Change of Plans

One of the days of our trip was designated for arriving in Branson, going to a show, and seeing this fountain at a mall that cost $7 million to build. It wasn't the day of the trip that I was looking forward to the most, but it seemed like something to do.



Mom and I arrived in Branson and the mood of the trip changed. We drove through a city of bad (and I mean bad) drivers, saw trashy store front signs and flashy billboards, and noticed buildings packed so closely together that it just made us feel uncomfortable. We decided quickly to find this fountain and head out of Branson.



Finally, we did find the fountain and it was impressive. There was music playing and water shooting up and the Bellagio's fountains are way cooler. There were people sitting around watching the water spray up in the air. I took out my camera, because that is what I do, and snapped a few quick shots. Mom said, "Okay. We saw it. Let's leave." She was not a fan of Branson and I have to admit I wasn't either.

The fountain that we visited and people watching the water.


With the change in plans, we needed a place to stay. Mom called while I drove and we found a hotel in Springfield, Missouri. Our hotel experience was not the most pleasant, but at least we had a good meal at the Springfield Brewing Company. After two dinners of ribs, we both wanted to have either a good burger (no fast food) or a decent steak. I searched online and found the Springfield Brewing Company, which advertised prime rib. We agreed that the menu looked a little more diverse and decided to give it a try. (Is it odd that I based the fact that they might have good steaks based on the fact their appetizer menu had spinach dip, chipotle sauce, and pita bread on it? I just figured if they had that type of appetizer menu, they must have a chef or two that knows how to cook a good steak.)

When we got there, Mom and I found it to be delightful. For an appetizer, I got the Bavarian pretzels, mainly because I never considered this as an appetizer before. A little heavy on the salt, but the pepper jack cheese to dip them in was great! My entree was the Redbird Pie. It was "seasoned ground beef and onions topped with brown gravy, green beans, corn, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, shredded cheddar cheese and topped with a flaky pie crust." It wasn't too shabby. I forget what Mom ordered, but I think it was a burger of some sort. She enjoyed it, I remember that much. She ordered a beer, brewed there of course, and I ordered a root beer.

And wow! It was probably the best root beer I have ever had. The menu stated it was made from birch bark, star anise, vanilla, and peppermint. It so good. If they would have sold it, I would have bought a case. As it turns out, the place was a good place to pick up gifts for Liz, James, and my dad. I bought some six packs of micro-brewery beer for each of them, mixing and matching. This evening was a pleasant surprise on the trip.

The hotel experience was not good. It is a corporate hotel, but managed by some cheap people. Little things added up to a long list of complaints and I don't typically complain about hotels. Our room had fingernail polish (purplish-red) all over the walls, table, and lampshade. It was splattered in such a way that it was most likely the remains from a fight. The bathroom door didn't work right and the light switch was oddly on the outside of the door. It was a room for two, but only had a single cup serving of coffee. Mom went to go swimming in the morning and the pool was so dirty she couldn't see the bottom of the pool. She went to the counter to complain to find a sign that indicated the only way to get an extra towel was to bring the wet one to the counter. There was also no one at the front counter for over a half hour, while customers were waiting.

All of this is little, but one of the more annoying things, at least in my opinion, was something my mom noticed. She works in the food industry and she is aware of which products and the quality of those products that her competitors make. There was cereal in the lobby in the morning in General Mills containers. Except it wasn't General Mills cereal. It appeared the people running the hotel had emptied the original containers and kept refilling them with imitation products. But they also didn't do their homework since a type of cereal (a knock off of Frosted Flakes) was in one of the containers. Frosted Flakes are produced by Kellogg's. It just showed another way the management of this hotel was trying to cut costs. It's not so much that they didn't have General Mills cereal, but that they were falsely advertising that they did. Oh well, Mom did make a complaint to corporate.

In the morning, we hit up a couple of attractions in the area before driving through Oklahoma and into Kansas. We went to this exhibit called, "Wonders of Wildlife," that was next to a large Bass Pro Shop. It was an educational tour filled with some wildlife and interactive displays. There was an annoying family walking through about the same time as we were where the grandma let the kids run around and bump into/push/be rude towards others. We kept trying to hold back or get in front of them, only to find them popping back up. Oh well. But some of the exhibit was cool.

This bird kept flying by people, probably expecting food. Except there wasn't food to feed it. Who knows?

This was an exhibit to show the parts of a fish. Mom stood in the mouth. It was funny!


These are called Look Down fish. Anyone think of Dick Cheney here or is that just me?

Frogs, aka Green Duckies, for DM

It was behind glass and hard to photograph, but here is a Bald Eagle. Man, these are big birds!


After we went to the Wonders of Wildlife exhibit, we went to Fantastic Caverns. Advertisements showed this to be a tour of a cave involving a motorized vehicle and Mom was a fan of that. She is still recovering from the hip replacement surgery and doing well, but the idea of riding through a cave sounded good. And I like caves, so it worked out well.

This cave is one of four in the world large enough to drive through. It is the only one in America and possibly North America. We piled into this car pulled by a jeep and we were on the tour. I do like caves. (There will be another post about caves soon.)



While we were disappointed in Branson, it was okay. We had a great time in Springfield, even with the bad hotel room. I got to add another cave to my list of visited places (I'm becoming a cavern junkie) and had a great meal. It was cool.

A Bite to Eat and a Place that Made Me Cry

I'm not going in any particular order from the trip. I'm sorry for that. I'm not really sorry about posting so many pictures. Part of the benefit to posting the pictures is that I'm capturing some moments from the trip before they slip from my mind. Another part of the benefit is I get to share some things I found to be cool. I know that some will feel that I'm posting too many pictures, but oh well.

The day we left Memphis was the day we drove into Arkansas and towards Little Rock. Tonight's post is about that early afternoon drive, before we reached the mountains. The mountains will be a separate post, but tonight I share a visit to a fast food restaruant and a visit to a museum/library that moved me.

Sonic is advertised here in Minnesota. We don't have this type of restaruant here. It might be the cold weather that deters eaters from sitting outside and having food delivered. I don't know. But since I've seen Sonic advertised, Mom and I had to stop. Just to see what it was. As it turned out, the place wasn't bad. I wouldn't call it the best food I've eaten, but it served its purpose. Here are a couple pictures of Sonic, for those who have never seen the place.



After eating, we headed back on the road towards Little Rock. We had one item on our agenda for the city and it was a good one. We planned on visiting the William J Clinton Presidential Library. Oh. I miss Bill. So much. Mom has been saying that she misses Bill for a couple of years now. I agree. Walking through the library and seeing the figures on our economy, on our foreign policy, on how world conflicts were resolved, and just hearing speeches of his made me wishful for 8 years ago. It is a very stark contrast to where our country is today.

We wandered the floors of the library and ended the visit with a video. Bill Clinton narrates the video, discussing his political campaigning and some of the things he was proud of during his administration. Just listening to him speak, hearing his voice, and being caught up in his charisma was powerful. Mom and I both sat in this dark auditorium sobbing. I do miss him.

After touring the library, we took a trolley to the gift shop where we both went a little nuts. I bought two shirts for myself and one of them has, "I Miss Bill," on the back. It was cool to walk into the gift shop and see the words my mom has been saying for a few years.

(On a funny note, my mom was told at work that if she voted for John Kerry that gas prices would soar and that we'd be in a war that we can't get out of. Well, a couple of years later, she told that person, "You know, you were right. I did vote for John Kerry and gas prices have soared and we're stuck in a war we can't get out of." The person did laugh and blushed in embarrassment.)

The library is right next to the Arkansas River, one of the six state name rivers we crossed on our trip. There was another bridge, not so big and scary. The pictures below are of that bridge and river, the library from the outside, and a few of the exhibits inside.



How cool is this!?! Awesome!

Live Music, Drinks to Go, and Neon Lights

On two nights of our trip, Mom actually pushed bedtime back to a respectable hour. The only thing that kept her awake past 10 pm besides arriving at a hotel at 10:01 was the draw of Beale Street in downtown Memphis. Door-to-door bars with live blues music and alcoholic beverages seemed like the thing all the cool kids would do on vacation and so we did it too. We stayed in Memphis two nights, the only stop on the trip that we didn't have to pack up all our junk in the hotel room immediately after waking in the morning, and we hit the town both nights. Never closing down the bar though; I leave that for home. Jeez, you'd think with all the time I spend in bars I'd actually drink liquor. Not since that ultra-embarrassing night in January of 2006 though. Oh well. Back to my point.

Beale Street is a pretty cool place to visit at night. Gift shops are open late, there is music coming from every other bar, and a "Northerner" will be astounded by the different cuisines advertised in the windows of different restaurants. The first night, we started at a place called the Rum Boogie Cafe, where we did break down and purchase a CD. It's still in my suitcase. This is in no means a testament to the music on the CD, but only that I've been too lazy to unpack the clean clothes and all the souvenirs. School going back in session may have something to do with that or the fact that I have screwed up my right shoulder so badly the thought of bringing non-necessities into my apartment makes the pain even worse. Heaven forbid to think of the pain if I lifted something heavy.

But back to the Rum Boogie Cafe. When we sat down, Mom said she was going to the bar to get a drink and would get me a soda. As she returned, she looked at me and was aghast to find that I had a couple of strands of Mardi Gras beads. My mother, who should know me just a little by now, exclaimed, "What did you do to get those?" Her accusatory tone was full of shock and I felt like I was 13 again.

My response was simple. "I sat here." She didn't believe me until the man leading the band noticed her and threw two strands of beads her way. She was then quite content with my story and was thrilled that she had beads. Ah, the ways we amuse ourselves.

I think I enjoyed this bar the best. The music was excellent and it had a good crowd. There were dancers, but also enough room for dancers. Which is always a plus because the experience of having a drunken swing dancer's ass slamming into your table/back/elbow if positioned correctly is not my idea of happiness. To each their own.

Without further ado, I present the Rum Boogie Cafe visually. Don't mind me, I was born with a camera in hand. (Okay, if you believe that, mind sending me $1,000?)

Not a great picture, but you can see the beads.


From the Rum Boogie Cafe, Mom and I headed to BB King's place.



And, of course, random images from walking not "10-feet off of" Beale.

Oh, did I mention the crowd as we tried to leave BB King's place? As we were leaving, I thought about purchasing this T-shirt I saw as I walked in. I was trying to ask the girl at the door about it, but there was a large commotion and a line to get out of the bar. At first, I figured it was because the band just stopped playing and maybe this was normal. It wasn't. I finally got the girl's attention and had this conversation with her:

Her: Oh my god! Oh my gawd! He shook my hand. That movie star, Steven Seagal, just shook my hand! Oh my gawd! Oh!
Me: How much is that pink T-shirt?

As it turns out, Steven Seagal was just outside the building. I was not excited. Mom did take a picture of him, only because Scott does like this man's movies. The picture didn't turn out well and neither of us really cared. I'll just say the man, whom I never found attractive to begin with, looks old. And looks like taking beatings for a living and performing martial arts didn't help him age well. Oh well. It was time to head back to the hotel and get some sleep.

The second night on Beale Street was filled with loud engines. There was some sort of event with motorcycles taking place. None of these pictures have been edited yet, so forgive me if the cropping is not the best. While I was working on this post, I realized that the second night's pictures ended up missing my editing process. Whoops! The evening was fun. Mom and I shopped, bought tons of gifts, and caught a bit more music at a place called Wet Willies. I ended up being the dullard at the bar, ordering the "Weak Willie," virtually a grape slushy. We listened a band play there, fascinated with how all the members of the band watched the keyboardist for their cues. Some women requested the band play, "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone," and the keyboardist did a good job of faking the words. He was pretty far off, but it was recognizable and a lot of fun.

On the way out of this bar, we noticed the Hard Rock Cafe. It was closed, unfortunately. I wouldn't have minded a T-shirt from Memphis. We headed back to the car and was approached by a man who wanted money. He was probably the most interesting weird person we ran across on the trip, but paled in comparison to Shrunken Head Man. Oh well!



We did have a ton of fun on Beale Street. I liked staying up late and listening to live music. Mom liked the music and the atmosphere.