2 Dec 2018 - "Walking Ten Feet off of Beale"

2 Dec 2018

A great day taking in the magic and history of the Beale Street Entertainment District in downtown Memphis.  Sunday morning is not a bad time to check out Beale Street. The good part is we quickly found on-street parking for the big 'ol truck only a block away as it is usually too tall to fit in the parking ramps, and open-air parking lots are few and far between.  The down side is there are no
performers in the blues clubs until 5pm.

From the campground in Arkansas, the Beale street area of Memphis is just about 14 miles south and east, just into Tennessee.

Beale Street's history goes back to the 1841, but it really started to grow in the early 1900's when black entrepreneurs started to open clubs and restaurants there.  Blues musician W.C. Handy came to Memphis and the Beale Street area became the center for blues music.  In the 1920’s-1940’s some of the most famous blues musicians started to perform there, such as B.B. King, Louis Armstrong, Memphis Minnie and Muddy Waters.  "Memphis Blues" was born, and Beale Street grew as the epicenter.  In the 1960's Beale Street started to diminish and the buildings were crumbling.  Memphis enter a revitalization period in the 1980-90's and it's popularity continues to grow today.

Back to our tour, we started near our parking spot at the Martin Luther King Reflection Park. This great memorial was established just this year, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr Martin Luther King in Memphis.

Across the street is the Gibson guitar factory.  It is one of the oldest, founded in 1902 by Orville Gibson.  We were hoping to tour the facility Monday as they were closed on Sunday.  This is where the famous guitars are or were built, but apparently they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this summer and are relocating to a smaller facility elsewhere, so this facility is closed.

Half a block north and we arrived at the corner of Beale Street and S. Second Street.  It was very quiet with a few tourists and locals walking about.  We can only imagine the crowds, the festivities and blues music on a summer Saturday night.

We made our way to iconic Beale Street arch and a retired Army vet snapped our picture (above).  We passed a monument for Elvis who rose to fame here in Memphis at Sun Records. 

We then headed east on Beale to B.B. King's Blues Club. No one was performing so we had a cold one and took in all the history of the club - if the walls could only speak.

We continued east on Beale and walked the "Beale Street Brass Note Walk of Fame".  There are brass musical notes embedded in the concrete sidewalks along Beale Street. It was Memphis'  way of acknowledging those who helped make Memphis and blues music world known.

We looped around the north side of Beale and headed back west.  The street is lined with interesting shops, clubs and restaurants.

 You will surely remember the song, "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn.   If not click here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFEB9xLeLmY

We turned north on S Second St and entered the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.  It's not a very big facility but they also have a sister facility called the "Rock and Soul Museum" which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute.  We toured the museum which was full of history and artifacts relating to the music industry and blues here in Memphis.

Elvis's Mobile Phone - predecessor to the cell phone!

Old recording and splicing equipment used to create records

Jerry Lee Lewis' 1985 Cadillac

B.B. King's guitar

Before leaving the Beale Street area we had to stop into the Blues City Cafe for Memphis barbecue!  It was absolutely awesome.  Doreen had a half rack of ribs with all the fixin's and I had the  combo platter which included a half rack plus catfish!  The meat literally fell off the bone!  We each could only eat a portion of our food, so we hauled the remainder back to the RV for supper!!

Well, we had a great time "walking ten feet off of Beale" today!  We plan to visit Graceland and Elvis's car museum tomorrow, then back to downtown Memphis to eat at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken with Jason Hunt (132d Comm Flight, Iowa Air National Guard retiree) and his wife tomorrow evening.

1 Dec 2018 - Arrived at Marion AR/Memphis TN Area

1 Dec 2018

Traveled from the St Louis area to our next stop at the KOA Campground at Marion AR/Memphis TN today.  So this was another travel day, and my posts on travels days might be a little boring.  Sorry!  We typically don't do much on travel days except get from point A to point B because of the inherent overhead involved with tearing down the RV, driving the distance, and setting up again.  Sounds simple enough, but that is also the reason we typically don't drive long distances on travel days.  We try to go by the rule of 2's:  Average 200 miles on travel days; arrive the campground no later than 2pm; stay at most locations a minimum of 2 nights; have 2 cold beers in the fridge to enjoy after setup!

It rained fiercely overnight in St Louis, so I slept like a baby with the sound of the rain on the RV roof.  I snapped a couple pictures this morning before leaving.  Nothing special about this campground, but was nice having paved spots with all the rain.  There are a lot of rigs here that are obviously here for the long term, with large propane tanks and heated water hoses.  The others, like us, are transient, only here for an over-nighter as they head south.

We got up at a descent hour and bugged out about 0800 hrs, and heading south from St Louis primarily on I-55.  It was a warm 50F with clear, sunny skies when we left and continued to warm as we traveled south. 

Water, water everywhere!!  The fields are soaked down here.  The cell that moved through St Louis obviously came from the south and it unloaded a bunch of water.  The farm fields resemble ponds. 

We continued south and passed New Madrid, MO.  With the recent events near Anchorage AK, Doreen decided the New Madrid Seizmic Zone, better known as the New Madrid Fault line could behave itself until we get out of the area!  We wanted to get to the Memphis campground so we did not stop and see the museum.

The further south we traveled the warmer it became.  Yep, that is not a misprint!  A balmy 72F.  And just think, it was a chilly 22F as we passed Oskaloosa IA yesterday on the way to St Louis.

We noticed these round bales all over the fields as we headed south.  They kind of resembled hay bales, but they we white on the edges.  Ah!  Cotton bales!  The loose cotton on the edges of the interstate was a clue.  It looked like what we see up north with the cottonwood trees.

Other than a coffee stop and a gas stop, 287 miles and 5:22 hrs travel time later, at approx 1322 hrs we arrived at the Marion/Memphis KOA Campground. 

Again, water, water everywhere.  Quite a bit of the campground is underwater and unusable.

The site we were assigned had some issues so after partially setting up, tearing down, and setting up again, we established camp for the next four nights.   On the south side of our campground is a cotton field.  I would like to stroll out there and have a closer look but it is a swamp. 

 The game plan for Memphis is to see the sites and enjoy the culture.  There is a ton to see and do down here.  From the civil rights history to blues to Elvis, there is plenty to keep us occupied.  We also got a message on Facebook from a retired Comm Flight member Jason Hunt that moved down here several years ago so we will look forward to seeing him.  Tomorrow (Sunday) we plan to walk around Beale Street, BB King's Blues Club and other sites in the area.

30 Nov 2018 - Day 1 Done!

30 Nov 2018
Well, day #1 is in the books!  A little recap then going to call it a day..

Yesterday we brought the fifth wheel home from the storage location and parked it in the street in front of our house, since it won't fit in the driveway due to it's length.  Luckily our street is fairly calm during the day so we were able to get it loaded and prepped without too much interference from passing vehicles. 

While Doreen worked on organizing contents, I tweaked the tire pressures, put new batteries in all the tire pressure transmitters, re-installed the water filter elements and the anode rod in the water heater.  The water system is still winterized with RV antifreeze, but we are hopeful St Louis and Memphis will be warm enough to allow us to un-winterize and use all of the water facilities.  We needed to get into the bedroom to load our clothes and other items, but to do that I needed to extend one of the bedroom slide-outs.  To extend any slide-out, the trailer must be level.  So, after unhooking I attempted to auto-level it and the left rear leveler did not cooperate!  Well, better here than out on the road somewhere.

After consulting with the factory, I performed a process called "re-homing" which basically re-establishes the home position of all four levelers.  That took care of the leveling problem, but the technician suggested I might have a look at my batteries.  Well they are originals (2013), so they are over five years old.  Time for a pair of new batteries.  Again, better here than out on the road somewhere.  Luckily we have an Interstate Battery store just a few blocks from home, so within an hour I had both batteries replaced - one more step towards having the coach ready to roll.

We continued to load both the RV and the truck, leaving anything that could freeze in the house until the morning we depart.  Later, our son Dan and his family stopped by to say farewell since we won't see them for Christmas.  Dan will be taking care of our mail and doing a walk through periodically to make sure everything is OK in the house.  Was great to see them.  That's it for the evening.

That brings us to this morning, our day of departure.  And an interesting start it was!!  Below freezing temps, severe fog and icing on the roads.  Dan called and there are accidents everywhere.  The road we had planned to take was at a standstill due to an accident.  So we delayed departure until after 0900 hrs.  By then we had no problems but southern and southeastern Iowa still had some fog.  There was snow along the roadsides from the snowstorm that came through last Sunday. 

The remainder of the trip was uneventful, longer than we normally travel on our travel days but the goal was to get as far south as we could as quickly as we could so we could un-winterize the fifth wheel.  Our trip took us past Mount Pleasant Iowa where I was born a few years ago LOL. 

We stopped there for fuel and to pee the dog and then headed on down the road towards St Louis. 

We arrived at St Charles MO, a northern suburb of St Luis where Sundermeier RV Park is located at about 1530 hrs.  The 51 degree temps here were very welcome!  Once we unhooked Doreen tackled the inside and I worked on the outside and un-winterizing.  We were both busy and tired, and did not get any pictures taken of the campground, but the spots are all paved, full hook-up pull-through's.  I would stay here again.

With the fireplace in the living room, a portable tower ceramic heater in the dining room and air conditioner heating element going in the bedroom, we are very toasty.  Satellite TV is tuned in so we just finished watching one of our favorite TV shows 'Gold Rush'.  The Internet box is working good, so catching up on emails, etc and thought I would get this posted.

Next stop tomorrow, the KOA campground at Marion AR, just west of Memphis TN!

27 Nov 2018 - Change of Plans #1

27 Nov 2018 - Change #1 !!

Departure is drawing nearer.  We have been watching the weather and road conditions closely not only here in Iowa but also Missouri and Arkansas/Tennessee, our first two stops.  If we were just driving the car we would not be so concerned, but towing a 15,000 lb trailer is a different ballgame.  The roads need to clear of ice and snow or we stay put - it is that simple.  It appears there is precipitation moving in on Saturday 1 December, so we are advancing our departure up one day, to 30 November.   We will still stay in the St Louis area just one night and we will extend our Memphis stop an extra night, so the remainder of the trip stays the same.

We are excited to get on the road and see all the sights and friends along the way.  Next update hopefully from St Charles, MO on 30 November!