Memphis/Graceland

Bob and I spent an hour the morning we left Hot Springs getting another new tire put on Harriet. It seems that we are always in need of a tire, but at least Bob discovered an impending problem before it happened. We left town a little late, but we were safe.

As we traveled east, the hills and forests of Arkansas gave way to fields of rice, cotton and sugar cane. It was nice to see some new crops after so many miles of corn and soybeans in the Midwest. Did you know that 48% of the rice grown in the USA is grown here in Arkansas?  I didn’t. They call this area the Mid-South……hmmmmm. Seems like the North-South to me.

We camped at a nice RV park in West Memphis that is right on the Mississippi river. Bob really enjoyed watching the tugs pushing huge loads by at all hours of the day and night. The hum of those big engines is quite soothing. Unfortunately at night some plant that we can’t see must start up, because there has been quite a stench in the evening. It smells like cooking corncobs – yuck.  Both the shipping activity and the aromas reminded Bob a little of Tacoma.

Elvis's Living room

Paul Simon convinced me many years ago that I should go to “Graceland, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee” – so we went and it was wonderful. They have saved so many of Elvis’s personal things, gold records, clothes, airplanes and household items. The mansion is still just as it was when he died 35 years ago. We also visited his gravesite. Bob and I were reminded that Elvis stopped doing live performances for about nine years while he was staring in movies, but he made his big comeback with a TV Special in 1968 that put him firmly back into the music scene. He had a huge influence on the entire world of music.

Balcony where King was shot

Memphis is the city of museums, but there was only one that we really wanted to visit – The National Civil Rights Museum housed in the Lorraine Hotel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We spent all afternoon there and it was truly amazing. Our country’s journey to civil rights lasted for hundreds of years, but the events of the 1960s finally brought some results. It’s often easy to look back and think that things happened so quickly, but the struggles of the 50’s and 60’s were a long and arduous series of victories, setbacks and victories. I am always blown away by the history of the 60s and today was no exception.

How do you compare Elvis Presley with Martin Luther King Jr.? They both had a huge influence on America and the world, and they both died way too early in Memphis. It was a day of great history and remembering these men and their struggles and accomplishments.

We finished our day in Memphis with a stroll down Beale Street and had drinks, gumbo, jambalaya and gator chips at a local joint. Fun stop!!

Hot, Hot, Hot Springs

Mary and I made it to Hot Springs Arkansas just in time for 100+ degree temperatures, we didn’t think it was too conducive to sitting in hot water, so we decided to check out the other things this area has to offer.  We were pleasantly surprised…a huge lake, crystal mines, mountains, forests, rivers, barbeque, music, motorcycles and even a presidential library.

Lake Ouachita

Mary has a friend that just moved to Hot Springs from Maui.  We connected with her and she was very gracious and gave us the inside scoop.  We rented a boat and spent an afternoon on Lake Ouachita (wash-i-ta) with Mary’s friend and her dog.  The lake has over 200 islands, 1000 miles of shoreline and nice clean water for swimming. 

We heard some great blues at the Ohio Club – a small nightclub that has beeb in continuous operation since 1905.  Hot Springs is a small city surrounded by a National Park that was first created as a national reserve (before the national park system was created).  The reserve was created to protect and provide public access to the natural hot water springs. The national park includes some trails on the hills surrounding the town, a 210 foot observation tower on one of the hills, and a string of architecturally significant historic bathhouses. Some are not in operation and one of them serves as the National Park visitor center. 

Downtown Hot Springs

After the weather cooled a bit, we visited two of the bathhouses. The Quapaw is the only one with communal pools so we started there since Mary and I like to sit in hot water together. The Buckstaff Bathhouse still carries out the traditional routine.  Mary and I were led off to separate men’s and women’s locker rooms where we disrobed and were given a sheet and a loofa.  An attendant then led us to a large 100 yr old porcelain tub filling with the magical natural hot water.  After a few minutes the attendant comes in and starts scrubbing you with the loofa!  Next stop is a steam cabinet – mine was like a closet, but Mary had the classic cabinet where your head sticks out and your body par-boils.  The steam was followed by a “needle shower” (sounds scary – but it’s just a lot of small jets of water spraying at you from all directions – but the piping does look like the same vintage as Frankenstein’s).  After a soothing hot towel and sheet wrap you get a 20-minute full body massage.  Mary’s massage was quite modern, but mine reminded me of those old boxing movies where the trainer slaps, pats and rubs vigorously. It was actually pretty good.

Clinton Museum

We took a side trip to Little Rock to check out the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum.  What a great place!  We were there the day after Bill’s speech at the Democratic convention. The library includes replicas of the Oval Office and Cabinet Room and had very well done displays chronicling the events, decisions and results of the Clinton years.  It also has a fabulous restaurant.

Mary and I drove 15 miles north of Hot springs to the Coleman Crystal Mine. They pile up the “tailings” of the mine and you can dig up your own crystals for a small fee.  We had planned to do some digging, but we found such reasonably priced stuff in the store that we skipped the digging and cleaning and bought a few lovely specimens. This area has many crystal mines and there are rock shops along several highways.

We stayed in Hot Springs for a week.  We found a very nice RV Park along the Ouachita River, but we also discovered that there are some great State Parks in the area.  The Arkansas State Parks are free for day use, and many of them have full RV hook-ups, and marinas with rental boats.  We visited Lake Catherine State Park in the early evening and found a free Bluegrass Concert, and the Rangers were making peach cobbler in a “dutch oven” and handing it out free to the audience.  What a nice touch!

We found some great BBQ at Stubby’s, good burgers at the Ohio Club and a fantastic wide-ranging menu at the Bleu Monkey Grill!  Food prices are also very reasonable in this part of the country.

When we were at Sturgis, SD we got there just after the Motorcycle Rally.  Well, we were here for the Hot springs Motorcycle Rally, and while it is not on the scale of Sturgis it was fun to see all the bikes and it gave us a small glimpse into what the Sturgis Rally must be like.

All in all, we really like the Hot Springs area and we’re sure we will visit again someday.  Oh yes!  I almost forgot to mention….Arkansas was the last state to fill up our map of the lower 48.  Mary and I cracked a small bottle of champagne and toasted as we placed the decal on our map.

We’re heading to Memphis tomorrow. 

Five states in a day

The route Bob and I drove from Nebraska City to Afton, Oklahoma, took us through five states in one day. The highways followed the Missouri river for quite some time and brought us from Nebraska into Iowa, then Missouri, Kansas, back into Missouri and then Oklahoma. It was a pleasant drive through rolling hills with oaks and a wide variety of deciduous trees. We were also amused as we passed lots of towns with familiar names – Miami, Pittsburg, Oregon, and Tia Juana. There are so many towns with the same name all over the country. We’ve already encountered quite a few Emersons, but no Getten City yet.

I have to give Iowa my A rating for their rest areas. They were frequent, clean, new, and each one had a different theme with lots of information.

Bob and I arrived at our RV park on the shore of the Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees in northeast Oklahoma just as they were setting up for a potluck dinner. The owners insisted we come, so we got a free dinner and enjoyed some conversation about Oklahoma and the full-time RV life.

Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees is a tremendous lake with 1,300 miles of shoreline. It is famous for fishing with many Bass tournaments throughout the year. There are also lots of blue herons, white egrets, gulls and this time of year, pelicans. It seems so odd to find what I consider “seabirds” in the middle of the country, but there they are.

We have been experiencing quite hot weather this week – about 104 today and more of the same predicted for tomorrow. Harriet’s air conditioner has been running non-stop for about ten hours today and we are so grateful. Even though it was hot we walked through the Bernice state park next door and visited their nature center that had great exhibits. I had quite the conversation there with a young girl who noticed my whale tail necklace and surmised that I wasn’t from around here.

We are off to Hot Springs, Arkansas tomorrow and will finally be able to put that last state sticker on our RV map. We will have visited all of the lower 48 in Harriet, fulfilling one of our goals when we set out in January of 2010.

Hobo, Grotto, Wind, Tires, Trails and Trees

When Mary and I left Minnesota, our plan was to head straight for Nebraska so we could fill in one of the three remaining states on our map of the lower 48, but we got side-tracked by some interesting diversions.  We spent the night in Iowa so we could experience…..

Britt, Iowa, the home of the annual Hobo Convention and Hobo museum.  The term Hobo comes from the greeting “Ho! Beau”, as men traveling for work would great each other during the great depression.  We also learned (from the brochure-the museum was not open when we came through) that the definition of a Hobo is “one who wanders and works”, whereas a Tramp is “one who wanders and dreams”, and a Bum is “one who neither wanders nor works”.  I guess Mary and I are Hobos aspiring to be Tramps, and hoping we don’t end-up Bums.

We visited the Grotto of the Redemption, a wonderful Catholic shrine built entirely of stones, petrified wood, stalactites, crystals and gems that were gathered throughout the western states.  Father Dobberstein gathered from 1900 to 1912 and then began a 40+ year obsession to build a very large rambling and strangely beautiful labyrinth of walkways and alters and caves to honor Jesus.  The site is literally out in the middle of nowhere (Iowa) and includes thirteen great statues made of Carrera Marble from Italy.  The grotto kind of reminded Mary and I of Coral Castle in Florida.  The adjacent church has a 300lb amethyst and a carved wooden alter with stained-glass windows from Germany.

We also learned that Iowa produces a greater percentage (20%) of its electrical energy from Wind than any other place on the planet, though they are not the largest producer of wind power in terms of total megawatts.  The wind blowing across Iowa seems almost constant, and there are very large windmills almost everywhere. There were also lots of semi’s carrying huge blades on I-80.

On our way to Nebraska City, one of the tires on Harriet separated. When this happens the tread rips off and sometimes can do great damage to the trailer. Luckily, only some of the lower sheet metal was bent and I was able to pull to the side of the road (I-80) safely.  Our motor club dispatched someone to put on our spare for us (it takes a pretty hefty jack), and we were on our way again in about one and one-half hours.  I was able to get a new tire and borrow a jack in Nebraska City to put it on in the RV park.

Nebraska City turns out to be a pretty interesting small (7,000 pop) town. We really enjoyed Parker’s BBQ – a must if you are ever here. The area was a prominent stop for Lewis and Clark, a major starting off point for the westward migration, and thanks to J Sterling Morton, a significant player in the country’s appreciation for trees. The Morton family settled just outside of Nebraska City on a large tract of grassland and proceeded to plant trees of numerous species.  The patriarch was the US’s first Secretary of Agriculture (under Grover Cleveland) and was the founder of Arbor Day.  A day to celebrate and plant trees, and as the literature points out, one of the few holidays that is not political, religious or commemorating some past event.  Arbor Day is a day to look to and invest in the future by planting a tree.  One of Morton’s sons went on to become the owner of the Morton Salt Company and another son, the Argo cornstarch company.

We visited a fairly new and well-done Lewis and Clark interpretive center that included some trails overlooking the Missouri River.  In a little over two years the expedition went from St Louis to the Pacific Ocean (and back!) via the Missouri, Snake and Columbia Rivers.  They recorded over 100 new plant and 122 animal species and learned of the migration of the salmon from the native cultures that they encountered.  We biked along a trail called the Steamboat Trace that ran along the western edge of the Missouri River (before it was channeled). The Missouri, as we learned, used to flow wide, up to 3 miles, and shallow along Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.  Spring floods added fertile silt to a broad stretch of “bottom land” and the river wandered a very curvy path before modern channelization and dredging deepened and straightened its course.

During the great westward migration from 1846-1866 Nebraska City was home to several “freighting” companies who would outfit the wagon trains with livestock and supplies for their journey on the Oregon, California or Mormon trials.  With the advent of the transcontinental railroad the overland route was obsolete and Nebraska City was no longer a major commercial transportation hub.

We successfully waited out hurricane Isaac up here in Nebraska and were able to learn a few things to boot!  We are heading out tomorrow to Oklahoma - another of our “not visited before” states.

Wayzata, MN - My Home town

On the way to Minnesota, we passed many prairies and wheat and cornfields. Bob and I stopped for lunch at the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD, where the annual corn festival was just setting up. The Palace was built in 1892 and every year they redecorate the outside with cobs of corn and cornhusks in new and elaborate designs. They call it a folk-art wonder on the prairie of South Dakota. Yes indeedy – it certainly is a wonder.

Bob and I spent five days with my parents in Wayzata, MN.  Wayzata is on the shores of Lake Minnetonka, where Minnetonka Moccasins and Tonka Toys are from. We have seen those moccasins in almost every state we have visited – they are SO popular. My parents actually live north of there, which is now Plymouth. They live in the house they built when I was 5 years old and we affectionately refer to it as “the museum”. They still have paintings I did in high school in the basement!  In fact, the Gettens and Hammeses have lived in the Wayzata area for several generations. A lot of my aunts, uncles and cousins still live within a few miles of my parents.

My Dad and Mom will turn 87 and 80 this year. We celebrated their 61^st wedding anniversary with a lovely meal in downtown Wayzata. They are both very active at the Catholic Church.  They even managed to get us to go to mass on Sunday.  My mom sings in the choir, and my dad has been a “server” at mass for over 80 years!  They both still drive (pretty fast) and they have a large garden that dad tends and mom has to process and can. She says she’s ready for an apartment, but dad still loves the house and yard work.  He is also still flying his small plane and just recently passed his two-year check-ride and physical.

Bob and I enjoyed meeting my friend Nan at the Mill City Farmer’s Market in downtown Minneapolis and we walked out on the stone arch bridge that crosses the Mississippi.  I hadn’t seen Nan since high school and it was great to reconnect. Later that day, we were having drinks with my friend Ron, also from high school, at the “muni” – the local municipal bar and pub. There was a group at the table behind us talking about going to Orcas Island to attend a “granola wedding” and Bob finally couldn’t stand it.  He told them that we got married on Orcas, and that I had lived there for most of 19 years. It turned out the man had graduated from the University of Puget Sound, the same year that Bob did!! What are the chances of that?

During our time here we also had drinks and meals with my aunt and uncle and cousin and their spouses. Bob also reconnected with Bonnie, who he worked with in Seattle during the 1980s and attended our wedding.

We had planned to leave on Monday, but tropical storm Isaac has given us pause. This has been a good lesson for us as to how variable these storms can be.  We are heading to Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas to finish off our map of the lower 48, but it looks like the weather is going to be pretty nasty in Arkansas later this week, so we decided to delay a day. That gave us a chance to wash the outside of Harriet and do some shopping. We also had lunch at Smash Burger, which just moved ahead of Five Guys for our favorite chain burger. I still think that Fudruckers is in the running, but we have to have another lunch there before it is declared the current winner.

The Not So Badlands

Mary’s friends really liked Badlands National Park, so we thought we would spend the night there on our way to Minneapolis.

Badlands NP is like a mini version of some of the areas in northern Arizona and southern Utah, eroded pinnacles and dried mud washes in various hues of grey, blue, yellow, pink and green, yet here in the South Dakota grasslands the area is teaming with wildlife. In one short 20-mile stretch of road we were able to get close-up encounters with Pronghorn antelope, Big Horn sheep, and Prairie dogs.  We also got more distant views of Bison. 

Today was one of the very few days we have used the air conditioning in Harriet.  It was pretty hot today 92+ so we only did some short walks from viewpoints, no long hikes.  But, we did have a great sunset and a very dark and starry night sky. We have seen the Milky Way many more times so far on this trip than we did on the whole of our extended journey in 2010-11.

 

Oh yes, I have to mention that a major roadside attraction is located between the Black Hills and the Badlands of South Dakota. The famous Wall Drug is just off I-90.  Mary and I wandered the many shops and museums, so now I can say we have been to Wall Drug. 

The Black Hills

Bob forgot to mention in our last blog that I actually lived in Glasgow, Scotland, for a few months in the early 70s. I had gone there to be with a man I still refer to as Wacko Bill – not my finest hour. It’s very different from Glasgow, MT.

The road and terrain between Glasgow and the Black Hills of So Dakota looks just like between Glacier and Glasgow – flat with wheat fields and the occasional corn field. Having grown up in the Midwest and seen lots of corn, I can tell which fields are “real” corn and which are the new GMO type. It’s quite scary that less than 1% of the corn I’ve seen across the country (including our fast trip in the cars to Florida) are real corn.

We made a quick stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and were surprised to learn that they have wild horses there. We didn’t spend enough time to find them, but it was an interesting place in the National Grasslands and North Dakota Badlands. Bob helped out a distressed RV renter who’s door was stuck shut! It turned out that they live only a few miles from my parents – small world.

Ms. Splitface

We set up at a nice campground outside of Sturgis, SD called Rush-no-more. Bob and I were able to get a site in a quiet upper loop that backs up against the National Forest. We were greeted by a wonderful cat with unusual markings that came to see us each day. One side of her face was black, the other tortoise shell, and it split in a perfect line right down the middle of her nose.  She enjoyed turkey, ham and tuna during our stay to supplement her usual diet of grasshoppers. There were also many deer and dozens of wild turkeys passing through. We enjoyed the pool and hot tub.

Sturgis is the site of an annual motorcycle rally that has been held for 72 years and attracts more than 500,000 people each year. What a zoo that is, and fortunately it was over about a week before we arrived. We had been marveling at all the bikes heading west as we came across the mountains and prairies. The town itself isn’t much and has only about 6,000 residents.

Bob and I rode our bicycles 16 miles on the Michelson Trail that winds through the Black Hills for 110 miles. We realized it’s been a long time since we were on those bikes. Time to get back into it.

Four old friends of mine, who were traveling in a motor home, heading west from Boston, met us at the campground for two nights. It was great to see them and spend some time together. Everyone went to Deadwood, SD and had lunch at Miss Kitty’s Cantina. Bob and I visited Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane’s graves there. All six of us hiked to the top of Bear Butte, a mountain that is sacred to the Native Americans. There were many prayers bundles and flags hung from trees and we saw a ceremonial area. It was a great climb with good spiritual energy and you can see four states from the top.

Bear Butte

Bob and the friends on the top of Bear butte