Hi y’all…..we’re baaaaack…………..doing our RV thing in the “South”! After Peter’s 2 weeks of traveling without Sybil (who went to Marin for Zoë’s BD…..see pix at Pier 39), he ended up in Kansas City, MO. Before leaving for Tucson, he parked the RV in this most interesting underground cavernous industrial park, “Subtropolis Storage”, that covered 25+ sq. acres under a hill on which sat Worlds of Fun/Oceans of Fun, KC’s star amusement & RV park! After our beach fix in Puerto Penasco, we returned on 9/17 to KC where we retrieved the RV and stayed for 5 days in above-ground park……..and we loved, loved the clacks and screams from the roller coaster every 3 minutes from 10A to 11P (just on weekends, thank you very much!). It was a very fun place to stay….see pix. By the way, KC is a city of many underground tunnels dug early in the 20th century for the mining of limestone. We, of course, had to get in a KC Royals game and went to their great downtown stadium (more good polish dogs and beer for dinner!) to watch them lose to the White Sox……oh well. We toured the Truman Library in adjacent, historic Independence…..such a great collection of the memorabilia from our childhood era…all that 40’s and 50’s “stuff”! KC also has beautiful Country Club Square right downtown where we were lucky enough to take in a big street fair with some KC new RV friends we met in South Dakota.
We left KC and headed for Red Bay, AL…..400 miles via Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee….to have some work done on our RV at the manufacturer (Tiffin) who just happens to “own” the town. We were there for 10 days and managed to eat green tomatoes, catfish, chicken……all fried, of course. A steak dinner in Red Bay costs about $10 and the county is dry and religious….so, no alcohol is served anywhere! Staying at Tiffin’s on-site RV park (an old airport runway) was quite an experience as everybody had to patiently wait for their turn……sometimes 3 weeks! Needless to say, the no alcohol rule didn’t apply at the park, helping make good new friends.
All fixed up and spiffy, we headed to Nashville for 5 nights via the Natchez Trace Parkway. The “Trace” was the historical 445 mile footpath from Natchez to Nashville used by traders and farmers in the 19th century, returning to Nashville after hauling their goods to Nashville via river. It must have been a long, arduous, dangerous trip to do on foot or horseback……if they didn’t sell their boats for wood, they would carry them home! It is now a beautiful 2 lane tree-studded road that allows no commercial vehicles and has lots of historic markers…see pix of our RV picnic place.
OK, enough of that because we’re getting to the good part…….Nashville! Wow….what a city! We took a tour with a funny guy which included homes of the “rich and famous”….see pix; Keith Urban & Nicole’s place on the hill, Alan Jackson’s estate behind the gate. We spent two nights honky-tonkying on Broadway, going in and out of 42+ bars, listening to lots of good wanna-be CW and blues bands which included dinner with the blues at BB King’s place……see pix. In the midst of all this CW rock & soul, the 2nd presidential debate was just 5 miles away so many of the streets were closed……very exciting! Another highlight was the Grand Ole Opry…..all those great old over-the-hill but still going strong singers…Ricky Skaggs, Jean Sheppard, etc……plus some debuts, ie, Rory and Joey, a husband/wife team with a rousing CW song they wrote….goes like this: “Tell me….cheater, cheater….where’d you meet ‘er, that low class, white trash ho’” . And then there was the CW Hall of Fame. We loved it all! By the way, in suthen tawk “cawdy eggley” translates to “Coyote Ugly”…..it’s a place where ugly girl patrons get up and dance on the 50’bar!
And now we are in Memphis in an RV park across the street from Graceland where we spent yesterday afternoon. Such an icon was Elvis…..a must-see if you are ever this way!
Hope you are not getting cross-eyed from this long bunch of blab! Tonite we will go out to compare Beale Street here to Broadway in Nashville…..can’t wait!
We continue to share the driving….Sybil knocking over rubber construction stanchions and terrorizing on-coming traffic in small towns, Peter hiding under the passenger seat.
We miss you all but still love this stuff!
Peter and Sybil
