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When the Levee Breaks

We prepared for the impending storm before noon yesterday. Donna went out for a walk with one of our neighbors. I hooked up the trailer in case we had to relocate to higher ground. I also made a run to Macadoodles so I would have liquid refreshment on hand before the rain came.

Macadoodles beer - fine wine - spirits

Macadoodles beer – fine wine – spirits

Macadoodles in Branson, Missouri is one of the nicest liquor stores. The staff is super friendly and they have a great selection at reasonable prices. I picked up a six-pack of Schlafly oatmeal stout brewed by the oldest craft brewer in Missouri. Shlafly is made by Saint Louis Brewery in – you guessed it – St Louis. When they opened their brew pub in 1991, it was the first new brew pub in Missouri since prohibition.

Saint Louis Brewey oatmeal stout

Saint Louis Brewery oatmeal stout

The oatmeal stout was good with complex flavors, but I think it had a tad too much coffee which added bitterness.

The rain held off until late afternoon. Donna prepared carmelized tilapia with lemon and green olives for dinner. She served it with roasted asparagus spears and oregano tomatoes and Moroccan quinoa.

Carmelized tilapia with lemon and green olives

Carmelized tilapia with lemon and green olives

By the time we sat down for dinner, the rain was falling in earnest. After dinner, we watched an old Clint Eastwood movie – Pale Rider. Clint Eastwood had the starring role in his debut as a director. Meanwhile, the rain kept coming down hard.

Before we went to bed, Donna got on the Internet and looked up flood records for the area. She found a few articles about Turkey Creek flooding in August of 2013. She was getting worried about the RV park flooding overnight. I didn’t boost her confidence when I put Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks on the stereo.

If it keeps on rainin’
Levee’s goin’ to break
If it keeps on rainin’
Levee’s goin’ to break
When the levee breaks
I’ll have no place to stay

I wasn’t too worried about it, but I kept a close watch on the water level.

I slept poorly as the rain was drumming on the roof loudly most of the time. Whenever the intensity would increase, I would wake up. I got up a few times to check how the creek was doing. The water level rose and flooded the woods a little higher than before, but it never crested into the RV park.

It stopped raining for a little while around 8am this morning. Shortly after Donna went out for a walk, light rain started falling again. We have flood warnings in effect until 11am, but it looks like we’re in the clear now.

Bill Heading Our Way

Tropical storm Bill made landfall in Texas on Tuesday morning. Rockport, Texas – where we were a few weeks ago – was hit hard. Several roads including the road to the community pool that Donna rode to regularly is currently under a foot of water. South of Corpus Christi, four to six inches of rain fell in just two hours!

The remnants of the storm – called a tropical depression at this point – are moving to the northeast. Southern Missouri, south of the I-44 corridor through Springfield, is expected to get hit today through Friday evening. That happens to be where we are located on the Turkey Creek by Lake Taneycomo. Four to six inches of rain are expected by tomorrow afternoon.

The creek is already overflowing its banks. Here are before and after photos from Donna’s walk showing various points along the creek on Saturday and what it looked like yesterday.

Hackett Falls on Saturday

Hackett Falls on Saturday

Hackett Falls yesterday

Hackett Falls yesterday

Maurice Lane overpass Saturday

Maurice Lane overpass Saturday

Maurice Lane overpass yesterday

Maurice Lane overpass yesterday

We’ve had less than four inches of rain in the last week. If we get more than four inches in the next 36 hours, Turkey Creek may flood. I’m hoping the water released from the dam at Table Rock Lake is reduced to keep the level in Lake Taneycomo from rising too much. If Taneycomo rises, Turkey Creek has nowhere to go but over its banks.

Here at the park, we can see how high Turkey Creek already is. A couple of days ago, we helped our neighbors carry their kayaks to the boat launch. We stood on the concrete ramp that’s disappeared under water now.

The concrete boat ramp is under water

The concrete boat ramp is under water

The woods along the creek bank, 30 yards from our site are flooded.

Flooded woods along Turkey Creek

Flooded woods along Turkey Creek

Great weather if you're a duck

Great weather if you’re a duck

The creek would have to rise significantly before we’re in any danger. When we arrived, I disconnected our trailer. It fit fine in our pull-through site, but the site is uneven and the trailer was situated nose high making it difficult to unload and load the scooter. Today I’ll hook it up in case we have to move on short notice.

Taking the Challenge

We rode the scooter over to Country Mart in the morning yesterday after Donna got back from her walk. She wanted to pick up more fresh produce and also buy dried split peas and smoked pork hocks to make pea soup. We knew we would be shut in for most of the afternoon as heavy rain was in the forecast. Coincidentally, we ran into a new friend – Leann from the pickleball court at Branson Sports Club was at the store. She told us about another market nearby that’s known for its superb meat counter.

I had a mostly sedentary day as the rain fell off and on from about 11am when we returned from the store. The heavy rain came around 4pm and continued into the night. This is why we spend most of our time in the west – to avoid this type of weather. Texas was hit hard again by tropical storm Bill. The remnants of that storm will hit the Ozarks over the next couple of days. We can expect heavy thunderstorms and wind tomorrow and Friday. The forecast calls for better weather over the weekend and through next week.

On Monday, my friend Peter Swingle put a haiku challenge on Facebook. Haiku was originally a Japanese form of poetry expressing a fleeting thought in three lines. In English, the haiku typically has 17 syllables in a 5-7-5 pattern. The lines are cut into two juxtaposing expressions. I’ve never tried writing a haiku before, but I bit on the challenge. Here are some of my favorite responses to the challenge:

Leigh Ritchie Steele –

No shower today
Means a cool dip in the pool
Because it’s summer

Vickie Brutschy Stokes

A lime popsicle
Golden sunshine rays of fire
Green droplets toe bound

Peter Swingle

Sun which was welcome
Now insulting the senses
Tone it back a bit

Laurie Suiter

Fur flies and claws rend
Rough tongues brush to soothe again
Feline peace restored

I wrote

Warm summer rainfall
Sitting dry in my cool coach
Writing a haiku

It was a fun diversion. Yesterday I started another novel – The Third Option by Vince Flynn. It filled most of the afternoon.

By bedtime, I felt like I had been sitting around all day – probably because that’s what I mostly did. Ten years ago, I was in the habit of exercising regularly. I would run or bike and do 50 pushups and 50 abdominal crunches almost every day. I got out of that habit when we moved to Michigan in 2009. Last night, I tried to do pushups and could only do 19 before my core strength ran out. I’m challenging myself to build back up to 50 pushups.

Today we’ll have a dry period this morning, but thunderstorms are on their way.

Pickleball in Branson

After posting about finding a good grocery store that required a long run through heavy traffic, Donna found another store nearby on Sunday. We scootered over to Country Mart, about two miles south of here. I haven’t gone out in that direction much and was unaware of the store. It turned out to be a nice grocery store with a selection of organic produce and other items.

We stocked up on groceries, but took a little too long doing it. Just as we were loading the scooter, it began to rain. We rode home through the rain drops. It was warm and the rain didn’t fall too heavily, so it wasn’t a big deal.

We had thundershowers off and on all afternoon. I kicked back and watched the Moto GP race from Catalunya, Spain – I’d downloaded the European coverage of the event earlier in the day. Later in the afternoon, Donna and I took a walk during a break in the weather. We chatted with some neighbors and then offered to help them carry their kayaks to the creek. Their kayaks are made of plastic and weigh 50 pounds each – much heavier than we expected. We haven’t gotten around to inflating our kayak yet, but we definitely want to take advantage of our close proximity to the lake.

A guy pulled into the park towing a travel trailer behind his truck. He was alone and appeared to be struggling to back the trailer into the site across from us. As I was going out to see if I could help, he got out of his truck and approached another neighbor. The neighbor got into the guy’s truck and started to back it into the site. He was having a little trouble as the owner of the truck was just standing there and not giving any guidance. I walked over and directed the guy in the truck and we got the trailer lined up in the site. Then I found out that the guy that owns the truck and trailer was feeling under the weather and had been driving long hours to get here from New Mexico over two days. He was out of it. He didn’t even unhook the trailer from the truck before he went in to lie down. I rolled up his truck window and closed the driver’s door which he had left open.

Donna prepared spiced pork tenderloin with maple-chipotle sauce for dinner. She served it with asparagus and mashed sweet potato. So good!

Spiced pork tenderloin with maple-chipotle sauce

Spiced pork tenderloin with maple-chipotle sauce

Yesterday’s forecast called for thunderstorms to pass through starting around midday. We took our chances and scootered across Branson to the north side out to the Branson Sports Club. It’s about a 20-minute ride from here. They have indoor pickleball on Mondays from 9:30am to 11:30am. It costs $3 per person to play there. We met a great group of people and played for two hours. There were six courts set up, but we only had enough players for three games at a time.They pushed the time limit and we didn’t finish our last games until 11:45am.

I was getting anxious as I could see a large storm cell approaching from the west on my Radar Express app. We didn’t linger after our last game. We hit the road and made our way back through Branson. We were riding away from the storm cell so I felt comfortable making a quick stop at Macadoodles liquor store. I picked up some IPA brewed in Colorado by Odell Brewing Company. This is a tasty IPA – much better in my opinion than the offering from Mother’s Brewing in Springfield, Missouri.

Odell's IPA

Odell’s IPA

Once again we had a series of thundershowers all afternoon with brief breaks of sunshine in between. I spent most of the afternoon reading a preposterous Clive Cussler novel. It was written in 1975 and it was funny how it illustrates the chauvinistic mores of that time.

During a respite from the rain, we went out and walked to stretch our legs. I was a little stiff and sore from the pickleball activity. My S Health app showed over 8,500 steps on the pickleball court.

I grilled boneless chicken thighs that Donna marinated for dinner. She served it with a delicious zucchini side. The zucchini was cut in quarters, topped with parmesan cheese and herbs and baked to a crispy finish. The chicken thighs were marinated in lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil and fresh herbs.

Grilled boneless chicken thigh with zucchini

Grilled boneless chicken thigh with baked parmesan zucchini

Today we expect the weather pattern to continue with thunderstorms rolling in around noon.

In Search of Groceries

A great comment adding a little history of this area was written on yesterday’s post by Clayton Elisson – thanks, Clayton.

We were up early yesterday. Donna planned to meet up with a bike club at the high school at 7:30am. I prepped her bike at 6:30am and she hit the road by 7am. I mentioned it’s hilly around here. The first thing she had to do after turning on Evergreen Street, just a few hundred feet from the RV park, was climb a steep hill – so steep that she had to dismount and walk her bike to the top. She made her way to the school, arriving at 7:20am and hung around waiting for cyclists from the club. They never showed up. She found out later that they revised their start time to 7am due to the heat. Not having an alternate plan, she rode home.

After Donna returned from her ride, she walked to the post office to mail some letters and then continued walking for a total of four miles. She walked four miles on Friday as well and snapped a few pictures each day. Here are the photos from Donna’s walks – the first four are from Friday, the rest are from Saturday’s walk.

Cedar steps

Cedar Steps, constructed in 1936, 229 steps and 33 landings

Hollister train stop

Next stop…downtown Hollister

Railroad car at the city office

Railroad car at the Hollister Community Center with a view of historic Downing Street

Hackett Falls

Hackett Falls – a short hike from the memorial park at City Hall

Maurice Lane overpass near Old Mill Road

Maurice Lane overpass near Old Mill Road

Branson Scenic Railway

Branson Scenic Railway train coming through

Turtles in Turkey Creek

Turtles in Turkey Creek (taken from Railroad Avenue)

While she was out, I saw a guy fishing the creek by our site. I walked down and talked to him. He’s from Bolivar, Missouri and has fished around here for years. He said the cold water from Table Rock Lake was good for the trout and trout fishing can be good here at times. Yesterday was not so good. While we were talking, Donna called out to me from the other side of Turkey Creek where she was walking on Railroad Avenue.

Fishing hole on Turkey Creek

Fishing hole on Turkey Creek

I rode the scooter up to Sunfest Market to pick up a few groceries – Donna made a list for me. They didn’t have spaghetti squash or jicama, two of the items on her list. I found the selection of produce to be small and the prices a bit high. I came home and we searched online for another store. We found Rhodes Family Price Chopper and Walmart west of downtown Branson where Main Street becomes Country Boulevard.

I memorized the route and scootered over there. My route avoided the downtown traffic but I found the traffic to be just as bad up the hill on Country Boulevard. After you cross US65, you enter a district with museums, theaters, dance halls, concert venues, hotels and resorts. The traffic crawls along at 15mph with frequent stops.

I found the Rhodes store and it was a very nice grocery store. They had spaghetti squash and jicama. When I was checking out, the girl at the register looked at the jicama and asked what it was. When I told her jicama she said, “That’s spelled with a ‘J’ right?” I told her it was – jicama is pronounced HICK-a-mah. Donna cuts it up into what she calls fresh fries and serves it with guacamole.

The traffic was just as bad on the way back. I got caught in a brief rain shower while piddling along at 15mph. I skirted around the north side of downtown to Branson Landing and found Macadoodles. Macadoodles is a large liquor store with fine wine and a large selection of liquor and beer. Now I know where to shop – that’s always one of the challenges when we relocate to unfamiliar territory. Hopefully on weekday mornings, the traffic won’t be as bad.

After I came home, I was just about to cover the scooter when rain started pouring down. We had showers off and on all afternoon – some of the showers were heavy. This afternoon’s forecast calls for the same 80% chance of thunderstorms. I’m hoping they’re wrong and we can ride the scooter up to Branson Sports Club for pickleball at 2pm.

 

Downtown Branson

We rode the scooter over the Branson Landing Bridge to downtown Branson yesterday. In previous posts, I said Turkey Creek RV Village was across the river from Branson. It looks like a river on the map. It’s actually part of Lake Taneycomo. When I looked at the map again, I thought maybe it’s a canal between the lakes. But it’s runoff from the dam at Table Rock Lake that runs to Lake Taneycomo – that’s a river in my opinion, but they consider it an inlet off Lake Taneycomo here.

We scootered along Branson Landing past the big Bass Pro Shops store and turned up Main Street. It’s very hilly around here – only the roads along the lake are flat. As soon as you hit Main Street and go away from the lake, you begin climbing.

The traffic really backs up on Main Street. There’s a traffic light at Veterans Boulevard (Business 65). The two intersections east of there have four-way stop signs. The traffic light has such a long cycle time that traffic backs up through both stop signs on Main Street. With the traffic on Main Street standing still, the traffic on the cross streets – Sycamore and Commercial – go on through. When Main Street starts moving, everyone is confused about who’s turn it is to go next at the four-way stop.

We turned off Main Street at the first intersection and found a place to park the scooter. We walked west on Main Street and looked at the shops. It’s very touristy with gift shops and small clothing stores. I ended up buying a T-shirt. They have a free trolley bus that runs from the park at the foot of the Branson Landing Bridge through downtown. I’m not sure of the entire route it follows, but it’s subject to the same traffic snarl as everyone else.

Free trolley bus

Free trolley bus

After walking around and window shopping, we stopped at Clockers Cafe for lunch. Donna had the daily special which was catfish lightly dusted with corn meal and deep fried. I had the prime rib dip which was thinly sliced prime rib with green peppers, mushrooms, onions and provolone cheese on a hoagie roll served with au jus. Both plates were excellent. The cashier went missing as we were ready to leave. Several customers were lined up at the register waiting to pay for about five minutes before we could head out.

We made another stop at a specialty food shop. They had lots of locally produced sauces, cheese made by Amish farmers north of here and meats they prepare themselves. We tried a few samples and bought sausage sticks for snacks on the road. The homemade sausage sticks don’t have any preservatives, so we froze them for consumption later.

I was a little concerned about a thunderstorm moving in. The forecast called for heavy rain around 3 or 4pm and I could see a storm on my weather app to the west of us, so we scootered out of there.

We rode through the Branson Lakeside RV park on the Lake Taneycomo inlet west of the Branson Landing Bridge. The sites next to the water have a great view, but they’re packed in tight. Roll out your awning and it’ll reach your neighbor’s coach. From there we could see where Turkey Creek runs into Lake Taneycomo and our SKP Turkey Creek RV Village.

After crossing the bridge to Hollister, we stopped at a liquor store near the RV park. They didn’t have much of a selection, so we rode back past the park up the hill to a small grocery store we saw when we first pulled into town. It’s called Sunfest Market and they had a larger selection of beer. I bought a four-pack of Guinness stout (Donna’s favorite) and a six-pack of IPA brewed by Mother’s Brewing in Springfield, Missouri. The IPA is called Lil’ Helper and it’s billed as a “Midwest Coast IPA.” It’s strong at 7% ABV and not too hoppy at 70 IBUs, but it doesn’t match the West Coast IPAs for flavor.

Midwest Coast IPA

Midwest Coast IPA

After we returned to the RV park, a neighbor moved into site D7 next door to us. I mentioned in my last post how our site, D8, and the one to the left of us, D9, aren’t level. It looked to me like D1 through D7 were fairly level. Looks can be deceiving. Nothing is flat and level around here and site D7 is no exception. Our neighbor ended up stacking blocks under his left front jack and raising the coach high enough to lift the left front tire off the ground to level it.

Blocks under the jack to level the coach

Blocks under the jack to level the coach

Yesterday’s thunderstorm passed to the north of us and we escaped the rain. Today’s forecast calls for an 80% chance of thunderstorm by 2pm. Maybe we’ll get lucky again, but my weather radar app shows a large storm cell to the west of us.

Winding Road Ahead

I tied down the scooter and had the trailer completely loaded and road-ready before dinner on Wednesday. After dinner, I took I took my last  walk through Tom Sawyer’s RV Park. I watched a large barge tow heading upriver, then snapped a photo of a rare motorhome. It was an Airstream 310 from the early ’80s – I’d never seen one before. This one was powered by an Isuzu diesel engine, making it doubly rare – most had 454 Chevy gas engines.

Airstream motorhome

Airstream motorhome

When we were pulling out of Tom Sawyer’s RV Park on Thursday morning, I could hardly believe it when I saw a similar Airstream motorhome stored near a shed by the office. It looked like it hadn’t moved in a long time. After nearly two years on the road without seeing one of these rare coaches, I saw two here at the park!

Our destination was the Escapees (SKP) Turkey Creek RV Village in Hollister, Missouri (Map). Our route out of West Memphis took us up I-55 for about 12 miles to the junction of US63. This was the only stretch of interstate on the entire 270-mile drive.

I generally enjoy taking the smaller highways and US63 was a nice road. The pavement was good and the traffic was fairly light. When we crossed into Missouri and headed west out of Thayer on MO142, it got interesting. MO142 has a smooth surface, but it’s a narrow two-lane highway with no shoulder. Most of the time, if you dropped a wheel off the pavement, you would be in a ditch. Our lane was barely wide enough for our 102-inch width. Luckily, there was very little traffic. But, when an oncoming heavy-duty truck would pass, I had to squeeze over to right as much as I dared and brace myself for our mirrors to collide. We managed not to knock mirrors and only had half a dozen truck encounters over the next few hours.

The terrain changed on MO142. We were heading into the Ozarks. The Ozarks are the most extensive mountainous region between the Appalachians and Rocky mountains. Although they are often referred to as the Ozark Mountains, it’s actually a high plateau with deep ravines and ridges. MO142 constantly climbed and dipped. The hills were short and steep. I was either on full power or using the Jake brake to slow a descent. There were so many curves in the road, Nally (Our Rand McNally GPS) was constantly chattering “Left curve ahead” and then “Right curve ahead” or “Winding road ahead.”

After about 40 miles of this difficult stretch, we turned north and found US160 at Caulfield. This seemed like a better two-lane highway – the lane was wider anyway. My opinion soon changed. US160 continued up and down in the fashion of MO142 but soon became more extreme. The climbs and descents were steeper and the road was a series of sharp curves. At the crest of many of the climbs, I couldn’t see the bottom of the descent until we started down. Nally kept warning of the winding road ahead as I would see speed advisory signs of 30mph curves.

At one curve, a car was partially pulled off the road. It was halfway into the lane because there wasn’t enough shoulder to pull completely off the road. We were moving slowly and I braked hard, I couldn’t see around the curve at first to see if it was clear to get around the car. We saw why they were stopped. The passenger door was open and the passenger was sitting on the door sill with his head down – obviously very car sick. It was understandable with all the up, down, right and left motion.

The scenery was beautiful, but I didn’t have much of a chance to enjoy it. My concentration was fully absorbed by driving and keeping us on the road and in our lane. We made a stop at the Bullseye station in Gainesville to top off with fuel. I stretched my legs and took on 38 gallons at $2.55/gallon. I think this was the cheapest diesel price we’ve ever had. Our fuel mileage worked out to 8.5mpg – better than I expected. I figured the up and down terrain coupled with running the diesel generator to run the AC all day would result in poor fuel mileage.

We pulled into Turkey Creek at 3pm – nearly six hours after our 9:15am departure. It was a tough drive. During the drive, Donna and I discussed our options for the next few weeks. We will be in Minneapolis on July 5th, we have a site booked there for Donna’s Senior Olympic bike race. I originally booked two weeks here at Turkey Creek thinking we would move on to Des Moines. Des Moines is problematic due to the Junior Rodeo National event that has the RV parks full.

While we were checking in, Donna mentioned the SKP Stay & Play promotion where you pay for 15 days and get five additional days free. A quick look at the calendar showed that we could stay for 18 or even 20 days and still make it to Donna’s scheduled event with Meredith Publishing (Better Homes and Gardens) in Des Moines. Doing the math, if we stay for 20 days, the promotional rate works out to $14/day. Even if we leave after 18 days, it’s only $15.55/day for a pull-through 50 amp full hook-up site. So we paid for 15 days and have the option of staying up to 20 days.

We have site D8, the only pull-through available for our length of stay. The good news is the site is shaded by a large tree. I don’t know what kind of tree it is – maybe a reader can enlighten me.

Shade tree by our site

Shade tree by our site

The bad news is, the site slopes toward the creek and is also low in back. Getting the coach level was a chore.

Looking up at our site from the creek

Looking up at our site from the creek

All of the 9 sites in row D are pull-throughs. Sites 1 through 7 are fairly level.

Sites 1 through 7 in row D looking toward the office

Sites 1 through 7 in row D looking toward the office

While we were driving with the generator on to power our roof air conditioner, Donna took advantage of the electrical power and put a whole chicken in the slow cooker. Once we were set up, we dined outdoors at our picnic table. The slow-cooked chicken was tender and tasty.

Slow cooked chicken with garlic red potatoes and green beans

Slow cooked chicken with garlicky roasted red potatoes and green beans

Today we’ll head out and explore Branson on the scooter. The forecast calls for a 60% chance of thunderstorms this afternoon.

Another RV Conversion

The weather guessers had the forecast for this week all wrong. They called for thunderstorms Monday through Thursday. It was enough of a warning to make me decide to take the Gibson tour on Sunday – when no work is being performed. Well, we’ve only had one small shower and that was on Monday evening. It’s been mostly sunny and warm. There isn’t a cloud in the sky today here at Tom Sawyer’s RV Park on the west bank of the Mississippi River. (Map)

Donna started Tuesday out with a bike ride. She rode a 34-mile loop, clocking herself for the first 25 miles to gauge how ready she is for her upcoming race. Her goal now is to shave off 20 seconds per mile over the next few weeks.

While Donna was out, I washed the coach. I used a waterless method using a product called The Solution from a company called Super Seal. I don’t have any affiliation with this company – I’m providing a link because I really like the product. I was put on to this stuff by our friends and fellow Alpine owners, Lynda and Dave Campbell. The first time I used it, I went through more than a quart to wash the coach. Lynda told me I was using too much, a little spray goes a long way. She was right, I think I can get two washes from a quart now.

Clean and shiny

Clean and shiny

I spent about two and half hours on a ladder cleaning our rig. It looks great and was worth the effort. The humidity had me perspiring heavily though. I had to take a few breaks and come inside to cool off.

While I was up on the ladder, I saw our neighbor load up his motorcycle with baggage and head out. He had a Kawasaki KLR 650 dual sport bike. These are often called adventure/sport bikes as they can be ridden on pavement as well as off-road. He has an interesting rig. It’s an old work van that he’s converted to an RV toy hauler. The back half of the box is set up as a garage with two motorcycles, a bicycle and tools. The front area, separated from the garage by a wall, is a bunk, kitchen and bathroom with toilet and shower.

Rv Conversion

RV conversion

That's a hang glider strapped to the side

That’s a hang glider strapped to the side

Kawasaki KLR dual sport bike

Kawasaki KLR dual sport bike

I met him later. His name is John and he hit the road three days ago. He’s a software developer and can work from the road. He plans to travel to interesting hang gliding destinations. He also has a road racing motorcycle and wants to ride track days along the way as well. His RV is a work in progress. He told me he’s thinking about putting signage on the van that say something like “Simple Septic Solutions.” That will make it look like a nasty work van and deter thieves from breaking in. Interesting concept.

After he pulled out of the park this morning, we noticed he left his laptop table out on the picnic table. Within minutes, a woman came walking over from a few sites down, picked up his laptop table and started to walk away with it. I went outside and said, “Ma’am, John’s coming back – he wants his table.” She said, “Oh, I wondered why someone would leave a nice table like this behind. Thanks for telling me.” Then I walked up to the office and told the attendant that John left his table behind. They had his cell phone number and called him.

Last night, I grilled chicken sausages stuffed with poblano and cheese for dinner. While I was out manning the grill, I enjoyed the view of the Mississippi River.

Our backyard view last evening

Our backyard view last evening

We’ve had a good time here in West Memphis. Today I’ll organize and pack the trailer. I’ll clean our wheels and set the tire pressures and take down the front window covers. Tomorrow we’ll pull out and head over to the Turkey Creek Escapees Park across the river from Branson, Missouri.

New Travel Plans

Flexibility is key to this lifestyle. We may have certain dates on the calendar where we want or need to be in certain places, but things aren’t always going to go as planned. Our original intention was to visit St. Louis when we leave Tom Sawyer’s RV Park here in West Memphis. From there we would go on to Des Moines, Iowa where Donna has some work scheduled with Meredith Publishing for Better Homes and Gardens.

We dropped that plan after finding the RV park rates in St. Louis are very high – too high to justify a week in a place that we are only marginally interested in visiting at this time. We thought we would move on to Des Moines where Donna could train on her bicycle for the Senior Olympics race in July. (A friend told us about an RV park there with a 20-mile paved cycling trail nearby.) We had to dash that plan as well when we found the National Junior Rodeo Championship was taking place in Des Moines the last week in June. All the RV sites at that park plus more than 2,000 sites at the fairgrounds are sold out for the week.

So we spent a lot of time looking at alternatives yesterday. We decided to head to Branson, Missouri. Actually we booked two weeks across the river from Branson at the Escapees (SKP) Turkey Creek RV Park in Hollister, Missouri. Donna can train for her race in the Ozarks. She found a cycling club that has regular rides in the area four times a week, including a speed workout. From there we’ll go to Des Moines for five days and then on to Minnesota.

That’s the beauty of being mobile. We can change our neighborhood at will and can adjust our travel plans as needed.

Yesterday I posted about the Gibson factory tour. Some readers may be wondering why I didn’t have photos of the tour. Photography is forbidden in the factory. I should have mentioned that in the post.

In my previous post about river barges, I omitted an interesting factoid. The owners of the barge transport companies keep the barges moving 24/7. To do this, they rotate crews. The tow boat is manned by a captain and first mate that take turns running the boat. There are two sets of deckhands. Each crew member works six hours on, six hours off. The cook and the engineer responsible for maintenance and repair are typically the only exceptions to this work schedule. The crew works for 28 days straight, then they are replaced by another crew while they have 28 days off.

I might start washing our coach today. Tomorrow I’ll have to pack up the trailer and make things ready for travel. I’d like to get an early start when we leave here on Thursday.

Gibson Tour

Donna went out for a Sunday morning bike ride at 8:30am trying to beat the heat. She wasn’t entirely successful. By the time she returned from her 26-mile ride at 10:30am, the temperature had risen well into the 80s with high humidity.

I grilled a couple of salmon burgers that we bought at HEB in Rockport, Texas and froze for later consumption. We have two more in the freezer. We had them for lunch on onion ciabatta rolls. I wrote about the fresh salmon burgers from HEB in this post.

After lunch, I rode the scooter to Memphis via the I-55 bridge. I followed Riverside Drive to Beale Street and found my way to Lt George W Lee Avenue where the Gibson guitar factory and retail store is located. Parking is problematic in this area. I had no choice but to pay $5 to park in the Gibson lot.

Ginson retail entrance

Gibson retail entrance

Gibson guitars are made at four factories in three locations – Memphis is where they make the semi-hollow body and hollow body guitars. My ES339 was made here. In Nashville, Gibson USA makes the solid body guitars. Also in Nashville, the Gibson custom shop makes special guitars – my Les Paul 1960 reissue G0 was made there. In Bozeman, Montana, Gibson makes acoustic guitars – my L130 acoustic guitar was made there.

Orville Gibson founded the company at the end of the 19th century to make mandolins. The company was headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan and built guitars there until guitar production moved to Gibson USA in Nashville in 1974. The Kalamazoo plant continued operation as a custom shop until it closed in 1984 and the Nashville custom shop opened.

The tour cost $10. About 20 people were in the tour group. All tours for the weekend were sold out. They give six tours daily, Monday through Saturday from 11am to 4pm. On Sunday, they have five tours starting at noon. Our tour lasted about an hour and we walked through the entire production area. We saw how the process works from beginning to end. There’s very little automation – almost everything is carried out by hand. Each guitar takes about four weeks to  to finish and they complete about 65 guitars per day here. There are several inspections during the process. About 4% of the production is scrapped due to flaws. The final finishing process is all done by hand. The guitars are painted with a nitro-cellulose finish by painters using spray guns. The last step is polishing the finish on buffing wheels. Polishing is a three-step process with increasingly finer compounds used to achieve the final lustre.

My tour ticket

My tour ticket

It was a very interesting tour for me. I was surprised by the diverse people in our group. We had older folks and young people. We had families. Most of the people in the tour weren’t very knowledgeable about guitars – I wondered what enticed them to take the tour. I think most of them didn’t really understand what the tour guide was talking about some of the time – like when he explained the installation of truss rods or how the binding is applied.

After the tour, I walked to Beale Street a block away. It was fairly quiet as it was Sunday afternoon. I saw two bands playing – one was jamming loudly in the court where we saw the Australian guitarist on Friday night. I cooled off with a cold Wiseacre Ananda IPA at BB King’s Club. While I was at it, I checked the Statelines app (from Technomadia) on my smartphone and saw that alcohol is not sold in Arkansas on Sunday. I needed to get some beer, so I decided to stop at a store in Memphis where alcohol sales are legal on Sunday after noon. I saw a funny sign as I was walking down Beale Street.

So true

So true

My map showed a market a couple of blocks away on Vance Street, so I scootered over there. Wow, what a difference two blocks makes in the neighborhood. The gentrified Beale Street is world away from Vance Street. The neighborhood was reminiscent of Beale Street back in the ’70s. I found of photo of Beale Street taken in 1974 on this site.

Beale Street at Third Ave cica 1974

Beale Street at Third Ave circa 1974

I went into the market and made my purchase quickly. I wasn’t comfortable in this neighborhood. The people loitering on the curb outside the store looked rough. I rode back home to Tom Sawyer’s RV Park.

I was inspired to practice guitar while Donna was outside reading a book. Later, we took a walk together through the park. This RV park has very few long-term visitors. It seems like most people use it as an overnight stopping point or maybe a weekend getaway. Unlike most parks, we haven’t seen the usual weekend influx of campers or the Sunday afternoon exodus back to the workaday world. Instead, people seem to come and in and out in a fairly equal exchange. Over the four nights that we’ve been here, we’ve had four different RVs in the site across from us.

One of the rigs that’s been here since we arrived is an old GMC bus converted to an RV. A lot of the bus conversions I see are a little rough looking, but I’m always intrigued by them. Converting an old bus into an RV is a lot of work. It’s invariably a labor of love to make it into your own vision of what an RV should be.

GMC bus conversion

GMC bus conversion

This is a far cry from the Millenium Coach built on a Prevost chassis I showed in my last post. Speaking of Prevost chassis, we saw two more coaches built on Prevost chassis as we walked through the park. The first one was a 2011 Liberty Coach. We met the woman who owns the coach along with her husband and chatted for a while. They’ve had several coaches, including a Marathon Coach built on a Prevost chassis. She said the Liberty was the best they’ve ever owned.

I forgot to take a photo of their beautiful RV, but I snapped a shot of a Country Coach built on a Prevost XL chassis.

Country Coach Prevost XL chassis

Country Coach Prevost XL chassis

Today the thermometer is forecast to hit 90 degrees with less humidity than we’ve had lately. There’s a 40% chance of a thundershower. I might try fishing the ponds here today.