Monthly Archives: May 2018

Honoring Our Brave

When it feels like every day is Saturday – as it has for me since I retired nearly five years ago – I sometimes lose track of holiday weekends. That was the case when we came here to Frankfort, Kentucky. We suddenly realized we would be here over the Memorial Day weekend and were lucky to find a campground that could accommodate us.

Sunday also happened to be Donna’s birthday. Typically we’ll go out to dinner somewhere nice on her birthday, but the nice restaurants in Frankfort were closed on Sunday. So, we took a rain check. May 27th is also my youngest daughter, Shauna’s, birthday. She’s an attorney at the Dentons Law Firm in Washington D.C. I talked to her on the phone on Sunday. She works incredible hours almost seven days a week. She was off on Sunday. We talked about the holiday weekend and she commented that it is kind of a nuisance for our lifestyle. Then she added that her office would be closed on Monday, but that just meant she had no support staff when she went in to work! So holidays can be a bit of a nuisance for her as well.

Birthday girl enjoying a Moscow Mule

I finished reading a book called The Bed I Made – a memoir of a guy that served in the Marines during the Korean war and later became a New York police officer while suffering from PTSD for  nearly 50 years. Donna started reading it over the weekend. The accounts of the conflict in Korea were appropriate for Memorial Day weekend. I started another book that I finished on Monday called 19 Minutes to Live. This one was written about the author’s tour of duty as a Cobra helicopter pilot in Vietnam.

On Monday, we hopped on the Spyder and rode down to the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It overlooks the State Capitol across the Kentucky River. The memorial contains the names of 1,103 Kentuckians that died in the war. The first two deaths occurred in 1962 and the last was recorded in 1975. The US had withdrawn from Vietnam by then and most of us remember the closing of the embassy and evacuation from Saigon. But there still was some US involvement in Vietnam and Cambodia after the fall of Saigon. The last Kentuckian killed was involved in the Mayaguez Incident – considered to be the last US battle of the Vietnam War.

The Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a large concrete pavilion. It has a sundial type gnomon in one corner. There are lines radiating out across the pavilion from the gnomon creating pie shaped slices representing the years starting with 1962. The names of the fallen are arranged in each slice showing the date they died. The shadow of gnomon falls on each name on the precise anniversary of their death every year. The length of the shadow changes with the seasons. It longest on the winter solstice and shortest on the summer solstice. This is how the shadow can fall on different names on different dates.

Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial

We met a few Vietnam Veterans visiting the memorial. One them told us a couple of stories. After the first story, I asked him he was a “lerp.” He said yes, he was attached to a Long Range Reconnaisance Patrol (LRRP) unit. Later Donna asked me what I called the guy. Lerp is the usual military nomenclature for a LRRP. I didn’t get his name.

LRRP is tough duty. These guys went into the jungle or long grass in small squads with a rifle and rucksack and all the ammo they could carry. They would spend days or even weeks alone carrying out their mission in hostile territory. Anyone they encountered would likely be the enemy with no friendly forces nearby to support them.

At the base of the gnomon, the names of Kentuckians Missing in Action are listed. The guy that was telling us stories pointed out his brother-in-law’s name there. His remains were recovered in 1995 – that’s the date listed on the memorial. The MIAs names aren’t touched by the gnomon’s shadow.

The visit to the memorial and the number of Vietnam veterans that were there was more emotional for me than I ever thought it would be. Donna felt the same. Before leaving, she hugged the guy we’d been talking with along with two others and thanked them for their service. We vowed to make an effort in the coming years to visit a memorial on this day wherever we may be at the time.

Kentucky State Capitol viewed from the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial site

It’s been hot and muggy here, but we’ve managed to dodge the brunt of the afternoon thundershowers here at Still Waters Campground. Most of the storms passed just south or east of us and we only had a few momentary showers. Today we’re pulling out and heading down to Lexington. We plan to dry-camp at Cabela’s there and stock up the pantry while we check the area out. We might not be so lucky with the weather there – the entire region looks like it’ll get thunderstorms over the next few days.

Getting out of our site is going to be a little tricky. We have several obstacles – mostly trees and a narrow roadway. We’ll take it slow and I’m confident we’ll manage it.

 

Buffalo Trace

Our week in Nashville flew by. We pulled out of Grand Ole RV Park Thursday morning and were on the road by 9:15am. Our route took us up I-65 to Elizabethtown where we cut east on the Bluegrass Highway. The road surfaces were good. There were a lot of tractor-trailer rigs on I-65 heading to and from Louisville. Southern Kentucky has a lot of brown signs on I-65 indicating points of interest – mostly parks with caverns and museums. Apparently the limestone in the area is conducive to the formation of caves.

We stopped at the Pilot Travel Center at exit 86 on I-65 before we hit the Blugrass Highway. I topped up the tank with 60 gallons of diesel. Fuel prices have been on the rise and I paid $3.11/gallon. Our next stop was at Walmart on US127 in Lawrenceburg. Donna went in to get a couple of thigs while I ordered a Subway sandwich for a late lunch. I had a mishap in the parking lot there. Although the parking lot didn’t have trees, which are my usual obstacle in Walmart lots, this one had concrete islands with high curbs at the end of each row. I picked what looked to be the widest opening and went for it. There was a metal stop sign right at the edge of the island. I scraped the trailer on the edge of the stop sign. Arrgh!

We made our way to the Still Waters Campground. Check-in was a little different. No computers. The owners live onsite and do everything the old fashioned way – hand written receipts and journal entries. The guy that took us to our site (on a riding mower!) brought us in from the wrong direction – there was no way I would be able to back the trailer into the site. He had me loop around on the lawn and enter the site from the rear – making it a pull-through. Before I could get all the way in, a branch had to removed from one the trees lining the site. We were finally ready to set up around 3:30pm.

Donna made a quick and easy meal for dinner – just the thing on a travel day. She made a skillet meal of sweet Italian chicken sausage, cherry tomatoes, and asparagus and served it over whole wheat penne and pesto. It was a savory, hearty meal.

Skillet Italian chicken sausage with tomatoes and asparagus

On Friday morning, I got the Spyder out and we rode into town to the Buffalo Trace Distillery. We arrived just in time for the 9am tour. I had read about their tours online – they have five different tours. The Trace Tour runs every hour from 9am to 4pm Monday through Saturday, noon to 3pm on Sunday. Their site says “walk-ins welcome, no reservation required.” It’s a tour that gives background on making bourbon and the history of the distillery. It includes walks through barrel-aging warehouses and one of the bottling operations.

The other four tours are more specific to a certain aspect of the distillery. I wanted to take the Hard Hat Tour which takes you through the mash and distillation process. But, I didn’t notice that all of the tours except the Trace Tour require reservations. By the time I realized it on Thursday, they were all booked. All of the tours are free.

This distillery has the distinction of being the oldest continuously running distillery in America. The distillery was built by Harrison Blanton in 1812. The Prohibition era from 1920 to 1933 closed all but a few distilleries. Buffalo Trace Distillery was known as the George T. Stagg Distillery at the time and was granted an exemption to distill whiskey for medicinal purposes. During prohibition, pharmacies carried small amounts of whiskey which could only be obtained with a doctor’s prescription. Thus the distillery never shut down.

The distillery is on the bank of the Kentucky River and the property is beautiful with manicured lawns, gardens and brick buildings dating back to the 1800s. The rest of this post is photo-heavy – I took lots of pictures at the distillery.

Donna at the visitor center and gift shop

An old pot still used for small experimental batches – I know someone who’d like to have this

One of several barrel-aging warehouses – barrel elevator at the top floor

An interesting thing I learned is why barrels are… well, barrel-shaped. When filled with whiskey, the barrels weigh about 550 pounds. If the barrels were made with straight sides like a 55-gallon drum, they would be hard to handle and maneuver around. With the barrel shape and convex sides, when the barrel is on its side, it only has a small contact area. It can easily be spun or turned. If the barrel is rolled onto a track – much like a narrow-gauge train track – it will roll along and follow the track. That’s how they transport barrels from building to building here. The tracks have a slight slope to let gravity roll the barrel from one building to the next.  They also have elevators to raise the barrels to different floors of the buildings.

Barrel Crossing

Buffalo Trace distills a number of whiskey brands. The interesting thing is they only have three grain bill recipes for their bourbon. Grain bill number one is used for Buffalo Trace Bourbon and Eagle Rare and a few others. The difference between Buffalo Trace Bourbon and Eagle Rare comes from the amount of time it’s aged and the placement of the barrel during aging. Whiskeys that are bottled young are aged in the top floors of the barrel buildings where the temperature fluctuation is the greatest. More expensive whiskeys are aged on the lower floors and closer to the center of the building. The actual recipes are secret, but I’ve heard grain bill number one is 70% corn, about 15% rye and the balance barley. Grain bill number two is also corn, rye and barley but in different percentages – it’s used to make Blanton’s. Grain bill number three is used to make Pappy Van Winkle’s  and is corn, wheat and barley.

The barrels have bar codes and information stamped on them. This one was filled in May of 2014

This barrel has been aging since May of 2007 – probably a third of the contents have evaporated by now

This barrel contains an experimental recipe

As the barrels age, some evaporation occurs. Water escapes as the water molecules are small enough to pass through the wood barrel through osmosis. The alcohol molecules are larger and remain in the barrel. So the percentage of alcohol in the barrel increases over time.

Next we went to one of the bottling stations

The premium whiskeys produced by Buffalo Trace are bottled and labeled by hand. The barrel of whisky is dumped into a trough. A sample is taken to determine the alcohol content of the barrel. Water is added to reach the desired alcohol content, then the whiskey flows to the bottler.

Filling bottles of Blanton’s Single Barrel whiskey

You can thank the Blanton’s brand for creating the popular single-barrel whiskey niche. They started it in 1984 and now it’s the craze. Most bourbons are made by blending several different barrels of whiskey together to create a consistent flavor profile. Each bottle of Blantons is filled with whiskey from a single barrel. The label has the barrel number hand written along with warehouse designation and storage rick on the label. It also has the date the barrel was dumped.

Capping Blanton’s by hand

Applying the labels

Bagging and boxing Blanton’s

They had two lines bottling Blanton’s. One of the women working the line told me they box 350 cases per shift, six bottles to a case. That’s 2,100 bottles per line and they run two shifts per day – 8,400 bottles. They can’t keep up with demand though. The problem comes from aging. Who knew nine years ago that the single-barrel Blanton’s would become so popular? If they had a crystal ball, they would have made more of it back then so it would be good to go now.

They produce 18 different spirits at Buffalo Trace. One of them is Pappy Van Winkle’s. For many bourbon connoisseurs, 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s is the holy grail. They only bottle and release it once a year in November. People pay crazy prices for it and often have to be drawn through a lottery to obtain a bottle.

Some of the different liquors made here

Bottle on the right is the Holy Grail – 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle’s

They have a special place to commemorate every millionth barrel filled since prohibition. Right now barrel number seven million is aging in this place of honor.

The glass wall made the photo ghostly

The tour ended around 10:30am with a complimentary tasting. I tried the White Dog which is basically moonshine – it’s liquor that hasn’t been barrel-aged. It was awful. Then I had Eagle Rare in my right hand and Buffalo Trace Bourbon in my left hand for a comparison taste. Both are superb. We finished with a chocolate bourbon ball with a pecan on top and a shot of bourbon cream with a dash of root beer. Delicious.

Before we left, we dropped some cash in the gift shop. We bought chocolate bourbon balls, Buffalo Trace bourbon and I had to grab a bottle of Blanton’s Single Barrel. It’s way pricier than I would usually spend on bourbon, but I got caught up in the hype.

My bottle of Blanton’s – barrel dumped May 16, 2018 from barrel number 178, warehouse H rick number 30

Of course, I had to add a Buffalo Trace T-shirt while I was at it.

Later in the afternoon, I got the Sea Eagle kayak out and we rolled it down to Elkhorn Creek on the kayak carrier. Donna paddled up the slow moving creek and had a look around. I saw a water snake as we were launching the kayak – harmless. And Donna didn’t see anything scary other than a couple of cows drinking from the muddy river.

Donna on Elkhorn Creek

Donna prepared another quick and easy meal last night. She made a new dish she’s calling Skillet Taco Turkey & Black Beans with Cauliflower Rice. Healthy and scrumptious.

Skillet taco turkey dish

Tomorrow is Donna’s birthday. We are postponing her usual birthday dinner out due to the lack of a suitable restaurant open on Sunday in the area. We’ll probably find something in Lexington in a few days. We’re booked here through Tuesday. Hopefully the weather holds out, but the forecast calls for a strong possibility of thunder showers today and tomorrow.

 

Nudie’s in Nashville

There’s a company that runs a shuttle service from hotels and RV parks in the suburbs to downtown Nashville. Donna called them Monday morning and arranged for a pick-up here at Grand Ole RV Park at 2pm. The round-trip shuttle service costs $15/person. We thought 2pm would be early enough to miss rush-hour traffic on the 30-minute ride downtown. It was also late enough by the time we got there for the bands to be playing on Broadway.

The shuttle dropped us off by the Country Music Hall of Fame on 5th and Demonbreun. We walked a block north to Broadway and made our way down to the waterfront on 1st Avenue. Most of the activity is in the bars and clubs on Broadway between 4th and 2nd Avenues. We crossed to the north side of Broadway and made our way back toward 4th Avenue and stopped at a few clubs to see who was playing.

We made our first stop at Whiskey Bent Saloon where two guys were taking requests. It was amazing – someone would put in a request, then while one of them was playing and singing a song the other would look up the song requested on a smartphone and would learn the song in a matter of minutes and play it.

Stump the Band

We heard rock and roll coming from a club across the street and stopped there for a couple of cold ones. It was Nudie’s Honky Tonk. The name doesn’t mean what you might think it means. The club is named after Nudie Cohn. Nudie was born in Ukraine and was a renowned tailor. He made suits for everyone from Ronald Reagan to Elton John and, of course, Elvis Presley. He made the $10,000 gold lamé suit worn by Elvis. The club has photos of Nudie with various artists and celebrities lining the walls along with various suits he made.

The band was playing classic rock with a power trio format when we came in. Nashville isn’t just country music.

Rockin’ power trio

After a few songs, a girl joined the band to sing. She was good and could cover a wide range of tunes – everything from Journey to Led Zeppelin. The guitar player was clever – when they played What I Like About You by the Romantics, he hit chords with what must have 32nd notes to simulate the harmonica in the original tune.

Power trio now fronted by a woman

We moved on and went to The Stage on Broadway. The band playing there was smokin’ hot. I was wearing a black Gibson shirt and the band leader started teasing me a bit. He asked what I wanted to hear – I said Bob Dylan. He said okay and started the intro to Knockin’ on Heavens Door, then stopped. He asked me my name and I said Bob Dylan – if I would have been quicker on my feet, I would have said Robert Zimmerman – Bob Dylan’s real name. He wanted to know my name, so I told him. Then he said if I could answer a question, I would win a prize. He asked what band besides Bob Dylan covered that song. I said everyone’s done that song. He said, “Okay, what band other than Bob Dylan had a number one hit with that song?” I responded with Guns N’ Roses. He said, “Bingo! Right answer. That means you get to buy a round of drinks for the band – three whiskeys and a Coke.” Then they played the song.

Later he donned sunglasses and fake sideburns to cover an Elvis number. I thought he looked more like Neil Diamond.

Elvis or Neil?

The guy sitting stage right ripped on the steel guitar and he was no slouch with a standard electric guitar either. The front man with the left-handed Telecaster was unbelievable. At one point in the show he asked if anyone in the audience had an empty beer bottle. A woman gave him one. They launched into the Allman Brothers Ramblin’ Man and he used the beer bottle to play slide guitar licks. It takes a deft touch to hit the notes with something as big and heavy as a beer bottle!

Beer bottle slide guitar

It only rained once while we were downtown and we were sitting in the Whisky Bent Saloon at the time. We knocked off early and caught the shuttle back to the RV park. Donna stopped in at the office/restaurant and picked up the daily special for dinner – Shepherd’s pie with cornbread.

Wednesday was mostly a hang out day for me. I made a run to Walmart for a couple of things and stopped at the Cigar Club and bought a couple of cigars. Donna had a visitor in the afternoon – a Facebook friend by the name of Charmaine Alsager. They discovered that they have a few friends and interests in common.

Earlier in the day, I got a text and phone call from Lester Foreman. We met Lester and his wife, JoAnn, at the Tom Sawyer RV Park in West Memphis in 2015. I wrote about Lester and his Vixen coach in this post. Lester had been checking in with us through the blog and knew where we were. He wanted to tell me about a great place for breakfast about 20 miles away called the Bottom View Farm.

Donna and I headed out on the Spyder at 7:30am this morning to find the place for breakfast. I missed a turn and we ended riding for about an hour before I found it. We were pretty hungry by the time we arrived, but as luck would have it, there was a note on the door: Sorry, closed due to a death.

We ended up getting breakfast at Johnson’s Crossroads Cafe – Donna had noticed it on the way out and thinks that it was a restaurant Charmaine had recommended the day before. The food was good and the service was fast. Today I’ll have to tidy up the trailer. We’re heading north to Frankfort, Kentucky tomorrow. The temperature will be 90 here and we’ll probably have another thundershower before the day is done. The forecast for Frankfort is about 10 degrees cooler and hopefully it’ll stay dry there.

 

Daily Downpours

We mostly hung out at the Grand Ole RV Resort and dodged the expected thundershowers all weekend. Friday evening Donna browned bone-in skin-on chicken thighs and cooked it with diced tomatoes, red wine, and kalamata olives and then topped it with feta cheese. She served it with whole wheat orzo and  roasted broccolini on the side. I’d made a run to the Goodlettsville Kroger a few miles away earlier to pick up the wine and kalamata olives.

Chicken with tomatoes, kalamata olives and feta

It was a very tasty meal. We ate inside as the thundershowers rolled in.

On Saturday morning we planned to go to the Madison Creek Farm for their Saturday market. Their farm is located out on Willis Branch Road – an affluent area with large homes and horse farms. When we arrived we found out that the market was closed due to a wedding being held there. From time to time, they rent out the property for special events.

Madison Creek Farm

We saw some fresh vegetable baskets they had prepared for members that signed up for weekly pick-up. The vegetables looked great and were obviously freshly picked from the garden. They also grow flowers and in the summer months, customers can cut their own.

When we returned to Grand Ole RV Park, we moved from our temporary site to a long, full hook-up site. We packed quickly and made the short move by 11am.

Donna enjoying a glass of sun tea in our new site

Our new site is on a small rise near the park entrance, overlooking most of the RV park. It’s nice but the trees along the south side of the coach have blocked my Dish Network reception. No Moto GP race coverage for me this weekend.

After we settled in, I rode the Spyder to Walmart several miles away on Gallatin Pike. The traffic in the Nashville area is horrible. At a couple of intersections, I had to wait for the traffic signal to cycle twice before I could get through. I went to Walmart to refill some gallon jugs of purified water.

Donna went out and hiked along a creek called Lumsley Fork – she actually walked along a road called Hitt Lane that follows the creek. In the late afternoon and into the evening we had thundershowers again.

They serve breakfast here at the RV park. On Friday, I had their bacon and eggs plate. I found out they had biscuits and gravy, so I had to have that Sunday morning. They also have a daily dinner plate – no open menu, just one entree per evening and live entertainment. Donna met one the musicians. He stays here at the park and plays in two bands. One band plays on Friday night and is more of a country music band with a girl playing fiddle. The other band plays on Saturday night and they cover blues and classic rock. They have other musicians for each night – either on the back patio – weather permitting – or in the little store/restaurant.

I used the downtime in the afternoon to remove and clean the screen on our Fantastic Fan in the kitchen. The roof vent collects a greasy film and dust over time.

On Sunday evening, Donna marinated a pork tenderloin in a brown sugar/bourbon/dijon marinade. She broke into my bourbon stash for one of the main ingredients. The weather was threatening when I put it on the grill. I had just given the tenderloin a final check and found the internal temperature with an instant read meat thermometer at 135 degrees when the rain started falling. I quickly put the meat on a cutting board as Donna opened the door to the coach for me. The rain came down in buckets.

Pork tenderloin with brown sugar/bourbon/dijon gravy, mashed sweet potato and buttered corn with roasted red peppers

Thunder had Ozark the cat hiding in a small storage cubby in our closet.

Ozark hiding out

After a heavy down pour, the rain let up and we had showers off and on into the night. It’s overcast this morning and the forecast calls for thundershowers this afternoon – a 50% chance all afternoon. We’re planning to take a shuttle to downtown Nashville, but we’ll probably be dodging showers while we’re there. The high should reach the upper 80s. Waiting for a window of nicer weather doesn’t look like a possibility. The daily showers should continue all week.

 

 

Alabama Hospitality

My last post was on Monday, so I have some catching up to do. Between travel days and a stop without a good Internet connection, I haven’t been able to post. Nearly five years on the road and I can only think of a few instances where our Verizon Jetpack wasn’t able to pick up a good wireless signal.

In my last post, I mentioned I was waiting for a package to arrive at the Hattiesburg post office. I followed the tracking and it showed it was available at the post office in the historic downtown area of Hattiesburg Monday morning. Hattiesburg isn’t a large metropolis by any stretch, but it does have three post offices. I’ve always been a little leery of having parcels sent to General Delivery in larger post offices.

I rode the Spyder downtown to collect the package. The diagonal parking on the street was all metered. Uh-oh. I didn’t plan for that. I found two dimes in one of my pockets and wondered how long the line was in the post office. I put a dime in the meter and found that bought me 36 minutes of parking time! I was able to retrieve my package in a matter of a few minutes. I won’t be so leery of General Delivery from now on.

The package I was waiting for came from Famous Smoke Shop in Easton, Pennsylvania. That’s right. I’d ordered cigars. I got a box of cigars from Tabacalera Oliva in Esteli, Nicaragua. Oliva makes a large number of hand-made cigars for their own brands and others. The cigars were boxed in a beautiful wooden box also made by Oliva. They have their own wood shop making cigar boxes! Last year, they made over 60,000 boxes there and are expanding to be able to supply up to 100,000 boxes annually. They are a big part of the economy in Esteli. The box was made with interlocking box joints and a hinged snap clasp – exquisite construction for a consumable. No paper covered cardboard at Oliva!

Beautifully made cigar box

On Tuesday morning, we made the coach ready for travel. Before we hooked up the trailer, I drove to the dump station to dump and flush the holding tanks. Then we drove back to our site to hitch up the trailer and were on the road by 10:15am.

Our route took us away from Hattiesburg up I-59 to Meridian where we made a stop at Walmart to stock up. The road surface was good and the traffic light. There was dense forest most of the way with fewer pine trees than we saw south of Hattiesburg and more hardwoods. Mississippi isn’t like I expected.

I-59 gave way to I-20 and we were on a northeast heading. Our next stop was in Tuscaloosa, Alabama at the Pilot Travel Center. This is our first trip to Alabama in the coach – I’ve flown into Atlanta several times before but never visited any other part of Alabama. We continued toward Birmingham on I-20 and exited at mile post 100 before we hit Birmingham.

We found the Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park there. They have RV sites located in three campgrounds. We were lucky and scored a pull-through full-hookup site for just $25/night. Our site was more than 80 feet long! We paid for two nights.

The park is in a heavily forested, hilly area and Mud Creek runs right through it. Donna went out on her knock-around bike while I puttered around our site. She found a few trails and points of interest. It was hot and very humid – temperatures in the 90s. We had both roof air conditioners on for the duration of our stay.

On Wednesday morning, I took Donna’s bike and traced her route from the day before. After going up and over a steep hill, I found some historic buildings. There was an old forge – the blacksmith shop – and a grist mill that dated back to the civil war.

Tannehill Forge

John Wesley Hall mill – note the waterwheel on the left powering the grist mill

Mud Creek

On Wednesday afternoon, Miriam Armbrester and her husband Rand picked us up at the park. Miriam has been a subscriber to Donna’s organizing tips newsletter for more than 15 years! They live in the area and it was Miriam who gave us the tip about the campground at Tannehill State Park.

They took us up to Bessemer where we had lunch at the oldest restaurant in Alabama – the Bright Star. The Bright Star opened in 1907. It’s well-acclaimed – it’s listed on MSN’s list of 60 iconic restaurants you must try before you die. It’s also a James Beard Foundation award winner for American Classics.

Sign in front of the Bright Star restaurant

Rand grew up in Bessemer and has known the restaurant owners since he was a young boy. We met Jim and Nick Koikos, the brothers who have run the family business since 1966. Since it was our first time there, they started us off with a taste of their seafood gumbo – gratis. Donna and I ordered the daily special – grilled red snapper stuffed with lobster and crab au gratin. It came with a choice of three sides and was fabulous.

Miriam, Donna and Rand at the Bright Star entry

Rand hosted the lunch and very generously picked up the tab. Thanks again, Rand! Miriam made up a goody bag for us containing stuff made in Alabama, everything from old-fashioned ginger ale to syrups, barbeque sauces, grits, chips and coffee plus a couple of books written by a pastor friend.

All made in Alabama!

She also gave us a sour cream pound cake that she made. Delicious – I’m sure it’ll put a pound on. Thanks, Miriam!

We had a thundershower Wednesday night but it was dry out when we woke up Thursday morning. It took me a little longer than usual to get squared away for the road. The hoses all needed to be wiped clean from the rain and mud. Also, I didn’t notice it before but one of the cabinet doors in the trailer must not have been secured. It popped open sometime on the road and spilled its contents on the floor. I put everything away and made sure the doors were secure.

We hit the road around 10am and took I-20 into Birmingham. Rand warned us of road construction in the city. I looked at alternative routes but in the end figured it wasn’t going to be much better to try and skirt around it. My hunch proved true – we didn’t have any issues with construction traffic and hit open road again on I-65 once we were past Birmingham. A couple of hours later were crossed into Tennessee.

I noticed something I don’t remember seeing outside of Texas before – armadillo road kill. I’ve seen dead armadillos on the roadside in every state we’ve been in since we were in Texas – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee – even right outside of Nashville. I know they’re expanding their range and I also know I never saw them in Tennessee before.

The traffic in the Nashville metro area was terrible. There are a few junctions where multiple freeways converge and traffic stops. You need to plan ahead to be in the correct lane or you’ll end up on the wrong freeway. Many people don’t do this and try to make multiple lane changes at the last instant. Scary!

We were thinking about going to the Opryland Resort to dry camp but changed our plan en route. We booked a week at the Grand Ole RV Resort and Market on the north side of town in Goodlettsville. They did’t have a full hook-up site available, but they put us into an electric only overflow site for two nights, then we’ll move to a full hookup pull-through site for five nights. They discounted the weekly rate for us.

The staff is very friendly. A woman from the office drove me around in a golf cart to look at various options for dropping the trailer and different sites. After conferring with a guy from the office, they put us in the overflow site and suggested I drive across the lawn and pull into the site from the back, leaving the trailer hooked up. I told them I could just as easily back into the site and not make a loop across their nice lawn. They didn’t seem to think I could maneuver the trailer in reverse like that. Donna directed me and we were in without any issues at all.

After dinner, a thunderstorm moved in. It looks like we’re in for more warm weather with a high probability of daily thundershowers. The shuttle to downtown Nashville starts running on Monday, so we’ll probably just hang out until then before we check out the downtown music scene.

 

 

Hats Off to Hattiesburg Elks

We had a great weekend here at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi Elks Lodge. On Friday night, we went to the lodge for the steak dinner. It was interesting. They had a list of names for people that had made reservations. When we checked in, we were led to the kitchen where we found a large baggie with two 14-ounce rib eye steaks with our names on it. From there we took the baggie to a table that had a variety of marinades and seasonings. I seasoned our steaks and put them on another table to rest.

We went out on the patio to see what was happening. They had two large barbeque grills fired up with charcoal. A few guys were already grilling. After twenty minutes or so, I retrieved our steaks and put them on the grill. Utensils were provided and the fire was hot. I had the steaks done in no time. Back in the kitchen, they had plates and a table with tossed salad, dressings and also baked potatoes and butter, sour cream, bacon bits and grated cheese. We filled our plates and found a seat at a shared table in the ballroom. The people were all very friendly and we enjoyed the meal and company.

On Saturday morning, we got the Sea Eagle kayak out of the trailer and inflated it. Donna took it out for cruise around the lake. It was a little windy, but she didn’t have any problems.

Donna heading out on the lake

We’ve had a daily visitor since he welcomed us when we set up here. We call him Mr. Mallard. It’s a mallard drake that comes into our site and follows us around like a little puppy.

Mr. Mallard

On Saturday night, we grilled garlic and herb marinated chicken and dined al fresco at the picnic table. It was pleasant out. Donna served it with zucchini that Jamie gave us fresh from the garden when we were in Texas. Donna also made wild pecan rice from Konriko in New Iberia.

Garlic and herb chicken with grilled zucchini and rice

After dinner I sat in a camp chair on the bank of the lake with a glass of Scotch and a cigar while Donna paddled the kayak on the glass smooth lake. After Donna came in from her paddle we sat outside past sunset. We saw a large snake swim out of the cove by our site and cross in front of us. I can’t be 100% certain since it wasn’t light enough to get a real good look, but I think it was a venomous water moccasin. I say that because it had a thick body that was mostly above the surface of the water as it swam. This is a difference between a venomous water moccasin and a harmless water snake – water snakes only have their head above water, the body is submerged.

Glassy lake in the evening

Earlier in the afternoon Donna went to the pool. While she was doing that, I rode the Spyder to a little store about a mile away and bought worms for fishing. I drowned a few worms and caught three small panfish – bluegills. They were too small for eating so I released them.

Sunday was more of the same. The temperature reached 90 degrees both days, but with the shade in our site and the breeze blowing across the lake it felt cooler.

Several rigs pulled into the park and set up over the weekend. Most of the people didn’t stay though. They set up their trailers, then drove off in their trucks. Lodge members can rent a site for $5/day and we were told that many people claim a site early so they can have their preferred spot for Memorial Day weekend. It’s all first-come-first-served.

Mr. Mallard didn’t make his usual appearance yesterday. I’m guessing one of the new arrivals gave him some food, so he’s hanging out somewhere else.

Today the forecast calls for record high temperature – 96 degrees. We may have a thundershower in the evening. Tomorrow looks to be hot as well. We planned to leave tomorrow and head into Alabama, but we may have to extend for a day. I’m waiting on a delivery at the post office. I’ve been tracking it and if it doesn’t arrive in time today, I’ll have to go into town tomorrow to pick it up.

From the River to the Lake

Tuesday was hot and humid in Baton Rouge. The temperature reached 92 degrees and the humidity was heavy. Donna went out in the morning for a bike ride. She took her hybrid knock-around bike on the Mississippi River levee trail. Here are some photos she took on her ride.

I-10 spanning the mighty Mississippi

Casino parking – notice the high water level on the left

Casino on the river

USS Kidd – a floating Veterans Memorial and museum

Raising Cane’s River Center Arena

Opposing statues – two of 22 cast iron and aluminum statues scattered in the downtown area

Baton Rouge is spelled out in large red letters on the levee

After Donna’s bike ride, we rode the Spyder to Garden District Coffee. We needed coffee beans and wanted to try some locally roasted coffee. This shop is definitely boutique and buying coffee from them was a splurge. We bought a pound of the coffee used in the porter Donna tried yesterday at Tin Roof Brewery – Italian/Espresso – and a pound of Ethiopian Sidamo.

Then we made a stop at Trader Joe’s to stock up on produce. Our refrigerator is fairly full, but we can always use fresh fruit and vegetables. We don’t know how accessible a good grocery store will be at our next stop.

By the time we finished running our errands and dealing with Baton Rouge traffic, the heat was taking a toll on us. We spent the rest of the afternoon indoors enjoying air conditioning and a bit of solitude. We didn’t make it to the Old State Capitol. When it cooled down in the evening, we enjoyed sitting outside and watching the horses. The workers at the center put the horses in the stables at night and let them out in the pasture in the mornings.

Horses in the pasture by our site

In the morning on Wednesday, Donna went out for a run in the neighborhood by the BREC Farr Equestrain Center while I packed up the chairs and loaded the Spyder. We weren’t in any hurry but we hit the road at 10:15am. I had the generator running and the front roof air conditioner on while we traveled.

The drive through Baton Rouge to I-12 wasn’t fun. The roads are narrow and in terrible shape. The interstate through the metro area is bumpy and erratic drivers are everywhere. Once we got away from the city on I-12 east, the road surface improved and the traffic settled down. We made a stop at the Pilot/Flying J Travel Center in Hammond. Donna bought a couple of Arby’s roast beef sandwiches while I pumped $160 worth of diesel to top up our tank. We rarely eat fast food other than an occasional  Subway Sandwich or a taco, but the Arby’s was convenient and it hit the spot.

Our destination was the Elk’s Lodge near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. This was our first time in Mississippi. I was surprised at the number of pine trees lining the interstate. I was expecting to see cotton fields. Our original plan was to exit the interstate at Covington and take state highways. We changed the plan on the fly. The road surface was good and the driving easy, so we followed I-12 to I-59.

We had to drive for about 8 miles on narrow county roads to the find the Elk’s Lodge. The lodge is located on an amazing property – I’ve never seen a lodge like it. They have 1400 acres of land and a lake – Elk’s Lake – behind the lodge. They have 50 RV sites available for Elk’s members with fresh water and 50 amp electrical service for $10/night! Many of the sites are on the waterfront.

The area around the lake is forest with many tall pine trees. Maneuvering our rig in the park was difficult. I had to get us turned around in a limited space to drop the trailer and back into our site. It took patience, but it was worth it.

Our site on the lake

There’s a little cove to the left of our site

Donna’s looking forward to hiking in the area and getting the kayak in the water. Tonight the lodge has a special steak dinner – we put our reservations in. The forecast calls for a high of 92 today. The hot temperatures will continue through the weekend – but the lodge has an Olympic size pool that will open tomorrow! I need to run a couple of errands and may take the Spyder into town today.

 

Spoonbills, Alligators and Horses

We jumped on the Spyder Monday and headed east from Betty’s RV Park in Abbeville on highway 14 past Delcambre. Our destination  was Rip Van Winkle’s Gardens. We weren’t that interested in touring the gardens – our intention was to visit the rookery to see the birds and look for alligators.

Click to enlarge

The rookery is a favored nesting ground for roseate spoonbills, ibis and egrets. The birds congregate on the three islands in the pond created by water recycled from the gardens. They prefer to nest in islands where alligators keep snakes, raccoons and other predators away from their eggs.

A little hard to see, but these trees are full of birds

Donna and I walked the path around the pond – it’s about three quarters of a mile around. As we reached the far side of the pond, something thrashed in the water. There it was – an alligator – eyes and head popped up looking at us. Then I saw a much larger ‘gator swimming in the channel between two of the islands.

We continued our walk and met a woman from Baton Rouge who was visiting the area and photographing the birds. She warned us about taking I-10 into Baton Rouge. She told us there was construction before the bridge into Baton Rouge taking the interstate down to one lane. She said there are crashes reported on a regular basis as an inattentive driver slams into the suddenly stopped traffic. It’s always nice to have local knowledge – we planned to avoid the I-10 bridge over the Mississippi.

As we made our way around the pond, we heard a sound. It was almost like someone snoring. We moved slowly toward the sound. The sound stopped. A few more steps and there he was – an alligator just a couple of feet from the shore. I estimated him to be between five and six feet long.

Alligator snoozing

He didn’t pay any attention to us and only opened his eyes a couple of times.

Zzzzz

We rode into Rip Van Winkle Gardens to visit the gift shop and look around. We found several peacocks and hens by the gift shop.

Peacocks and hens

Peacock in a tree

Donna bought a couple of items and we headed home. I got busy stowing things in the trailer and getting us ready to move. We had our final Betty’s Famous Happy hour – until next time. The name Betty’s Famous Happy Hour comes from an app called Untapped. On this app, people check in and rate the beer they’re drinking. Someone checked in and put their location as Betty’s Famous Happy Hour! So now, if you open the Untapped app at Betty’s, you can check in and it’ll give that name for the location.

On Tuesday morning, I finished making us ready for travel. I moved slowly as it was hot and very humid. I kept the air conditioners running until the last moment before I unplugged from the 50-amp pedestal. Once I had the trailer hooked up, I started the generator and turned on the front roof air conditioner for the drive to Baton Rouge.

We took a roundabout route that took us up US167 to Lafayette and up to Opalousas where we hit US190 east. The road surfaces were atrocious, but I figured I-10 probably wasn’t much better and we would cross the mighty Mississippi into Baton Rouge on the US190 bridge avoiding I-10 altogether.

The drive through Lafayette and Baton Rouge wasn’t much fun, but metro areas never are in a big rig. We found our way to the BREC Farr Park Equestrian Center. This is a large park on the east bank of the Mississippi River. They have 108 RV sites with water and 50-amp electrical pedestals. We squeezed our coach and trailer into site A4 – a pull through site – and left the trailer a little crooked to make us fit without hanging into the road.

Site A4 – a tight fit

After setting up and showering, Donna and I rode the Spyder to town. We went to Tin Roof Brewing for a cold one. It’s about five miles away from the park. Donna had a beer called River Rosé – it’s a mild ale like a Gose but it was brewed with beets. She liked it and said it was refreshing.

River Rosé

On the way back, I rode up on the levee of the Mississippi. We saw a large tow of 28 barges behind a couple of freighters. I wrote about barge tows here. The river is very high right now and there are flood warnings in effect. The levee here is so high, I don’t think we have any worries.

Barge tow behind the freighters

Later, we sat in the shade of the coach. I puffed a cigar and we watched a group of girls riding horses.

Girls horseback riding

It was very quiet and peaceful last night. However, Ozark the cat didn’t let us enjoy a restful night. For some reason, the cat kept waking us up. This morning, I thought I could hear a rooster crowing. When I stepped outside at 6:30am, it turned out to be a horse whinnying. He was kicking up dust prancing around the pasture and making a racket.

Feeling his oats and kicking up dust

Today will be another hot one. The forecast calls for a high of 90 degrees. Donna and I want to explore a bit and go to the Old State Capital Museum. Tomorrow we’ll head out and make our way to Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Tail Lights and Cajuns

Saturday was Cinco de Mayo. It also happened to be our wedding anniversary – Donna and I were married on the fifth day of May, 2006. We usually go out to dinner to celebrate – this year we celebrated with dinner at Shuck’s – The Louisiana Seafood House – a day early on Friday evening.

We both started with a cup of seafood gumbo, followed by a crab cake plate made with locally caught blue crab. Donna had hers house style, served with a dill sauce over the cake. I had mine smothered with crawfish etoufee. Crawfish etoufee is a Cajun dish  with crawfish meat in a gravy-like sauce. It was delicious. I had a bottle of Abita Amber beer to go with it. It was a rich and very filling meal!

The forecast called for thundershowers on Saturday. I started the day by changing the tail light housings on our coach. I found replacement parts on Amazon and they arrived on Friday. The tail lights used by Western RV on our Alpine Coach were original equipment on a Ford Econoline van from the 1990s. Our tail lights were hazy and had cracks in the lenses where someone previously over-tightened the mounting screws. The replacements I bought were made in Taiwan and are an exact copy of the originals. Installation was easy. First I removed the four tail light housing mounting screws, then gave each bulb holder a quarter turn to release them.

Tail light housing removed and bulb holders hanging from the harness

When I first fitted the new housing, it wouldn’t fit flush. Then I noticed they had extra mounting points. There were four holes that lined up perfectly with the originals, but there were also two stand-offs molded in the plastic back plate that interfered with the body of our coach. Apparently they use a one-size-fits-all back plate on the housing and these extra points are for another application. I snipped them off with side cutters and the housings fit perfectly.

The new tail lights look much better. Along with the headlights I replaced in Mesa, we’re looking sharp on all four corners!

Old tail light

New tail light

I tracked the storm front in the forecast on the Radar Express app on my phone and it looked like it would stay to the north of us. Betty mentioned a farmers’ market in Delcambre, about 10 miles away. I looked it up and we decided to check it out. We’re finding Louisiana to be interesting – it’s culture is unique.

Delcambre farmers’ market at Bayou Carlin Cove

This market is seasonal and only open on the first weekend of each month. When we arrived at the farmers’ market at the Bayou Carlin Cove, I knew we were in for a treat. This was the first farmers’ market we’ve been to that had shrimp boats tied up to the dock selling fresh caught shrimp.

Shrimp boat

The locals came to the market prepared – many had coolers with ice to pack the fresh shrimp and crayfish for sale. We walked through the vendor area and sampled food and sauces. The owner of Brasseaux’s Hardware in Abbeville had a Traeger demo set up and gave us free pulled pork sliders! Another vendor had Creole tamales and gave us one for a sample. Creole tamales are different than the usual – these had pork and beef ground very fine to about the same consistency of the corn meal used and it’s all mixed together. They were delicious and we bought half a dozen. Donna also bought a jar of persimmon pepper jelly – another food new to us.

At another vendor, I saw a guy shucking fresh oysters. The woman there put a little olive oil and garlic on the oyster on the half shell, added shredded parmesan and then put them on the grill. Donna bought a plate with half a dozen oysters. I’m not much of an oyster eater, but after trying one, I had to have another! At the next table two ladies were mixing up Bloody Marys – we each had one with the oysters and they were the spiciest Bloody Marys ever.

Char-grilled oysters

We came home around noon, then headed out in the other direction toward Maurice a little after 1pm. Our destination was Touchet’s Bar – the locals call it Two-checks. They had a Cajun jam session starting at 2pm. It was a fun time. We sat back and I had a beer while Donna sipped a Bloody Mary. The people were all so friendly and the music was good. I couldn’t understand half of the lyrics as they sang in a mixture of English and French patois. Actually I had a hard time understanding the dialect spoken by some of the people at the bar.

Cajun jam session

Last night we sat at Betty’s famous happy hour and everyone planned a potluck brunch for today and fish dinner for this afternoon. One of the guys here, Mike, caught a bunch of redfish and our neighbor Daniel volunteered to grill 10 pounds of fresh fish filets! Yum!

Potluck brunch this morning

The forecast calls for abundant sunshine today and a high in the mid-80s. Tomorrow will be slightly warmer. I’ll need to prepare for the road tomorrow. We’ll head out on Tuesday and probably make our next stop in Baton Rouge.

 

Tabasco and Rice

Yesterday Donna and I headed out on the Spyder. We left Betty’s RV Park in Abbeville, Louisiana around 9:30am and rode to Avery Island outside of New Iberia. The route took us out LA14 through Delcambre – which I’m told is pronouned Dell-come by the locals, rhymes with welcome. Seems like a lot of letters to spell Delcome and it’s certainly not the French pronunciation you might expect.

Anyway, the shortest route from Abbeville to Avery Island took us through a lot of turns on narrow parish roads, but we found our way. Our destination was the McIhenny Company’s Tabasco plant for a tour of the facility where they make the iconic Tabasco hot sauce. I’ve been a Tabasco user for nearly 50 years.

A self-guided tour of the plant costs $5.50 for adults – military discounts are given. The walking tour starts in a small museum and takes you through five different buildings to observe the process of making the sauce – from growing the peppers to shipping the product.

Sign on the walkway to building two

We saw a small greenhouse with a variety of pepper plants. Tabasco peppers are a variety of chili pepper – capsicum frutescens.

Tabasco peppers

Habanero peppers

Jalapeno peppers

The peppers are picked by hand. The pickers compare the color of the pepper to the color of a red stick they carry to ensure uniform ripeness.

The peppers are crushed and put into oak barrels. The barrels are used whiskey barrels that are re-purposed. The coopers at McIhenny scrape the charred interior of the barrel to expose clean oak, then they remove the iron bands and replace them with stainless steel bands. The crushed peppers with a little salt added are put into the barrels to age for three years. The tops of the barrels are covered in salt to prevent bacteria from entering. By the way – Avery Island is a salt dome! The air was heavy with a pungent odor at the barrel aging buildings.

Freshly filled barrels ready for aging

After about three years, the contents of each barrel is tasted. If approved, it goes to the next step where seeds and skins are removed. Then the contents are put into a large vat where it is blended with pure distilled vinegar for two to three weeks. The hot sauce aroma was evident in the blending building.

Blending vats

The bottling process was similar to what we’ve seen in beer breweries. It’s mostly automated, but people are on station to operate the machinery and provide quality control. Once the bottles are filled, a digital camera reads the bottle to ensure it’s filled to the proper level before capping.

Filling bottles

Checking and capping

Labelled and ready for packing

They had an electronic counter with a digital display showing the number of bottles produced. At 11am, it was over 184,000 for the day and quickly counting upwards.

Donna peeking around a giant Tabasco display bottle

At the end of the tour, we visited the gift store where we sampled jalapeno ice cream. Donna bought a bottle of the standard red Tabasco and a bottle of the green sauce for $2 each.  You can buy Tabasco sauce by the gallon at the store here! The self-guided tour had a number of informational kiosks and video presentations. I thought it was worth the time.

We skipped the driving tour of the Avery Island gardens and headed into New Iberia for lunch. A cafe was recommended by Betty – the Bon Creole Cafe. She told us they had the best shrimp Po’ Boys around. A Po’ Boy is a Louisiana standard – it’s a sandwich made of a hoagie roll stuffed with fried seafood – usually shrimp, crawfish or oysters. It can be made with beef as well. We ordered a full shrimp Po’ Boy and split it. It was more than enough for two people. I added a couple of dashes of Tabasco to mine.

Shrimp Po’ Boy with lettuce, tomato and sauce

It was short ride from there to the Conrad Rice Mill – the oldest independently owned rice mill still in operation in the U.S. It was built by Phillip Conrad in 1912. He named his company Konriko (Conrad Rice Company with Ks substituting the Cs for trademark purposes).

The leading rice producing states in the country are Arkansas followed by California, Louisiana and Texas. The mill wasn’t operating Thursday afternoon so we skipped the guided tour and just watched a video and did some shopping instead. Konriko also owns the brand Hol-Grain which makes a line of crackers. Donna loves them and bought a box of their brown rice crackers. Did you know that brown rice and white rice are the same thing, just processed differently? Brown rice has the hull with bran intact while white rice has the hull and bran polished off. Donna also bought a couple of pounds of wild pecan rice.

Donna’s spoils from the day out

It’s been warm, humid and windy here. Today the forecast calls for a high in the mid 80s. As I type this at 9am, it’s 73 degrees with 93% humidity. We’re debating our weekend plans. We’re hoping to go to the crawfish festival in Breaux Bridge.