Lake Guntersville Camping Trip

Wednesday morning we hitched up the camper and pulled it down to Lake Guntersville State Park in northeast Alabama.  This part of the country is so beautiful, even though the late winter has delayed the trees from leafing out.  It took us a long time to get here because the wind was blowing at seemingly hurricane force and tried several times to snatch the camper right off our bumper.  We finally arrived at about 4 p.m. and started setting up camp.

We were not particularly thrilled with the campground area.  A tornado tore through here a couple of years ago and uprooted or damaged many of the trees in the campground.  They've re-planted trees, but they are just getting established.  Consequently, most of the campground has no shade.  The campsites are pretty close together.  About 40 or 50 campsites have full hookups (water, electricity, and sewer), and wi-fi is available.

Because we arrived in the middle of the week, we pretty  much had our choice of camp sites.  We picked one very close to the edge of the lake, where we could sit under our awning and enjoy the view.  Ducks, geese, herons, cranes, and coots came and went.  Boats zoomed by.  Folks fished from the shore and the docks.  It was pretty good viewing.

Once upon a time, my father's ancestors lived in this part of the country.  We made a quickie trip down here last October so that I could do some genealogy research, but I didn't get far.  Part of the plan for this trip was to go back to courthouses and archives to do more digging.  We got up Thursday morning, cooked and ate breakfast, then hit the road to St. Clair County, 50 miles or so down the road.  On the way we made several detours, one to an area in Etowah County where I believe some ancestors lived, and one to the John Looney House, a pioneer house in St. Clair County that was built around 1820.  When we arrived at the Looney House, the gate was locked and posted with a "No Trespassing" sign.  We waited around a little while, thinking perhaps the attendant(s) had gone to lunch, but nobody came, so we drove on down to Ashville.  We ate some good barbeque sandwiches at The Lunch Box, a tiny restaurant a block from the courthouse, before heading to the archive building.  That day's research went well, but I'd love to spend more time there.

The Looney House, built around 1820, the oldest structure in St. Clair County, now open only on special occasions or by appointment.  Note the double-decker "dog trot."

By the time we got back to our campsite, the campground had grown more crowded.  We had neighbors, fore and aft...neighbors with multiple children...and dogs.  The noise level had gone up a tad.

Yesterday, we needed to run a few errands.  It took half the day.  We came back, ate some lunch, sat around a while, and then drove up to another park about 15 miles from here called "Buck's Pocket."

The campground at Buck's Pocket is AWESOME.  It is situated along a rushing stream.  The camp sites are shady.  Some of them have full hook-ups.  All of them are beautiful.  The thing is that the roads in/out of the campground are narrow, steep, and curvy.  There were two fairly large campers set up in the campground, but they appear to be "permanent" guests.  It may be that they got in there and couldn't get out!  It surely was beautiful, peaceful, and quiet there.  If we come this way again, we may try to stay there, after we talk to the park ranger about the best way to get in/out!

The stream beside the campground at Buck's Pocket.

Lake Guntersville park has a big lodge/hotel overlooking the lake, and on Friday nights the restaurant in the lodge puts on an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet.  Neither of us was in the mood to cook last night, so we drove up the hill to the lodge.  The food was okay.  Just okay.  Fried catfish, baked perch, fried shrimp, fried clam strips, boiled shrimp, crab legs, and some steamed vegetables.  $19.95 per person.  We thought it was a little pricey for no more than we ate.

I don't know what's on the agenda for today.  We go home tomorrow.

I'll let you know if anything cool happens between now and then.  ;)

Blues Trail - February 14 - 16, 2014

 Friday, February 14 - My friend Elizabeth planned a weekend trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi as a birthday surprise for her husband Bill, who is a huge blues fan.  She invited us to join them.  They drove west from Atlanta, and we drove south from Memphis.  We planned to rendezvous in Clarksdale around 5 p.m.  Rain was pouring down when we left Memphis.  We thought it an auspicious start to a blues weekend.




Elizabeth had reserved a two-bedroom cabin at the Shack-Up Inn just outside Clarksdale.  This place is a wild conglomeration of old buildings - an old gin, some sharecropper cabins, etc. - fixed up with enough modern amenities to be reasonably comfortable.  The buildings are grouped around a common yard, with picnic tables and park benches scattered around.  The cabins are named for blues artists or blues themes.

Our cabin was called "Legends."   It was a typical southern "shotgun"-style cabin - one room wide, three rooms long, with entrances at both ends.  Joel and I arrived about 3:30 p.m., got the key from the office inside the gin building, and drove around to the cabin.  We parked our truck so that Bill could not easily see our Tennessee license plates when he arrived, as Elizabeth had kept both the destination and our joining them a secret from him.  We unlocked the door and stepped right into the cabin's rear bedroom.  The center room was divided into a kitchen and bathroom.  The front room held a bed, a sofa and chair whose better days were long ago, and a TV that offered nothing but blues music.  Pictures of blues artists decorated the walls. 

Nearly every wall and door surface in every room was covered with graffiti of past visitors (we added our own names and the date to a bedroom door).  The floors were creaky, and the walls shook with every step.  Our bed had been leveled with a stack of magazines and phone books under one leg. 





 



 

But the cabin was warm, and the sheets and the bathroom were clean.  There was a coffee pot (with coffee and fixin's), a dorm-sized refrigerator, and a microwave.  We stashed our luggage out of sight, started a pot of coffee, set out a loaf of banana nut bread that we'd brought from home, and then high-tailed it to the gin lobby so as not to detract from Bill's initial cabin experience when he and Elizabeth arrived.  We bought ourselves a beer in the lobby and browsed the gift shop.  About 45 minutes later, our friends arrived and joined us in the lobby.  Bill was still in shock.  ;)

 

"The Crossroads" in Clarksdale

Not wanting to waste a minute of our blues vacation, we piled into our truck and headed straight for the Ground Zero Blues Club to eat supper and listen to some blues.  A band called "Sweet Tea Jubilee" was the act that night.  We ate hamburgers (they were really, really good!) and fries, had a couple of drinks, and listened to the band's first set (they were good, too!).  But we'd all gotten up early that morning, and Elizabeth and Bill were tired after their long drive, so when the band took a break, we headed back to our cabin for the night.

 

Ground Zero Blues Club by day

 

Saturday, February 15 - Road Trip Day - We got up pretty early this morning, drank some coffee, ate banana nut bread and pound cake, and talked about what to do.  Elizabeth had made a list of attractions in a reasonable radius.  Since Bill was the honoree of this trip, he picked our destinations this day.  He loves tamales, so we decided to make it a blues trail/tamale trail day.  After a late breakfast in Clarksdale, we drove out to Ms. Ervin's house for two dozen of her amazing, delicious tamales, then we drove across the river to Helena, Arkansas to sample Pasquale's tamales.  While in town, we toured the Delta Museum, the site of the King Biscuit radio show.

 

On the way back to Clarksdale, we hunted up the place were Muddy Waters' cabin used to sit (the cabin, itself, is now inside the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale). 

 

Muddy Waters

A cool tree in the Mississippi delta





 

After our road trip, we went back to the cabin for a while.  Bill's sister and brother-in-law, Rosemarie and Al, were driving down from Memphis, and we planned to go out to dinner and then go to Red's juke joint to listen to some blues.  We'd heard that they served bbq ribs at Red's, and that sounded fine to us.  When they arrived, Bill showed them around the place, then we all headed for Red's. 

 

If we had not heard good things about Red's, we might not have been brave enough to go in.  Glitz and glamour, it ain't.  The lounge was about the size of our cabin.  There was a bar along one wall, and a tiny stage on the opposite wall.  It was drafty, and there were portable electric heaters all around the room.  There were a couple of comfy recliners at one end of the stage, and a couple of tables with stools at the opposite end.  The place was pretty well packed.  We paid our cover charge and scanned the room for a place to land.  At the far end of the room, there was laughter from a group of men huddled around a laptop computer.  We asked the guy at the door what was going on.  He said they were doing an interview with a Hollywood producer who was interested in doing a reality show about Delta blues clubs.  We threaded our way through the crowd and went to the back of the room where we could hear what was going on.  Several people in the crowd - the club owner, the deejay, and some of the "regulars" were giving their take on life in Clarksdale and what blues music meant to them.  They even interviewed Al!

 

When the interview was over, the music started.  The featured artist was a 15-year-old guitarist named Chris "Kingfish" Ingram.  (He, too, had given an interview.)  This kid was freakin' INCREDIBLE.  Look for him on YouTube; he's going places, if he plays his cards right.

 

I kept looking around, wondering where the ribs were. 

 

When the first set ended, Rosemarie and Al said goodbye and headed back to Memphis.  The rest of us grouped up and decided to go look for something to eat.  When we stepped outside, Red was grilling ribs on a large grill on the sidewalk.  They were done, and he was offering samples, hot off the grill.  We could not resist.  They  were delicious.  Red offered us more, but we hated to be pigs.  We walked back to our truck licking our fingers.

Unfortunately, most every restaurant in Clarksdale was closed by the time we left Red's.  We had to break our travel pact (no eating at chain restaurants) to get something to eat.  We hit the drive-thru window at Burger King and took the burgers back to the cabin.  We ate our burgers standing up in the "kitchen," then everybody hit the sack.

 

Sunday, February 16 -
 



We got the blu-uuuues...
OHHHHHH, we got the blu-uuuuues....
We got them early Sunday morning'
Cain't get no hot biscuits blu-uuuuuues.

Fo' sho'.

Evidently, they don't eat breakfast in Clarksdale.  At least, they don't eat it in restaurants.

After a leisurely early morning of Bloody Marys on the back porch, we went into town in search of breakfast.  We wanted a sit-down breakfast at a place where the biscuits were hot and a waitress kept the coffee coming.  We went north.  We went south.  We went east.  We went west. 

We found no such place in Clarksdale. 

We looked for breakfast for so long that it got to be lunch-time, and we pulled in to a bbq restaurant called "Abe's" and had ribs and barbeque with baked beans and slaw. 



Heisenberg

After that big brunch, we stood outside in the sunshine, trying to decide what to do next.  When Bill said it would suit him to go back to the cabin and chillaxe with a cigar on the back porch and maybe take a nap, we seconded, thirded, and fourthed the motion.  Back at the cabin, we had a photo shoot, then sat outside in the sunshine at a picnic table outside our cabin.  Eventually, we moved inside, fired up the computer (there was a wi-fi connection) and watched a couple episodes of "Breaking Bad." 

Although we could've stayed another night, Joel and I were missing did our bed.  About 4 p.m., we packed it up and came home. 

Grabbed a pizza on the way home.  Came in, put on the house pants, and settled down to watch "Downton Abbey." 

We had a great time, but it's good to be home.

Mississippi Delta Tamale Trail

I don't know how/where we heard about it, but some time ago we learned that folks all over the Mississippi Delta make hot tamales.  In fact, Highway 61 that runs from Memphis plumb on down to the Gulf of Mexico has been dubbed the "tamale trail."  This weekend, kind of on the spur of the moment, Joel, his sister Pennie, her husband Gus, and I decided to drive that trail and sample the tamales at every joint between Tunica and Clarksdale.  I found a list of tamale joints at www.southernfoodways.org, and we headed out about 10 a.m Saturday.

The first place on our list was Sears Street Grocery in Tunica.  We followed the map, found the address, and thought twice about going in.  It looked mostly like a bar, and said "Bud's Bar" instead of "Sears Street Grocery."  I dialed the number I'd gotten from the web site, and got a recording that said the number had been disconnected.  I called the next place on the list, Ervin's Hot Tamales, in Sledge, Mississippi.  A nice lady answered the phone, confirmed that she had tamales, and said that we were welcome to come get some.  We programmed the address into the GPS, and took off.

The GSP directed us off the highway and onto little country roads that curled through cotton and rice fields.  Houses got few and farther between.  In no time, we were in the middle of nowhere, and feeling a little doubtful about founding a tamale joint in those parts.  When the GPS said, "Arriving at destination," we slowed down, looked around.  The mailbox confirmed the address was correct, but all we saw was a house at the end of a long driveway.  Joel was going to drive on by, but I said, "Now, wait...we've come this far.  Let me call her back and see if this is the right place."  I dialed the number.  The nice lady said we were in the right place.  "Ok, we'll be there in about three seconds," I told her.  Joel backed the truck up and eased it down the driveway.  The lady met us at the carport with a warm package and a strip of paper towels.  I gave her $11 for a dozen tamales, and we thanked her and left.

Gus tore into the package before we were out of the driveway.  Inside were four foil-wrapped bundles, and inside the foil were three parchment-wrapped tamales, tied with kitchen string.  A heavenly, savory aroma filled the truck.  I passed Gus some embroidery scissors I had in my bag, and he snipped the strings.  Joel pulled over in the first available spot, a tiny cemetery in a thicket at the edge of a field, and we tore into our individual bundles. 

Up to that moment, my experience with tamales had been limited to the canned things.  I was expecting something wrapped in parchment and dripping with red-tinged grease.  These tamales were wrapped in parchment, but Oh.  My.  God.  I never tasted anything so wonderful.  Since we were in a vehicle and had no plates or utensils, we squeezed the tamales out of the wrappers right into our mouths, then unrolled the wrappers and licked them!  My opinion of tamales had taken a 180-degree turn.  We were all anxious to get to the next place on the list, "Hick's Hot Tamales" in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

The signs said "OPEN," but the doors were locked and there were no cars in the parking lot.  I tried the door and started to walk away, then I heard a "click," and turned to see a young man opening the door for us.  We went in and ordered a dozen more tamales.  "Just one dozen for all y'all?" the man at the counter asked.  We explained that we were on a tamale-tasting adventure and didn't want to get too full at one place.  He said he'd sell us a dozen, "but y'all gon want more."  He was right; we wanted more (but refrained).  They were yummy!  These were wrapped in corn shucks.  They were a tad spicier and a little greasier than Ervin's, and the corn meal exterior was faintly sweet.  They served them with saltine crackers.  We washed them down with beer.  Delicious! 

 

 

The next stop on our list was Ground Zero Blues Club, which advertised "deep fried tamales." 

We ordered both the "regular" tamales and the deep fried ones, which were chopped into pieces, battered, and fried.  The regular ones came with a side order of slaw.  The fried ones came with a house dipping sauce and packets of ranch dressing.  We couldn't finish them.  We were just too full.  As a friend said, "Too much of a good thing is...too much."

We could've used some dessert, though.  There were several desserts on the menu, but someone in the group mentioned a hankering for pie.  After that, nothing but pie would do.  We drove around a bit, looking for pie, but didn't find any in the immediate area.  Dejected, we pointed the truck for home.

On the way, we remembered a place not far from the house that has pie.  We went in to see what they had.  Lemon.  Coconut Cream.  Pecan.  Chocolate.  And cake:  strawberry, banana, cheesecake, chocolate, and lemon.  Between the four of us, we ate 3 pieces of coconut pie, two pieces of banana cake, and a piece of chocolate pie.  My sister-in-law even bought a WHOLE coconut cream pie to take home.

Full to the gills, we climbed into the warm truck.  The closer to home we got, the heavier our eyelids got.  We dropped off the in-laws at their house, came home, put on our warm jammies, and settled in for the night.

It was good to be home!

P.S. - Willie Nelson was supposed to play at a casino in Tunica on Saturday night.  We only found out about it on Friday, and the tickets were sold out by then.  We checked the web site all day Saturday to see if any tickets had been released, and we even stopped by the casino Saturday evening to beg for tickets in person.  Alas, we were sad to learn that the show had been cancelled because some of Willie's band members had been injured in a bus wreck earlier in the day.  So, Willie, if you're reading this, we hope your folks get well soon, and we'll see you next time, if we can get tickets.  :)

Alabama Ancestry Hunt

            We had a couple of days off at the end of this week, and had not made specific plans on how to use them.  I’d been wanting to dig through the records in some northeastern Alabama courthouses to further my genealogy research and figured that this was as good a time as any.  Joel graciously agreed to be my chauffer.  We headed out Wednesday afternoon, hitting the road a little later than we’d intended, bound for Guntersville, Alabama (Marshall County) and Ashville, Alabama (St. Clair County).  Time permitting, I also wanted to stop in Russellville, Alabama (Franklin County), though my expectations of finding any new information there were slim to none.

            Because we’d gotten started late, we decided to stop in Cullman, Alabama instead of driving on to Guntersville that night.  In my humble opinion, the area around Guntersville is one of the most beautiful places in the world – not too flat, and not too hilly.  The town sits on a finger of land on the south end of Guntersville Lake.  The town square, the old part of the town, sits almost at the very tip of the finger, with the courthouse in the middle.  Joel did a walking tour of the square while I dug through old deed books.  I was still digging when he got back to the courthouse.  He helped me look through indexes, but we struck out; we did not find the document we were hunting.  Frustrated, we left empty-handed, and drove down to Ashville.

             St. Clair County is “where the action was” as far as my father’s family is concerned.  Census records show that Daddy’s ancestors lived there in the very early 1800s and long after the Civil War.  My previous research had unearthed some skeletons in this family, and I wanted to find out more about what made them tick.  We arrived at the St. Clair County Archives building at 12:30, only to find that it closed every day from noon until 1 p.m.  We walked around the square, hoping to find some lunch while we waited for the Archives to open, but there weren’t any restaurants on the square.  We hopped in the truck and drove a couple of miles out of town, where we’d seen a Mexican restaurant.  We were back at the Archives by 1:15 or so.  Although I did not discover any new information, I did find documentation to back up what I’d already learned.  We stayed there until nearly 5 p.m., then pointed ourselves toward Russellville, which is on the west side of Alabama, adjacent to the Mississippi state line.

             On the way to Russellville, I had a change of heart about stopping there.  The Franklin County courthouse has burned twice, once during the Civil War, and again in the 1890s.  The records I needed were pre-Civil War.  I’d already talked to the director of the county archives and knew that no documentation from that period had survived the fires, but there might be newspaper records, other people’s genealogies, etc., that might shed some light on the mystery of my mother’s ancestry.  I wavered back and forth in the decision whether to go to Russellville or not until we reached the junction that would either take us to Russellville or take us home.  Though he had not complained, Joel probably had enough of patiently waiting while I scoured through old record books.  Besides that, he had mentioned wanting to take the grandchildren camping this weekend, once we got back.  Not wanting to cut into the camping trip time, I said, “Let’s just go home.” 

            By this time, it was dark, and we were tired and hungry.  The closest town of any size was Muscle Shoals, 30 minutes ahead.  We decided to stop there for the night.  Now, I must confess that I am a cheapskate when it comes to motel rooms.  I don’t care about “fancy”; I just want “clean.”  As we were driving, I pulled up a list of Muscle Shoals motels on my cell phone and picked one at the cheap end of the spectrum.  We found it easily.  It did not look derelict or run-down.  “Works for me,” I told Joel.  He parked the truck and went in to register us for a room.

            When he came out with the key-card, we gathered our stuff from the truck and hauled it to the door.  The window curtain was open just a tad.  We could see that the television was on inside our room.  We exchanged a glance and did a simultaneous, “Hmmmm….”   I went ahead and used the key-card, hoping not to find somebody lying on the bed, watching tv…or worse. 

            The room was clean and smelled okay.  I checked the bathroom; the fixtures were clean, the towels were fresh, the little soaps and shampoos had been replenished, the bed didn’t have any “body imprints” on it, the sheets were clean.  We decided to stay.  While Joel went to the bathroom, I looked for the remote control to turn off the tv, but couldn’t find one – not on the dresser, or in the drawers, or in the nightstand, or between the cushions of the little love seat.  When Joel came out of the bathroom, I went in after telling him I couldn’t find the remote.  When I came out, he was on his hands and knees, looking under the bed.  “Did you find it?” I asked.  “No, but I found a flashlight,” he said, holding up the trophy, “and some little brown things.”

            “Little brown things?  What are they?”

            “Not sure,” he said.  “But they’re not moving, or anything.”  He didn’t seem concerned.

            We stopped by the front desk on the way to dinner to ask about the remote control.  The clerk had it.  Joel didn’t mention the brown things under the bed.

            We ate at a bbq joint called “Rick’s,” just down the road from the motel.  Joel had a pulled pork sandwich.  I had ribs.  They were pretty awesome.  Judges at a bbq cooking contest and television chefs will tell you that a perfectly-cooked rib should be tender, but firm enough to leave a distinct, semi-circular bite mark.  I say this is nonsense.  I want my ribs falling-off-the-bone tender.  Rick’s were that tender.  They weren’t heavily sauced or dry-rubbed, just smoked on the grill.  I hit them with sauce from bottles on the table.  Not bad at all.  Thumbs up, Rick.

            As we ate, I asked Joel about the “brown things” under the bed.  “What kind of brown things, exactly?”

            He chewed and pondered the question for a second or two.  “Dog food,” he said.  “Like little dog treats.”  He made a wee shape with his thumb and forefinger.

            I chewed and pondered the answer for a second or two.  I could envision somebody coming in with a yappy little dog and giving him treats to keep him quiet.  I could envision him hiding his treats under the bed.  I could envision a housekeeper coming in and vacuuming, changing the linens, cleaning the toilet and tub, doing a pretty thorough cleaning job without ever encountering the treasures stashed under the bed.  Okay, so maybe the presence of the dog treats didn’t necessarily equate with a nasty room.  Still, we double-checked the sheets before we settled in for the night.

            We were back on the road by 10 a.m., and pulled in our driveway about 1 p.m.  After three days of driving, we’d logged close to 800 miles on the odometer.  Joel had had enough driving and was out of the mood to immediately hit the road again for a camping trip.  To be honest, I was kind of glad.  The weather has turned off cool, and nothing sounded better to me than staying inside with a big pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.  And that's just what we did.

 

           It's good to be home.

 

Pickwick Camping - Oct. 11-14, 2013

We're just back from our first camping trip in our new camper.  We went to Pickwick Landing State Park for a long weekend.  Except for short road trips to sight-see in the nearby towns, we did absolutely nothing.  It was great.

Pickwick is only 120 miles or so from our home, but we'd never been there, and we didn't want to venture too far away since we'd never towed the camper except the day we brought it home from the dealership.  It's a good bit longer, taller, and heavier than our old TrailManor camper.  A two-hour drive was the perfect distance for the new camper's maiden voyage.

The TrailManor was sort of a pop-up camper, except that the pop-up sections were surrounded by metal/fiberglass instead of canvas/screens.  It was a good old camper, and we've hauled it all over the southeastern States, but there were a few things about it that we did not like.  Joel did not like the beds, which were located in the pop-up sections and were waist-high from the floor.  The larger bed was abutted on one end by a closet, and on the other end by a bathroom, leaving a narrow hallway space from which to access the bed.  Putting sheets on the bed in those tight quarters was a pain.  And since the length of the bed was perpendicular to the hallway, the sleeper on the inside of the bed had to first crawl over the sleeper on the outside of the bed, aim for the narrow hallway, then turn around and back out into the hallway while feeling for the floor (which was a l-o-n-g way down) with one foot.  Joel said we're getting too old to risk crushed kidneys and broken legs trying to get out of this bed in the dark.  I did not particularly mind this set-up, but then I always slept on the outside edge of the bed and didn't have to crawl over anybody to get out.

What I hated about the TrailManor was the "recirculating" toilet.  We bought this camper used (dragged it home all the way from Austin, Texas), and if the seller mentioned that the toilet was a recirculating toilet, I either missed it or did not realize was a recirculating toilet was.  What it is, is nasty.  I guess it's perfect for deep woods camping where there is no continuous water supply, but the fact that it conserves water by recirculating it means that after the first whizz or two, the water begins to get stinky.  After a #2, the water turns brown and emits exactly the smell you'd expect from #2 brown water.  During our first trip in that camper, we began limiting toilet use to middle-of-the-night awakenings to avoid hikes to park bathhouses in the dark.  But on our last camping trip, as I was coming back from the bathhouse in a cold, early morning drizzle, I said to myself, "I have a camper with a bathroom in it.  What is wrong with this picture?"

So we started thinking about a new camper, one better suited to old age and potty convenience.  Joel's bed requirement - a bed that was accessible from three sides - pretty much eliminated pop-up style campers.  My must-have list included a regular toilet, but I also wanted a camper that was comfortable on the inside.  We typically do not spend much time inside our campers - after all, what's the point of going camping if you're going to spend all of your time indoors? - but at night, when the weather is bad or the mosquitoes are ferocious, it's nice to come inside, shower off the campfire smell, and relax with a book before bed.  The TrailManor had two couches, both of which were as hard and narrow as old-time church pews.  I wanted a soft sofa, and a couple of comfy chairs.

Joel did a lot of internet surfing, shopping for the right camper.  When we went to Eureka Springs a few months ago, we did a day trip to a camper store and toured a few models.  The camper that Joel wanted was about 24 feet long, had bunk beds at one end, and a love seat that was jammed up against a half-wall that separated the "bedroom" from the rest of the camper.  I could imagine climbing out of bed and flipping head-first over that half-wall trying to get to the bathroom in the dark.  Standing in front of the bunk beds, I imagined trying to get sheets on the mattresses in the bunk recesses.  It didn't look easy.

The camper I liked best was 27 feet long, with a slide-out section, a nice bathroom, two comfy chairs, and a comfy sofa.  Joel said this camper was just too big, that he wouldn't feel comfortable towing something that long. 

Joel kept surfing, and kept forwarding me pictures of smaller campers.  I couldn't imagine being comfortable in them.  Finally, one night I said, "You know, considering that we only go camping once or twice a year these days, and considering that the TrailManor is paid for, we should just deal with the bed and the toilet, and just keep it."

Pretty soon, Joel started forwarding pictures of bigger, nicer campers.  ;)

This is the one we got.  Note:  two comfy chairs and a comfy sofa; a nice kitchen with stainless steel appliances and lots of counter space and storage space; behind the photographer in this picture is a nice bathroom (with a non-recirculating toilet!) and a bedroom with real walls and a bed that is accessible from three sides.  On the outside, the legs, the tongue-jack, and the awning are all motorized;  no more cranking and jacking and cussing;  just push buttons, and everything goes up/down/in/out.  Just right for two creaky old people like us.  :)

Thinking that it might rain during this trip, I took my sewing machine and had plenty space to work in when we came inside for the night, while Joel lounged on the comfy furniture, surfing with his i-Pad.  As our younger son said when we bought our first air-conditioned pop-up after years of hot tents and sleeping bags, "Now, THIS is camping!"  ;) 

Eureka Springs - Day 4

Yesterday evening, when we were having a lazy evening in our room, surfing the web for ideas for some place else to go, some new neighbors moved into the "suite" adjacent to ours.  We knew they were there when the loud music started early in the evening. Joel just cranked up the volume on the TV a couple of notches and kept on surfing. 

I was surfing for a new destination, too.  I looked all over the top half of Arkansas, the bottom half of Missouri, and parts of Illinois and Kentucky.  It seems we've pretty well toured these areas.  I couldn't find a thing that excited me.  Eventually, from across the room, Joel asked, "Well, where have you been looking?"  I told him.  He rattled off a couple of web site addresses.  They didn't excite me, either.  "I suppose we could always just go home and work in the garden."  Joel surfed a little faster.

About the time we turned out the lights, we heard a series of low, throbbing hums.  We both bolted upright in bed.  "What was that?"  We kept listening.  It was the neighbors' jacuzzi jets, thank goodness, and not some freaky electrical appliance malfunction in our room.  We rolled over and went to sleep.

About 6 a.m. this morning, I was awakened by a woman's shout.  Alarmed, I raised up my head to listen.  It was coming from next door.  I kept listening.  She kept shouting.  Panting is more like it.  Swear to God, it sounded like they were re-enacting the restaurant scene from "When Harry Met Sally" ("I'll have what she's having.")  I covered up my head with my pillow until the noise died down.

But by then I was awake.  I got up, turned on the coffee pot, toasted a slice of zucchini bread that we'd taken with us, and took my coffee, my bread, and my kindle out to the porch, hoping the neighbors were done.

Joel got up about an hour later.  We showered, dressed, and loaded our stuff into the truck.  Joel went to the office to turn in the key.  When he came out, he said, "The guy said, 'Y'all sure are up early.'" 

"Did you tell him the neighbors' loud sex woke me up at the crack of dawn?"

Joel had slept through the loud sex.

"There was another guy in the office," he said, after I told him the story.  "I should've high-fived him."

Men. 

We still hadn't decided on another destination, so we just drove in the general direction of home, looking for breakfast.  Meanwhile, I started getting flash flood warnings for Eureka Springs, southern Missouri, and northern Arkansas.  These warnings pretty much covered all of the places we'd talked about going.  After breakfast, we headed home. 

We mostly stayed ahead of the storm, though it caught up with us briefly in Mountain Home, Arkansas.  By the time we hit Memphis, the warnings had been extended to eastern Arkansas and western Tennessee.  The deluge hit just about the time we walked through our front door.

We both have the rest of the week off from work.  During the drive home, I suggested that we could re-group and head somewhere else tomorrow.  Joel said he'd thought about just staying home and painting the living room.  This was music to my ears, as I'd long ago grown sick of the "Butternut Squash" paint that turned out to be more like "Schoolbus Yellow" on our walls. 

Who needs another trip when there's a willing man with a paint roller in the house?

It's good to be home!

Eureka Springs - Day 3

We slept late (well, late for us) this morning and barely made it up the road to Angler's restaurant in time for breakfast.  We didn't have any specific plans for the day.  While we ate, we browsed through some brochures we found in the entry way, but nothing jumped out at us.  When we finished our breakfast, we headed toward town to find something to do.  Along the way, we saw a sign for Thorncrown Chapel and decided to stop and have a look.  There was a church service in progress, and, oddly, we were not allowed inside until the service was over.  We decided to do some other sightseeing and come back later.

Our first stop was the area where the Passion Play is held.  No play was in progress, but we got out of the truck and walked down to the statue of Jesus.  Jesus is big in Eureka Springs.  Really big.

We took another spin through the historic district.  We parked at the Crescent Hotel and went inside for a bit, then drove around a little more.  Had some ice cream.  Visited a shop where live rabbits take your money and give you change at the cash register (for real).  Explored a Cherokee gift shop.  Went back to Thorncrown Chapel.

This chapel really is magnificent in a way.  It is nestled in the woods along the highway.  The ceiling and the walls are glass.  At the door, we were told by The Church Lady, "This is a sitting chapel.  If you want to take pictures, take them sitting down."  We went in, sat down near the back, enjoyed the view for a few minutes, and then got up to leave.  When Joel raised his cell phone to snap one last picture, Church Lady admonished him, "THIS IS A SITTING CHAPEL."  Geez.

 

 

There are no overhead lights - just the skylight in the ceiling.  The only electric lighting is in wooden fixtures along the walls.  Every light fixture has a cross in it.

After leaving the chapel, we checked out a couple of antique stores, then headed back toward the lodge.  There was left-over pizza in the fridge, and our plan was to stay in and rest for the afternoon and heat up the pizza for supper.  Joel thought that some beer might be nice with the pizza.  We stopped at a country store to buy some, but Joel came out empty handed; no beer on Sunday in Arkansas.

Our lodging is paid up through tonight.  Tomorrow, we will either have to go home, find someplace else to go, or extend our stay here.  I think we've about seen most of this corner of Arkansas.   
We had thought about checking in to one of the hotels in the historic district, but we aren't very excited about ghost tours and gift shops. 

We'll see what happens tomorrow.