nation’s two largest rivers, the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, St Louis was a successful trading center from the time of its founding in 1764.
I remember seeing the arch when I came here on a train in 1967 and again when we came through this area in 2015 on the way to Alaska. But I never knew anything about it, really wasn’t interested in it but we found out today how REALLY interesting it is.
The Gateway Arch National Park includes the arch, underground visitor center and museum, Old Courthouse, Mississippi Riverfront and landscaped spaces and trails. The museum was really good. Our Wagonmaster got our tickets and we watched a very informative 50 video that showed actual footage of the construction of the arch. There is no way I can describe how they constructed the arch. The arch is the tallest structure in the US at 630 feet. There isn’t any cranes that are that tall so they developed a system specifically to build it. Another thing that amazed us was the men working at that height were not using safety harnesses. They predicted they would loose 13 workers but they didn’t loose a single one. The head architect was from Helsinki Finland. He also designed the John Deere World Headquarters we saw in Moline IL a few days ago.
There was a large team of really brilliant engineers and construction workers working on the arch. It was built between 1963 and 1965 and is a sandwich made of stainless steel on the outside, carbon steel on the inside and concrete in the middle. Nothing like it had ever been built or attempted.
After watching the video we got our tickets to ride the tram to the top of the arch. There are two trams, one for each leg that meets at the top. Each tram has 9 really cramped cars that hold 5 people each. They are shaped kind of like a bubble and they ride inside the leg. It took 4 minutes to get to the top. We had about 10 minutes to look out the windows over the city, take photos and then it took 3 minutes to ride back down. It was quite an experience.
We boarded the bus and Marcus dropped us off on Washington Street where they were some places to get lunch. The wagonmasters recommended Sugarfire right where the bus stopped so we went there. We both ordered the Pulled Pork plate. It was some really good pulled pork and very generous portions. Served kind of like Redneck BBQ does near McGees Crossroads. We did not need any supper.
Our next stop was back into Illinois at Lock and Dam #27 on the Mississippi River. They have a short video about kayaking on the river, then we visited the museum before taking a guided tour out on the dam. Our group split into two groups for the tour. Our group got lucky because before our tour ended two river barges came to the dam from different directions. The one that got there first went into the lock first so we got to view that process. Very interesting.
The barges are several individual containers that are lashed together and then are pushed with a tugboat. The individual barges have a sectional cover that can slide back for filling/emptying. Those that are carrying anything like grain that would get damaged if it rains have the cover closed. The ones with materials like coal have the cover slide back. The barge we watched coming into the lock had 12 individual containers that made up the barge. I believe our guide said they can have 15 individual containers sometimes. One normal barge can transport as much as 1,000 18 wheelers. If the barge fits into the lock the whole process of getting it through the lock is about 15-20 minutes. If they have to disconnect some of the individual barges and take them through it can take over 2 hours because they have to disconnect them and move through the lock and reconnect them.
Once they get past all the locks and dams headed towards the Gulf of Mexico they can lash as many individual containers together as they can push with the tugboat.
Then we returned to the campground for the day. Great weather today and great educational day. Actually so far this trip has been a very educational experience.
Day 42 Sunday September 15, 2024
Today was another great day of touring interesting places in and around St. Louis. We had the same Red Chariot this morning but Barb was our driver. She was the first woman driver we have had. Karen also boarded and will be our local guide all day.
Barb took us to Forest Park the former grounds of the Worlds Fair and Summer Olympics in 1904. There is only one building remaining from all the buildings that were built for the Worlds Fair. All the others have been torn down. The one remaining building is now used for Art. Not sure why they would tear all the others down, seems kind of strange to me. But they did make a nice park of the grounds.
From there we went to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis for a self guided tour. The tour guides don’t do tours inside the Cathedrals because most of the time there is some kind of religious activity going on and a guide taking would be disrespectful. Tourist are normally allowed inside most of the time even if Mass is taking place but of course everyone has to be very respectful and quiet.
Today 3 or 4 of us, including me got too close to one of the confessional booths and we were asked to move away even though we were not talking.
The Cathedral was started May 1, 1907 and continued for 80 years. All of the religious scenes that are all over the ceiling and walls is colored glass not paintings. I think this is probably the most impressive one we have been in.
Our next stop was the Missouri Botanical Gardens. We were given a map of the gardens and told about the hop on hop off trams that you can take around the grounds. We decided to pay the $5 for each person but later realized we probably wasted $10 because once we got off at the first garden we wanted to visit, The Japanese Garden, we never got back on. Unless you happen to be near one of the 4 tram stops when one came by you had to stand and wait several minutes for the next one. We didn’t see as many plants in bloom as we would have liked but it is probably getting a little late in the year for many of the plants. There were numerous different themed gardens. The Climatron was very interesting. It was a huge glass dome facility where the climate is controlled and it kind of reminded me of a lush jungle.
By the time we had seen all we wanted to we had walked almost 3 miles and it was getting rather warm so we returned to the Visitor Center and went to the Sassafras Restaurant for lunch. Most of our group was also there eating. They had another restaurant on the grounds but there was a wedding there yesterday and they hadn’t got it cleaned up to reopen.
The next stop was the Budweiser Brewery for a guided tour through their facility. We were given a brief history of the brewery before we started the tour. Our first stop was the stables where they keep the Clydesdale Horses. They are some beautiful very well cared for horses.
Our next stop was the Beechwood Aging Cellars where they have huge storage tanks where the beer is stored for aging before being bottled. The temperature in this room was between 38 and 40 degrees. Sure glad we didn’t stay in there long. The brewery included several very large buildings, some of the dating back to 1898 and the inside of some of them were very ornate, nothing like what you would expect from a brewery facility. The floors looked like you could almost eat off them they were so clean.
At one stop the guide explained about the ingredients in the beer and gave each person a small glass of beer. We don’t like or drink beer, but did taste it. Yuk!
We rode escalators up to the seventh floor to see the bottling room. The bottling lines were not operating today so they showed a film about the process. They had windows overlooking the bottling room but the clear windows turned into a movie screen to show the video on the bottling process. Pretty neat.
This was the last stop on the tour and as we started to get back on the escalators to go back to the first floor they gave each person a bottle of beer that wanted one. We took a bottle each but gave them to our friend Gregg.
We boarded the bus back to the campground at 4PM.
At 7PM we had our driver’s meeting for our next travel day on Tuesday. Before the meeting the Wagonmasters and Tailgunners fixed a bowl or cone of ice cream for everyone.
Then we had a game of trivia. Lena and I got 5 out of 10 correct and so did Gregg and Judi so we tied for first place in the group in the most correct answers. So they asked one more question as a tie breaker and Lena and I won. 2 or three of our answers were guesses but we guessed correct. We won a St Louis bear. Gregg and Judi got a Fantasy zip up cooler.
Day 43 Monday September 16, 2024
Today is our day off so Gregg and Judi joined us this morning and we went to Upshot Coffee Shop about a mile from the campground. Very good choice. It is a repurposed auto garage. There were some old tires on a wall rack, some radiator thermostat gaskets and fan belts still hanging on the walls. We were served our coffee in ceramic mugs, which we prefer if available.
We were setting where we could see the barista preparing the Lattes and we noticed that she actually weighed the coffee to ensure that each cup was the same. We have never seen that before.
From there we went to Grants Farm outside of town to take the Clydesdale Close-Up Tour. This is also owned by the Budweiser Company. The reason it is named Grants Farm is because President Grant owned several acres of land here and also a cabin, so the Busch family named the place in his honor.
They do some of the training here for the horses. There are three “hitches” of the Clydesdale horses across the country. The horse start their training when they are removed from the mothers care at 6 months old. Each horse has a report card and as they progress through the training program their card is updated. They have to get to a five before they are considered ready to be a hitch horse. They are trained to not negatively react to all kinds of sounds and activities. It would be very bad for a team of 8, 2000 lb horses to run wild at an event.
Our guide Howard gave us a very informative tour. There were only 10 taking the tour so we had lots of chances to interact with some of the horses and we were allowed to take all the photos we wanted. The horses in the stables would come to the door and let us scratch and rub them when they weren’t busy eating. Howard said they like the attention. Only the male (geldings) are used as a hitch horse. A hitch horse is used to pull the Anheuser-Busch beer wagon.
We went into one barn where one of the recently retired hitch horse was. His name was Logan. They had recently removed his shoes so Logan was getting accustomed to walking bare footed.
One of the handlers gave us a good informative talk about some of the training. He said when the horses are out in the padlocks they can act like horses but they are trained that when a halter is put on them they are to act under the guidance of the trainer/handler.
He gave us some rules to follow then we would be allowed to approach Logan and rub him down while someone took our photo. Two of the rules was to not touch his halter or touch his face. The other was never let him step on your foot. I expect that would really hurt. He said when the Clydesdales are in a parade the handlers are very alert to anyone in the crowd approaching the team and spooking them by jerking on their harnesses.
Each one of us got to brush his back and sides while someone else took our photo. They look big from a distance but really are big when you walk up to their side. Logan was 6’ at his withers, which is at the top of his front legs. So when I walked up to him the top of my head was below his withers.
We all really enjoyed our time with the Clydesdales. Don’t know any place where we could repeat that experience.
By now we were getting hungry and Gregg and Judi has scoped out a nearby restaurant named Lillian’s, an Italian restaurant. The food was delicious and plentiful. We all took half of our order with us for leftovers.
Then we returned to the campground to do some preparations for our travel day tomorrow.
I found out why all the buildings except one was torn down at the World’s Fair location we visited yesterday. The buildings were all temporary buildings, not actually complete structures kind of like the buildings they make for movie sets.
Day 44 Tuesday September 17, 2024
Travel day again, we departed about 9:30 for Cape Girardeau, Missouri and we only had about 160 miles to drive. We stopped and fueled up after a couple of miles and then stopped again about 50 miles later to secure our GPS to the dash. It attaches via a strong suction cup but occasionally it will work free. We stopped at a Loves Truck Stop that had some pull through parking spaces so we parked and went into the onsite McDonald’s for a Latte and a pie and took a break.
Almost all the drive today was on I-55 and it was a good drive compared to some of our drives recently. The road was smooth and traffic was fairly light for an Interstate.
After arriving at our campground and setting up in site 9 everyone gathered for our drivers meeting for tomorrow’s trip and then had a spread of light snacks provided by the Wagonmasters and Tailgunners. Then we had a show and tell about RV gadgets that people in the group use in and around their RV.
Day 45 Wednesday September 18, 2024
Travel day again. Today we are headed to the Memphis KOA Campground just across the river from Memphis. The campground is in Arkansas.
About 30 miles down the road about half of our group pulled into Lambert’s Home of the Thrown Rolls to have an early lunch. They don’t open until 10:30 and don’t serve breakfast. We got there just as they opened.
This place was quite amazing. It was started in 1942 when the original owners started it with $.14 in their pocket and about $1,500 of borrowed money. There are three locations now. I suggest you Google it or visit their website www.throwedrolls.com
When they say throwed rolls, they mean throwed rolls. They are constantly bringing out hot HUGE rolls and if you hold your hand up they will throw you one, even all the way across the restaurant.
The mugs they use for your beverage will probably hold over a quart and the coffee cups will probably how more than 4 regular cups. While your order is being prepared the servers are walking around with large bowls with hot off the stove fried okra and will dip you out some on a napkin if you want some. I ordered Chicken livers and gizzards with peaches and applesauce as my sides. Lena got roast beef, greens and beets. We couldn’t believe the size of the servings. There is no way any normal person could eat all of it. And they also came around with a big bowl of just fried sliced potatoes after your meal was served. A couple of our group got a salad and they were beyond huge. Others just ordered a cinnamon bun and they were almost the size of a dinner plate. Lena ordered one to take with us. We had two take out containers loaded down with what we couldn’t eat. I believe my serving of livers and gizzards was at least 3 if not 4 times the serving I got the last time I ordered them in a restaurant.
One RV in our group, Fred and Betty, had their driver’s windows shattered before they got to Bemidji at the group meeting location. Some of the men in the group helped him tape it up until he could get it repaired once we finished the tour. Well today all the glass fell out on the median of the Interstate before he got to the restaurant. So he had a big gaping opening in the side of his motorhome.
After we all finished eating four of the men in the group helped him patch it up. They went to Home Depot, bought some plexiglass and made him a temporary window. Fred couldn’t have done this as he walks with a cane and can’t climb ladders.
That is one benefit of traveling with a group. There is always someone around to help you with a problem. This is our third Fantasy RV Tour and there has been something happen to at least one RV on every tour and every time people step up to help the one with a problem. Just like when we hit a bear in 2022 in British Columbia, I had plenty of help to get our motorhome patched up enough that we could travel.
We arrived at our campground and set up in site F. It is hot here, I think this is our hottest day since we joined the caravan.
Day 46 Thursday September 19, 2024
Our bus driver was Roger today. We boarded his bus at 9am for a trip to Memphis. Our first stop was the very famous Sun Studios where Sam Phillips recorded many famous musicians and singers. His most famous was Elvis Presley but there were many others. Such as Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis.
A guide took us upstairs and told us some very interesting facts about the history of Sun Records and the artists that got their start by recording at Sun Records. There were several pieces of music history and photographs in the little museum. The guitar that Elvis used on his very first recording was on display. His parents saved for 3 months to save up the $4 to buy the guitar.
Then he took us downstairs to the actual recording studio where Sam Phillips did the recordings. The guide went down the stairs first and when we got in the room he was playing a piano and he could really play. He showed us where Elvis stood when he was recording in the studio and where the two band members stood. There was a small round hole in the floor where his upright bass player had worn a hole in the floor with the peg on the bottom of the bass. The microphone that lots of famous musicians used in the studio was also still there. He said lots of famous musicians have recorded here because of the history of the studio. The studio can still be rented to make a recording.
On one occasion Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley was all in the studio at one time. They were having a good time signing together not knowing that Sam Phillips was recording them. They were dubbed The Million Dollar Quartet. The songs have been released on a CD and can be downloaded from the Internet. The recording has 47 songs on it. We bought the CD from their gift shop.
We boarded the bus and Roger took us to the most famous street in Memphis, Beale Street. We had time to walk the street, take photos and do show shopping before we went to B. B. King’s Blues Club for a buffet lunch.
Then we went to the Rock and Soul Museum a couple blocks away. We watched a short video and were each given a headset and a control pad. Each display in the museum had a number on it and you entered the number on the pad and you could hear a narrator describing what you were seeing in the display. They had a lot of musical history from Memphis in the museum. We really liked being able to tour the museum at our own pace and hear the narrator explain everything via the headsets. We enjoyed this museum better than the Rock and Roll Museum in Ohio we visited last year.
Lena and I visited Memphis about 18 or so years ago on our own. We visited Sun Studios, Beale Street and ate at B B King’s Blues Club but did not go the Rock and Soul Museum. Not sure it was open then. We got a much better tour of Sun Studios today. I don’t think they give you an extended tour if you are not with a tour group.
Then we returned to the campground and had our travel meeting for our next travel day on Sunday. Mrs. Wagonmaster had prepared a dessert for everyone that was really good. She had some left so we got two pieces to take with us. We don’t know how much weight we have gained on this trip with all this eating we are doing but we are walking a lot so maybe not too much.
We have an upcoming seaplane ride and we all had to give the Tailgunner our weight a few days ago so the pilot will know how many he can take per flight. He may need to update his weight chart.
Day 47 Friday September 20, 2024
Roger our bus driver, picked us up this morning at 7:45 for another visit to Memphis. We stopped at the Memphis Visitor Center and picked up our local guide. We got off the bus there and went into the Visitor Center where there was a tall statue of Elvis and B B King. The statue of Elvis was originally on Beale Street but crazy Elvis fans used hack saws to cut the fringe off his shirt and the strings off his guitar for souvenirs so the town moved it here to protect it. Then had another statue made in a different style for Beale Street.
Then we drove downtown to the location of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony outside his room on April 4, 1968. We took some photos while the guide told us about the shooting and where the assassin was shooting from the bathroom window in a boarding house across the parking lot. The hotel is now the National Civil Rights Museum. It has been totally converted from a hotel except for room 306 where Dr. King was staying and the adjoining room where his assistants were staying. We came back later to tour the museum.
Then the guide talked about some of the buildings as we rode around town and the park near the Mississippi River.
Then we rode by St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital before going to the Peabody Hotel to watch the famous march of the Peabody Ducks. The five mallard ducks live in a penthouse on the roof of the hotel and twice a day they ride the elevator down to the lobby and walk across a red carpet and jump into the fountain in the center of the lobby. Our guide advised us to go up to the open floor above the lobby to see and get better photos. The Duckmaster talked about the ducks, had some young kids roll the red carpet out and then he rode the elevator up and brought the ducks down. The lobby and the floor we were on was packed with people and almost everyone was taking photos of the event. It is a great promotion for the hotel and they were selling lots of wine, coffee, etc. while waiting for the ducks to come down.
Our guide told us the ducks are replaced every 3 months and the ones removed go to a facility where they can live a normal duck life. Also the owners of the Peabody Hotel does not allow duck to be served in the hotel restaurant.
We dropped our guide off at the Visitor Center and drove the short distance to the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid. The pyramid was originally built for a baseball arena but that failed, then they tried to hold music events in it and the acoustics were not good so it was available to sell. Johnny Morrison, the founder of Bass Pro Shop, bought it. He was out on a fishing trip on the Mississippi River and told his fishing companions if he caught a 30lb catfish he would buy the building and make it a Bass Pro Shop. Well he caught a 35lb catfish. So he bought the building.
We have passed by it going through Memphis but had never been in it until today. It is huge inside with all the typical sporting goods, ATVs, fishing boats, side by sides, lots of fish tanks, fish ponds and an alligator pond with live alligators in it. We have never been in a Bass Pro Shop that had a pond in it with boats in the pond until today. We watched two young ladies feed the alligators. There is a restaurant downstairs and one on the very top also. Our Wagonmasters gave us all a ticket to ride the elevator to the top where the second restaurant was and also an observation deck where you can walk outside and get a skyline view of the city and a great view of the Mississippi River.
We chose to eat on the first floor. It must have been 60 degrees in the restaurant. Lena and I got a bowl of their chili and an order of sweet potato tots. Never heard of sweet potato tots but they were really good and so was the chili. Our friends Gregg and Judi went to the restaurant at the top and after waiting an hour Gregg never did get his order. Judi shared her soup with him.
Then we rode the elevator to the top. It is the tallest free standing elevator in the country. It is right in the middle of the floor and reaches to the very top of the building with no support bracing on the sides.
Then Roger took us back to the Civil Rights Museum so we could tour it. It was about black history from slavery to the present. It was very well done.
Then we returned to the campground for some rest. Tomorrow is a free day.
Day 48 Saturday September 21, 2024
Today was our free day, nothing planned by the tour company. One of the ladies in our group checked with Graceland (Elvis Presley home) about prices for a group. They have three different prices based on how much of the Graceland complex you get access to.
The prices range from just over $80 to just over $200. If you get a group of 12 or more together you get a discount. We had a group of 20 so we got the top tier tickets for $131 each which is about half price and that gave us full access to the entire facility. That is still a lot to pay for a tour but since Lena and I came to Memphis about 18 years ago they have added a huge building across the street from Graceland house that is just full of his cars, motorcycles, golf carts, guitars, all kind of memorabilia, his military uniforms, a huge wall of his gold records and dozens of his fancy stage suits, movie screens, several gift shops, two airplanes and three places to eat.
They have redone the displays in the basement of Graceland and there are two more graves on the property. The basement displays were more personal items, like Lisa Marie’s baby crib, Elvis’s birth certificate, letter from charities he had donated to, receipts from companies that did work on the Graceland property, etc.
The tour doesn’t allow anyone to go upstairs where Elvis’s bedroom and private quarters were. He didn’t entertain anyone upstairs so when the house was opened to the public it was decided to not allow anyone upstairs just as it was when Elvis was alive.
Now you get a headset and an iPad to use when you tour the house and grounds. The iPad gives you view of each room and John Stamos (Actor) narrates the information about each room. And they take you from where you buy your ticket across the street to Graceland in a shuttle bus.
Elvis was a very generous person. He gave to a lot of charities, individuals, his staff, even gave a car to a waitress that served him on one occasion. His father Vernon had a Gibson guitar made for him and during a show in Asheville NC he gave it to a fan in the audience. It took us about 4 hours to tour the facility and we missed the Lisa Marie exhibit.
Gregg and Judi were riding with us and we were all getting hungry and it was getting really hot outside by the time we toured the two airplanes so we decided to get something to eat but didn’t like the looks of the food or the prices in Vernon’s Cafe on the grounds so we drove into Memphis to eat at Central BBQ right across the street from the Lorraine Motel/Civil Rights Museum where we were yesterday. Roger our bus driver and our guide yesterday both said the food was really good there.
As soon as I walked in I felt sure the BBQ was going to be good because the good BBQ smell was in the air. The prices were about half what they were at Graceland and really good. We all got pulled pork and two sides. All of us only ate about 1/2 of the BBQ the serving was so big so we each got a take out box.
Then we left Memphis and drove past the campground and went to Dyess, Arkansas to see the boyhood home of Johnny Cash. Dyess is way out in the country. They grow cotton, soybeans and rice and probably corn when not growing soybeans in the area.
Dyess is a town that was founded as Dyess Colony in 1934 as part of the Roosevelt administration’s agricultural relief and rehabilitation program. It was the largest agrarian community established by the federal government during the Great Depression.
We got to the Visitor Center at 3:25 and they closed at 3:00. So we drove around the little town trying to find the house on our own. We saw some historical signs of where buildings stood when the colony was thriving. But today the little town was very depressing. There were rundown houses with people living in them that were just collapsing on themselves, one burnt out house, some that had collapsed, old mobile homes, rundown houses with juke in the yards, old abandoned high school, just a sad looking place. We all felt sad for the inhabitants of the little town.
With the help of Google Maps we found Johnny Cash’s boyhood home. It was out a few miles down a gravel road. We were a little surprised that the house was a fairly nice size house. It was built by the government as part of the Dyess Colony project to help poor impoverished people farm and maybe own the land one day. Johnny was 3 years on in 1935 when his family moved into the house. It had a tall fence around it but we were able to take photos of the outside.
We returned to the campground and did a few things to prepare for tomorrow as it is a travel day.
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