Our RV Adventures

You know, the Zone.

Now that we’re within 300 miles of Elkhart, we’ve entered . . . (cue Twilight Zone music)

The Nick Russell Zone of Bad Weather ©®™

The one that follows Nick around the country, disrupting winters in Florida and Escapades in Indiana.

It’s only a matter of time before they run him out of the state.

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For the 2nd time in 7 years, we ran into an RV park where the shore power voltage was too high, i.e. above132 volts. The last time was in Montgomery AL in 2010.

The voltage here at Tom Sawyer RV Park was running about 128 volts, but every now and then it would spike up to 133, just enough to cause our Progressive EMS  to kick out. This was probably caused by AC’s on rigs around us cutting on and off. After checking the readings on my EMS, and seeing the spikes were short-term and seldom, I turned the bypass on so that the unit would stop popping the power on and off the rest of the evening.

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We headed out about 9:30 for a quick, easy run up to Sikeston, MO. A couple of hours into our trip I pulled in the Pilot at Hayti, MO on I-55N to get some diesel. Coming up to the turn in to the place I saw two entrances. The first one was labeled TRUCKS. OK, probably not me. The second was labeled AUTOS/RVS. OK, me.

Pulling in, Jan and I looked around for the RV pumps.

There were none.

So I pulled over to the right side of the pump islands to fill up there, although it would mean that I was stretching across both sets of pumps, but it wouldn’t be the first time.

New problem.

There were NO diesel pumps on the Auto pump islands.  AT ALL.

And I wasn’t the only one lost. There was another RV, and a couple of dually diesel pickups orbiting the Auto pumps with me. Luckily I didn’t get hemmed in and was able to get back to the side exit, get back out on the road, and then into the truck area.

Followed closely by my new friends, like a line of baby ducks. Luckily there were open lanes so we didn’t have to wait.

My Silverleaf computer interface said I’d used 83.9 gallons, and 85.0 gallons filled my tank. Pretty accurate.

That 85 gallons took me 779 miles for an average of 9.16 MPG. The speed control set on 55mph, and a lot of flat country with no headwinds made that possible.

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We got in the Hinton RV Park in Sikeston MO about 12:45 and got parked and set up. This is a very nice park where we stayed in 2012. It has nice long hard gravel pull-thru’s with an easy in and out.

After a nice nap, Jan and I left the rig about 4pm heading a couple of miles down the road to have dinner Lambert’s Throwed Rolls, one of our favorite places.

They have 3 locations around the country: Foley, AL, Ozark, MO, and here in Sikeston. And over the years we’ve eaten at all 3.

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Later in the evening, I went online and canceled all the Thousand Trails reservations that I made for the Lake Conroe TT and the Colorado River TT through the end of August. I did this at the time when we didn’t know how things would work out with Jan’s breast cancer situation. But now that that’s been resolved, they can go away.

Tomorrow we’ve got another fairly short run of 185 miles up to Vandalia IL to spend a few days visiting with Jan’s sister Debbie, and her family. We’re really looking forward to it.

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Thought for the Day:

"I am not young enough to know everything." – Oscar Wilde

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Order Brisket at a Memphis BBQ place!

Since we had a long 360 mile run today, we were up at 7, had our coffee and muffins, and were on our way by 8 a.m. This was made easier by the fact that we didn’t unhitch the toad, or even lower the levelers last night.

We stopped at a couple of rest areas for breaks, and Jan fixed us peanut butter crackers for a snack at one of these.

About 2:30 we pulled into the Tom Sawyer RV Park right on the Mississippi River in West Memphis, AR. We’ve stayed here twice before, and it’s one of our favorite parks.

After getting set up and resting up for a while, about 4:30 we headed across the river to have some Memphis BBQ. We had planned to eat at Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous where we ate two years ago and really loved, but to our disappointment, they’re closed on Mondays.

So checking on line for Memphis Best BBQ, Central BBQ kept coming up in pretty much every list. So we decided to give it a try.

And it was good, but it was no Rendezvous.

I ordered the Rib Combo Plate with ribs, pulled pork, and ‘brisket’. Note the ‘brisket’ is in quotes. For my two sides, I got BBQ Beans, and homemade garlic potato chips.

First, the pluses:

The pulled pork was delicious. Really good.

The Ribs were also good, with a lot of meat on the bones.

The BBQ Beans were also very good, and chock full of meat pieces.

Also good were the homemade potato chips.

The mild sauce was very good, very tasty, so I had high hopes for the hot version.

Now the minuses:

Although the ribs were good, they were the smaller baby-back ribs, and not the full-sized pork ribs. But that’s just personal preference.

As far as the hot sauce goes, it tasted like they had just added Tabasco or some other vinegar-based hot sauce to their mild sauce. And again, it seems all I could taste was vinegar. So I ended up using the mild sauce, and then adding some of my ghost pepper/ground habanero powder to heat it up.

Now to the ‘brisket’. But I’m not sure I would call it brisket, and I doubt anyone from Texas would either. Note the pile of meat-looking stuff in the photo above, between the chips and the ribs.

It’s more like thin sliced roast beef, tough and chewy, and with no real taste. It reminded of deli meat you buy in a package at the supermarket.

But not as good.

I had seen a couple of references in the online reviews about the brisket at restaurants around town, but did not imagine it would be this bad.

As far as Jan’s meal, she had the pulled pork sandwich and said it was delicious.

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One interesting thing about Central BBQ is that it’s right across the street from the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot in 1968. The entire area is now part of The Civil Rights Museum.

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Getting back to the park about 6 we sat out on the river bank and watched the boats and big barges go by.

Mister enjoyed it too. It you look carefully below, you’ll see a big furry lump rolling around on the concrete.

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The sites here have concrete pads and are right on the river.

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Mister certainly enjoyed it.

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Some enormous barges go by here. This one consist of 21 separate barges strapped together.

The tug’s props really stir up the water,

making a continuous ripple effect behind the stern.

We first stayed here in 2010, but the flooding of the Mississippi in 2011 just about wiped the park out. The sign below marks the high water point during the flooding.

‘How long can you tread water?”

Tomorrow we got a short run of 137 miles up to Sikeston, MO, home of Lambert’s Throwed Rolls.

Guess where we eating supper?

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Thought for the Day:

"Truth is eternal, knowledge is changeable. It is disastrous to confuse them." – Madeleine L’Engle

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