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| Melvin Price Lock and Dam |
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| This picture shows the lock and dam pairs along the Mississippi. The right arrow is set #4 we saw in Alma on our way to Prairie du Chien and the left red arrow is today's set. |
The remainder of the Mississippi, south to the Gulf, doesn't need locks and dams to maintain a navigable depth.
Our second day in St. Louis started with a tour of Forest Park. It is a prominent civic center that hosts numerous events, nature preserves, the local zoo, art and history museums, and more. Its biggest events were the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904 as well as the summer Olympics that same year. We made a quick stop for picture at a large sculpture that portrays King Louis IX of France (1214-70), the namesake of the city of St. Louis, as a Christian soldier.
We then did a quick detour from the plan to head over to the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in the morning instead of afternoon as a special mass was going to occur for a visiting catholic dignitary and the building would be closed for our initially scheduled visit.
A church is a "cathedral" when it is the seat of the bishop.
A church is a "basilica" when it has been accorded that special designation, by virtue of its age, role, history, etc., by the Vatican.
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| Looking forward at the altar in the Cathedral Basilica of St Louis |
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| Cathedral Basilica of St Louis |
Treat #1 for the remainder of our day was a long visit to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. They span almost 80 acres and include several restaurants (so a great place for lunch too), but they were extra special due to the exhibition of Chihuly glass sculptures. Our new cameras took amazing photos of the gardens with the glass sculptures sprinkled around and I have included the best of them here:
We closed the afternoon with treat #2, a tour at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery which not only included a walk through the local stable of resident Clydesdales but also several beer samples. Jeffrey even got extra because it was his birthday (okay, Maren helped him a little).
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| One of the lovely castle-like entrances to the Anheuser-Busch Brewery. In the past, a train car could fit through the archway. |
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| One of the Clydesdales greeting us |
Our day ended with a driver's meeting to cover our next transit day as well as a short "social" where over 40 RVers sang Happy Birthday to Jeffrey. He even got a cupcake and balloons. Not a bad way to cap his first 60 years! Our final day in St. Louis is a "free" day with no organized group events -- a good day to catch up on laundry, get groceries, relax, etc. For us the day was an early rise at 5am so we could get Max to a Freightliner dealer nearby when they opened. There was concern that the coolant used when Max was "topped off" after he broke a hose a few days ago was not the "right stuff". Coolant technology has changed quite a bit in the last dozen years apparently so we opted to have the system completely flushed and refilled so there is not a mix of old and new.
9/19: Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Happy to say we had an issue-free drive to Cape Girardeau with the group the next day. It is a small town but has numerous points of interest including huge murals on their flood control wall that borders the Mississippi River. Definitely worth a walk to see them, read the placards describing what they are showing and a couple of yummy scoops of ice cream nearby.
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| The river side of the mural flood wall |
9/20 - 9/25: Memphis, Tennessee
The plan the next day was to drive to an RV park south of Memphis and use it as a home base for 3 days while we enjoy tours of the big Memphis sights. We happily didn't have any coolant issues but we started to hear thunkity-thunk sounds under Max as we went through rough road construction on the highway. If the roadway was smooth we didn't hear anything amiss at all. Erring on the side of caution, we found a truck center and slipped one of the service techs a few bucks to take a look and see if he could spot anything wrong. Sure enough he saw a stabilizing bar that had a bad "bushing" and suggested that we get it looked at sooner rather than later. Geez, this trip is costing us more and more money in repairs every day!
The local Freightliner service center couldn't see us until the next morning, so we noisily proceeded to the group's RV park for the night and once again awoke way too early to drive back into town in the dark to be first in the "RV" service line. Happily the issue was easily diagnosed and a new "front track suspension bar" was ordered. The bad news is it will take a day or two to arrive. Our fellow travelers presented us with this sticker to affix to Max 🤣
We deposited Max back to the campground and caught up with the group for lunch at B.B. Kings (having missed the morning tour of Sun Studios). We then visited the Memphis Rock & Soul Museum and marveled at how this city was the birthplace of rock and soul music by so many great pioneer artists, both white and black often playing together, during years of so many race barriers.
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| Rock & Soul Museum |
The next day included a self guided tour of the National Civil Rights Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. We had been here years ago by ourselves but this visit was just as moving. From there we went over to the famous giant Cabela's sports store, located in a gigantic pyramid. It was initially built in 1991 as a venue for sporting and entertainment events, but the seating was not ideal. It was then a church for awhile before finally being bought and renovated by Bass Pro Shops. Besides having several restaurants, it also has the world's largest free-standing elevator (goes to the top for outstanding views of the city), a lake with boats in it, 5' long carp swimming around, and a crocodile exhibit. Oh, and they sell every kind of sporting and camping equipment you can imagine!
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| Balcony at the Lorraine Motel (the facade of which was preserved as part of the Civil Rights Museum) where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. |
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| The amazing Bass Pro Shop pyramid |
Back on the bus and after a bonus drive-by of Graceland (a tour of which is part of a different Fantasy tour), we returned to the RV park for root beer floats and the driver's meeting for the transit instructions to Vicksburg in two days (tomorrow is a free day with no events). Jeffrey and I will be left behind so we can go back to Freightliner to get our new parts installed.
After watching our friends drive away in the morning, we used our "extra" free day to visit the Memphis Zoo. It was a good one and I'm just sorry we didn't see their panda as she was recalled to China this spring following the death of her companion. At least they had giraffe and a nice feeding station.
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| Maren thinks this fish looks half giraffe! |
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| Feeding the zoo's reticulated giraffe |
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| An Okapi -- only remaining species to share the Gariffidae family with the giraffe |
We are up early again to drive Max to his service appointment to get the new front track suspension bar replaced. After 4 hours of labor, the technician brings him back and, to our horror, that wasn't the problem. Three more hours go by with tense discussions, test drives, and consultations with other specialists. At the very end of the day, the tech crawls under Max one more time and Jeffrey pushes on Max's side to get him "rocking". I join in and so does the service manager. Right as the 3 of us tire out and have to stop rocking, the tech hears the thunk! EUREKA! Another tech joins the first under Max and we rustle up 8 other guys and start rocking like mad -- and they finally find the culprit -- a broken shock! In their defense it was a really odd break and only showed itself when Max was rocking back and forth on it. They can have a pair of new shocks in hand at 9am in the morning so we plug Max in in their protected back lot and are off to a nearby Best Western for the night. What is (now) funny is that Maren mentioned several times over the last few days to them that the only time she had heard a noise similar to this was when we had a loose shock. Guess they didn't take this girl's input seriously! 🙄
As promised, shocks were installed first thing in the morning, the thunk is gone, the credit card is swiped (again) and we are on our way driving 340 miles to catch up to our caravan who are arriving in Natchez, Mississippi. Sorry but no picture of this debacle and we are sure you wouldn't want to see our tired and stressed faces! We have missed the stop in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
9/26 - 9/28: Natchez, Mississippi
Today we went to Stanton Hall an 1850s mansion built on cotton money and spared any damage during the civil war because there were no troops or battles here. General MacArthur lived here for a while in 1952 and the Patrick Swayze miniseries North South was filmed here too.
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| Stanton Hall exterior. No interior pictures are allowed to be posted on the internet. |
We were then treated to a horse-drawn carriage tour of downtown Natchez. Our stocky palomino haflinger horse was anxious to go, most likely due to getting the carrot treats he was due at the end.
Our next day was a "free" day which we used to do a little laundry, get a few groceries, and buy lottery tickets (which we only do when the Powerball lottery exceeds 500 million). We also had our last driver's meeting to cover the transit to New Orleans. Our leaders also shared some delicious meatballs and other appetizer snacks with the group.
9/29 - 10/4: New Orleans, Louisiana
We had a nice, albeit bumpy ride to New Orleans the next morning. Sure hope Louisiana gets some funding to fix their terrible roads! After a fuel stop we arrived at the RV park in the middle of the pack and got settled before heading downtown in the car for my semi-annual blood labs to make sure my liver is still happy on a drug I take. It is convenient that I can do this anywhere in the country with a lab order from my Raleigh doctor. It was a harrowing drive with the New Orleans drivers so we rewarded ourselves with dinner at Blaze Pizza and were happy to get the car back to the campground unscathed. We witnessed several bad drivers and even red lights seemed to only be a suggestion.
Our first day of touring the area included the Laura and Oak Alley sugar plantations in Vacherie. Both were established in the early 1800s and had amazing family histories. Laura is a Creole Heritage site and Oak Alley is a National Historic Site. This area was captured and held by the Union early during the Civil War, and strangely, the emancipation proclamation excluded it because slave labor was needed to make food for the war. After the tours we were served a yummy creole buffet lunch. I think Jeffrey was dubious it would be too spicy, but it wasn't -- gumbo, sausage, red beans, corn, peas and peach cobbler or bread pudding for dessert.
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| Laura Plantation home |
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| Oak Alley home viewed through the majestic oaks |
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| The view of the oaks from the house |
The next day was one we've all really anticipated -- a sea plane flight around the Mississippi river delta area followed by a swamp boat tour. Both were fantastic! Jeffrey and I had a plane to ourselves and our pilot, Vince, gave us a running personal commentary on all of the sights we flew over. This is the first time we've taken off and landed on the water in a plane and it was interesting -- a little rough due to the choppy little wind-swept waves on the canal we were using, but exhilarating too!
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| Our ride! |
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| The amazing view of downtown New Orleans from our plane |
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| Plane selfie |
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| Our landing strip canal |
The group's private swamp boat tour was punctuated by several close alligator encounters and a few bird sightings. Though it has been hot and humid these last few days, today has been more moderate with a nice breeze blowing.
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| Alligator from the swamp boat |
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| Curious big heron |
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| Our chef flaming the Banana's Foster |
The bus brought us back to the campground and we had a "wrap-up" meeting where our leaders shared their thanks for our patronage of Fantasy RV Tours, commented on how great a group we were, and presented is with fun gifts to commemorate the trip. Our final bus ride took us to a dinner riverboat cruise -- our final float on the Mississippi! The boat had a calliope that was played while we were boarding and a live jazz band entertained us during and after dinner.
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