Red Bay, Alabama, October and November, 2016
We left Fairview, IL for Red
Bay, AL (where we’ll get some motorhome problems fixed) on October 18. We stopped in Sparta, IL, three days to visit
with Jerry’s brother and sister-in-law, Don and Sally Woodall. Sally certainly had the “eye” for fall
colors. Their home looked so pretty!
They had saved up some
projects for us! We parked the motorhome
at the World Shooting and Recreational Complex, about 5 miles from their
house. The Shooting Complex, an Illinois
DNR park, had 1000 campsites and 1600 acres in the strip mine spoils, dedicated
to hunting, shooting, and boating. We were there very late in
the season and the whole place to ourselves.
We had not explored their corner
of southern Illinois, so we went touring.
The little town of Chester, located on the banks of the Mississippi
River about 60 miles south of St. Louis, expected the arrival of steam engine
#844. This locomotive was the last steam
engine built for the Union Pacific Railroad in 1944. It pulled many well-known passenger trains,
such as the Overland Limited, the Los Angeles Limited, and the Portland
Rose. Since the engine’s retirement as a
working locomotive, it has been used as Union Pacific’s ambassador of good
will. Some surprising facts: the engine and tender weighed 454 tons, were
114 feet long, and carried 6,200 gallons of fuel. You can see in the photo that I might have
been a little too close to the tracks!
We happened to be in Chester on
the day that the American Queen, the
largest river sternwheeler steamboat ever built arrived. She had 222 staterooms for a capacity of 436 guests
and a crew of 160. She was 418 feet long and 89 feet wide. Plans for another time???
Chester was an old river
town, established in 1829 as the site of a ferry and a mill. It was known for its production of castor oil
for lubrication until the petroleum industry took over. Chester was also home to the creator of
Popeye and the visitor’s center provided me with a perfect photo op!
The visitor’s center gave us
a great view of the bridge crossing the Mississippi and a superb place for me
to pose in my Cubbies’ shirt. I
practically slept in this shirt during the World Series…and my efforts
certainly paid off!
Mary’s River, a small stream
just outside of Chester, was an impediment to the plank road as it made its way
in to town. The solution was to build
this pretty covered bridge.
Don and Sally decided to
travel with us as far as Memphis, Tennessee.
Along the way, we stopped at the New Madrid rest stop where we found a
display about the New Madrid earthquake fault.
(I was in Champaign, IL, in 1968, when I first experienced an earthquake,
thanks to the New Madrid fault). The
biggest earthquake in modern times occurred as a series in 1811 and 1812 over a
period of several days. This seismic
activity changed the local topography, created sand volcanoes (yikes!), and
caused the Mississippi River to temporarily flow backward. It was felt as far away as Boston and New
York!
We found the delightful Tom
Sawyer Campground in West Memphis and, even though we were parked in their
overflow, we thought we had a great spot.
This park was on the Mississippi River flood plain and on the wrong side
of the levee. The last flood’s high
water mark was 11 feet above flood…well over the tops of our RVs. That would be exciting!
We loved Memphis and will
return for more exploring. Originally we
thought one of the attractions we wanted to visit was Elvis’ birthplace, but
the whole area was so surrounded with touristy hype and expense that we skipped
it. We wandered up and down Beale St., surveyed the touristy trinket shops, and listened to the music that came rolling out of the bars. It all reminded us of our time on Bourbon St. in New Orleans.
We did go to Beale St for dinner one evening…such sights! We found yummy dinner at the
Blues City Café where we were served seafood gumbo, ribs, and catfish. Perfect!
Our favorite stop in Memphis,
and, yes I hate to admit this, was Bass Pro Shop. What a place!
The pyramid behind the bridge is the Bass Pro Shop building. Not only did it have all of the
hunting/fishing/sports paraphernalia one could imagine, but also it had a
luxury hotel, a beautiful restaurant, a swamp, and huge aquariums.
The elevator ride to the top took us up 28
stories for a spectacular view of the area.
I don’t think we’d been in anything quite like this before!
Sunday, October 23, Don and
Sally pulled out to head home and we pulled up the jacks to head to Red Bay,
AL. As luck would have it, we pulled in
to the Tiffin Service Center right behind the coach who got the last spot in
the campground. That put us in the
overflow…very busy place right now! We
learned from Norris (the Tiffin employee who visits the new arrivals to triage
the work to be done) that it could be 3 weeks before we got into a repair
bay. Yikes! It was imperative to find stuff to do while we waited for our turn in a service bay!
We discovered that fellow Jell-O
Travelers, Larry and Kathy Belikoff are here for repairs on their Allegro Bus
as well. They were parked at the
Downtown RV Park, a more comfortable spot for their German shepherd,
Dakota. We had dinner with them lots
while we waited and even found a new restaurant in Red Bay, the Mason Jar. This was a yummy place run by a delightful
family.
Since we had spent about
three weeks in Red Bay in May, 2015, we had visited all the easily accessible
and readily apparent tourist spots such as the Coon Dog Cemetery and the
Rattlesnake Saloon. Tough to beat those
places! Our first “second tier
touristy” stop in the area was Woodall Mountain, just outside of Corinth,
MS. This is the highest point in
Mississippi at 806 feet. We drove to the top of this pine-wooded knob
and found it covered with cell towers and no view. Not really very impressive. By the way, I think Great Great Great Grandpa Zephaniah Woodall, for
whom this mountain was named, must be from another branch of the clan…not one
of us Yankees!
Another day we drove to
Natural Arch Park, southeast of Red Bay and hiked through the woods. The 148-foot sandstone bridge towers 60 feet
above winding pathways and is the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies. Rattlesnake Saloon, a touristy spot near
here, was located under an overhang that had not lost its “roof” and turned
into an arch.
We saw lots of evidence of
iron ore, acting as a protective "cap" on the limestone overhangs.
Grocery shopping in the
South was quite a surprise after becoming very accustomed to the offerings in
the Northwest. Here are a few new items
to us:
Grits were very popular but
who knew such a large variety existed?
This robust display of many
types of salsa was a surprise…not to mention the bone suckin’ mustard!
And then there is always
“bourbon and branch water!”
Florence and Muscle Shoals,
located northeast of Red Bay, comprised a large metropolitan area on the
Tennessee River. Since the 1960s, Muscle
Shoals had been known for music and developing the "Muscle Shoals
Sound". Local recording studios
(including FAME Studios in the late 1950s
and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in
1969) produced hit records that shaped the history of popular music.
After exploring the area we
found lunch at a pretty marina on the Tennessee River. This huge waterway was part of the “Great
Loop” which at one time we thought we would cruise.
It’s possible to
circumnavigate the eastern third of the US…east coast, Great Lakes, Mississippi
River to the Ohio River, and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to the Gulf
Coast. This marina would have been a
welcome stop along the route and in fact we talked to a couple who were “loopers”
on their Nordhavn yacht.
Huntsville, about 100 miles
northeast, was home to the Marshall Space Flight Center, a part of NASA. Joy came here to Space Camp when she was in
elementary school. What an
experience! We were particularly
impressed with the Saturn 5 museum and all the history presented. This was an amazing time in our country and
we wondered what has happened to the enthusiasm for space exploration.
While we sat in Red Bay we
watched all the World Series games and moaned when the Cubbies fell
behind. Everywhere we went, I wore my
Cubs shirt and had lots of interesting conversations with folks who would not
have had much to say otherwise. We went
to breakfast with Larry and Kathy Belikoff one Saturday morning and I had a
delightful discussion with a young man who obviously had seriously followed the
Cubs for quite awhile. It was a great
chat, but seemed “half a bubble off” since he had a heavy Alabama accent…not
the Chicago brogue of Cubs fans!
We decided to take the Tiffin
Motorhome factory tour even though we had done this when we were here last
year. We knew we still had a lot to
learn. We were still amazed that the
factory produced 12 motorhomes every day.
Period. Tiffin employed a total
of 1500 employees and 900 worked at the manufacturing plant. This is obviously a plum of a job in
northwest Alabama. In the photo the tile floor
is being laid on the sub-floor of a new Allegro Bus.
The next day we toured the
paint shop in Belmont, MS, just over the state line. It was here that all of the motorhomes were
painted, including the tricky striping, typical of every coach. The facility was huge and
fairly new. It felt much more organized
than the manufacturing plant in Red Bay.
In the photo you can see that it took time and patience to place the
beautiful stripes on the bus.
The weekend of November 5
and 6 we decided to leave the bus overnight and go touring down the Natchez
Trace. This ancient trail extends roughly 440
miles from Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee, linking the Cumberland, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers. The trail was created and used for centuries by Native Americans, and was later used by
early European and American explorers, traders, and emigrants in the late 18th
and early 19th centuries. Today, the path is commemorated by the 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway. The road is a two-line highway on which no
semis were allowed and the speed limit was 50.
Not for the lead-footed!
We settled into our Natchez
hotel and found our way to the “The Camp” a sports bar located “below the
hill”, right on the Mississippi River. The photo is a shot of the bridge that leads
from Natchez, MS, to Vidalia, LA., our view off the front porch of the sports bar. As
luck would have it, the LSU/Alabama football game was televised that evening and
the sports bar was alive with LSU fans.
We stayed for the whole game and visited with a young couple, about Jill
and Bob’s ages (our daughter and son-in-law), from Gulf Shores, AL. A
very entertaining evening!
Sunday morning we toured
Melrose Mansion, the prototypical antebellum home in Natchez. During the Civil War, General Grant,
apparently said “This city is too beautiful to burn” and consequently there
were many antebellum homes to tour, but no time! Off we went to Vicksburg to explore the Civil
War Battlefield there.
Vicksburg saw a prolonged
campaign/seige of several months and employed both ground troops and watercraft. The battlefield itself reminded us of Shiloh
and Gettysburg, with many monuments and markers. This monument to the army of Illinois was
particularly impressive. The toll on
human lives was staggering: Union
casualties for the battle and siege of Vicksburg were 4,835; Confederate were
32,697 (29,495 surrendered). The full
campaign claimed 10,142 Union and 9,091 Confederate killed and wounded. The result of the Union victory
was complete control of the Mississippi River and was the beginning of the end
for the Confederacy.
We did make it to church a
couple of times while we waited in Red Bay.
We attended the First Baptist Church of Red Bay, one of the friendliest
congregations we had encountered. We
even saw an immersion baptism…something new to us. This church was a key member of the community
and had a huge “Treat or Trunk” activity on Halloween.
Another Sunday we drove to
Corinth, MS, to attend an LCMS (Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod) Lutheran Church.
This congregation was very friendly too…all 12 of them! We met a man and a woman from Washington
State and, interestingly, neither knew the other was a Washingtonian. We also met a young man who was originally
from Peoria, IL, and was in the process of transferring to Corinth, where there
was a significant Caterpillar presence.
His family had not yet joined him and he was ready to talk to someone
“from home. The worship was very
traditional and we didn’t think the church would be around much longer.
That Sunday afternoon we
drove to Tishomingo State Park, just over the state line in NE
Mississippi. It was a beautiful warm
fall day and we decided to hike the Overhangs Trail. This was a well-used park and we met several
families with kids and dogs along the way. The CCC had done a lot of
work in this park, building roads, establishing trails, erecting cabins, a
lodge, and even a swimming pool. In the
summer this place surely was crazy busy!
Bear Creek ran through the
park, and had eroded a creek valley with exposed limestone cliffs…thus, the
overhangs. They had built this amazing
bridge over the creek to make the trails much more accessible. As you can see in the photo, the fall colors
were outstanding.
Wonder of wonders!! We got
a phone call to be in service bay #3 Thursday morning, November 10 at 7 a.m. Wahoo!!!
We had about 25 items to be fixed and Danny and Scott jumped right in.
They easily replaced this broken hose that drained our kitchen sink. Every time we used the sink the bay below it would get wet if the slide was in.
By Friday afternoon all of our problems but
the “big 2” were left…a horrible dash squeak and our exuberant odometer…no
decimals in that number! Apparently we
had driven over 7 million miles!
Back to bay #3 on Monday
morning for those dreaded repairs. We
were sure the horrible dash noise would require deconstructing the whole
cockpit of the coach. Jer took the 2 bay
technicians for a drive and Danny immediately knew what was wrong. A cord connecting the Mobile Eye sensor to
the console display passed between the dash and the windshield and squeaked
every time the bus body flexed. Using a dremel tool to create a channel, Danny
solved that problem. Another technician
connected his laptop computer to the bus data center and determined our
odometer should actually read 27,792 (only 22 miles greater than my
calculations!). A new
odometer/speedometer was installed, the correct mileage was programmed and we
were good to go!
Tuesday, November 15, we
left Red Bay to begin our travels to the mid Atlantic States. That’s another story!
