Hot Springs, Memphis and Colin

May 29, 2016

We headed for Hot Springs this morning at around 10:30. It was only a two-hour drive and it was sunny when we arrived. But by the time we ate lunch and set-up camp and were ready to head out to Hot Springs NP, the sky started getting dark. It started raining and then hailing. We looked at the radar and this weather was going to continue until around 6. So, we decided to stay put and head out early tomorrow.

May 30, 2016

We left for Hot Springs National Park at around 9 this morning. Hot Springs NP is the smallest of the national parks. We headed right for the Fordyce Bathhouse that has served as the park visitors center and museum since 1989. 

In 1915 reviews proclaimed the Fordyce Bathhouse the best in Hot Springs. After extensive restoration the bathhouse looks as it did in its early years and it was fun to walk through it and see the tubs, steam cabinets, hydrotherapy equipment, gym equipment, etc.

The Fordyce Bathhouse - Visitor's Center

The men's section of the bathhouse

Dave feeling strong in the Fordyce Gymnasium

We walked along Bathhouse Row and stopped into some of the old bathhouses that now house other businesses including book stores, art galleries, and a brew pub. The buildings are beautiful and include outstanding examples of Gilded Age architecture and the sidewalk in front of the buildings is lined with magnolia trees that were in full bloom and smelled fantastic.

Bathhouse Row

We also walked the Grand Promenade behind bathhouse row. There are springs everywhere, most are covered and collected for the fountains throughout the town. A few are still mostly natural, but they're all hot, 143 degrees F hot! Folks are allowed/encouraged to fill water bottles and jugs at the fountains and we saw a constant flow of people doing that throughout the day.  Because of the temperature the water is safe to drink right from the ground, but most take it home and chill it before drinking

The Grand Promenade located behind the bathhouses

Grand Promenade sign - To fill the idle time between soaks, spa patrons were 

encouraged to exercise outdoors and enjoy nature.

Dave found some hot spring water bubbling out of the ground  

 One of several stations in town where you could fill up water bottles with hot spring water.

Mineral content given at each fountain

We headed to the Superior Bathhouse which has been turned into a brewery. The first of its kind in a national park. They use the thermal spring water as the main ingredient in all of their beer. The thermal water comes through the Superior’s pipes at about 140 degrees, which they say saves both time and energy in the brewing process. Seating in the building is along the windows (with some additional pub tables behind the window seats), the original layout for the spa, but instead of waiting for beer in the early 1900’s they waited for their spa treatments sipping spring water while gazing out on the town. We enjoyed the unique experience of eating and drinking in this beautiful building and the food and beer were awesome!

Superior Bathhouse turned brewery

 Our brews - Dave got the Hitchcock Spring Kolsch and Wendy got the Bees Kneez

Beer Menu

At 1:00 the National Park Service held a Memorial Day ceremony to dedicate a memorial in honor of Park Ranger James Alexander Cary, the first NPS ranger killed in the line of duty on March 12, 1927. Cary was slain by moonshiners he happened upon while on patrol in the park.

Remembering a Park Ranger on Memorial Day - 

Cary’s memorial consists of a bronze plaque and a park ranger hat 

mounted atop a 3 ½-foot-tall Novaculite boulder.

We decided to walk off lunch by hiking up to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower via the Dead Chief Trail to the shortcut trail (haha, you pay in sweat for the shortcut…it’s pretty steep). 

It was interesting to read about the exercise regimens of the people

 who came here for improved health.

Once we reached the tower, it started to thunder and lightning, so we headed down pretty quickly. Not exactly sure which trail we used to head down…we just headed down fast. With the temp in the high 80’s and humidity close to 100 %, we looked like we had gotten caught in the rain when we got to the bottom of the mountain, but it was just sweat! We headed for the car before the sky opened up and stopped for groceries on the way back to the campground.

May 31, 2016

Weather is iffy so we went to the library and did some research on campgrounds to get us back to Florida. For dinner we went to McClard's Bar-B-Q because Wendy read reviews about how popular the place was with travelers and locals. The story behind McClard's goes like this...

In 1928, Alex and Alice McClard ran a tourist court, which also had a gas station and a diner that served up barbecued goat. When a traveler stayed with them and couldn't pay his bill, he offered up a secret recipe for "the world's greatest hot sauce." They took the recipe and played with it and soon the barbecue business became bigger than the tourist court or the gas station. That was the beginning of a family business now in its fourth generation.

McClard's Bar-B-Q is featured in 1,000 Places To See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz

Ribs, Beans, Slaw and a tamale on the side

Caught him with his mouth full. The photos behind Dave are mostly family photos, 
but there were celebrity photos throughout the restaurant.

Jars of sauces for sale

June 1, 2016

Headed for Memphis today. The weather isn’t supposed to be great while we’re here but we’ll make the best of it. It took us awhile to find a level site at this campground, Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park. The campground is nice but with all the rain, we really didn’t have time to explore it.

June 2, 2016

We drove to the Visitor’s Center in downtown Memphis to see what we wanted to do. 

 The Mighty Mississippi

Beale Street Landing

We decided to visit The Rock and Soul Museum. The museum, designed by the Smithsonian, consists of seven galleries showcasing instruments, costumes, pictures, and more. The self-guided tour started out with a movie. Then we were handed headsets for an audio tour of the entire museum. The audio guide includes 300 minutes of information including 100 songs. The sign said the museum takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours to tour on average. We could’ve spent the entire day but we ended up there for 3 ½ hours.  We highly recommend it!

Rock & Soul Museum, Gibson Guitar factory and store across the street

Jerry Lee Lewis case

An old jukebox, a Grand Ole Opry transmitter, and Minnie Pearl's dress

 There were jukeboxes from each era throughout the museum and you could listen to 

the songs by entering the numbers on the audio headsets.

My uncle used to sing this song

The weather was beautiful when we got out of the museum so we walked to Beale Street to sit on the roof top patio at Alfreds on Beale. Since it was 4:00, and we hadn’t eaten lunch, we ended up ordering a late lunch/early dinner and had a couple of beers while we people watched the happenings on Beale Street.

Rooftop at Alfreds on Beale and B.B.King

Then we walked to Silky O’Sullivans outdoor café to watch a duo play. They were really good, but their set ended shortly after we sat down so we moved on to the Blues City Cafe and caught the last few songs of the band playing there. 

Patio at Silky O'Sullivans

We wanted to see the band at Levitt Shell (across town) so we walked back to the jeep that we had left at the Visitor’s Center (about six blocks from Beale Street). It took us a while to find a parking spot near the shell, but once we found one we enjoyed the band! At around 8:30 we started feeling rain drops and everyone starting heading for their cars so we ran for it and we were able to get out of there fairly quickly.

Great band at the Levitt Shell

June 3, 2016

It continued to rain all night and into the morning so we stayed on the rv until noon. After we ate lunch, we headed for downtown Memphis again and went to Stax Museum of American Soul Music. The 17,000 sq ft museum sits on the original location of the Stax Studio and  holds over 2,000 videos, films, photos, instruments, stage costumes, and other memorabilia. 

Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Some of the standout exhibits include an authentic 101-year-old Mississippi Delta church that showcases the gospel roots of soul music; the Soul Train dance floor; and Isaac Hayes’ restored 1972 gold-trimmed, blue Cadillac El Dorado. We really enjoyed this museum and spent about 3 hours here.

 101-year-old Mississippi Delta church

 Ike & Tina Turner exhibit

 Soul Train dance floor

 Some of the musicians who stopped by Stax over the years

 Recording equipment and studio, Led Zeppelin III (and many other famous albums) was recorded with this mixer

 Inside the recording studio. Clips of recording sessions play on the big screens

 Dave listening to Isaac Hayes - By the Time I Get to Phoenix

 Stax records

Isaac Hayes' Cadillac El Dorado

Since the sun doesn’t seem to want to make an appearance today, we headed to Kings Palace Café to eat dinner and listen to some music. The band was awesome and the food was ok. We met some fun people here and decided to move on with them to BB Kings to listen to some more music and dance.

 Great band!

Elijah, Danielle, Wendy and Angel

Dave got caught up in some bachelorette shananaghans

 We had a great time with this bunch!!

Thanks for hanging out with us Danielle, Elijah, Angel & Dean!!

At around 10:30 we headed back to the campground since we have to leave in the morning.

June 4, 2016

We made an appointment to get the RV serviced on June 9^th so we worked out a plan to slowly but steadily get us back to Tampa in time for the appointment and hopefully miss tropical storm Colin. A plan that doesn’t include Dave driving long hours. So we headed out today at around 10 for Jasper, Alabama. We stayed at Clear Creek State Park…another beautiful state park with lots to do. After driving for four hours, we couldn’t wait to get out of the rv and get some exercise…so once we got set up, we jumped on the bikes and rode around the park. We stopped at the boat ramp to have a look at the lake. It looks like we could’ve had a lot of fun on this lake, but since we’re just here overnight, we’ll have to plan to come back sometime and stay longer.

 Nice big sites

Looking forward to coming back to this campground someday!

 Cooling our feet in Clear Creek Lake

The clouds are warning signs from Colin 

June 5, 2016

Up early and heading for Marianna, Florida. This is going to be a long trip…close to six hours. So we headed out at 8:30 and arrived at 3. We had left the jeep hooked up to the rig last night since we had a pull thru site. Unfortunately, we forgot to take the key out of the accessory mode, so when we unhitched and tried to start it the battery was dead. The rangers gave us a jump and we were on our way to our campsite. We’re staying at Florida Caverns State Park…another one-nighter. This campground has a swimming hole and caverns that you can pay to tour. We might have to come back and spend some more time here in the future.

Florida Caverns SP campsite

June 6, 2016

Left Marianna for Paynes Prairie today. Florida is getting hit by Tropical Storm Colin so we drove in rain most of the way to Paynes Prairie State Park. After about 4 hours we arrived only to find out that the governor had put most of Florida under a state of emergency and the park was closed.  So we scrambled to find another place to stop. We ended up in Ocala at Ocala Sun RV Resort where Colin rained all day and all night.

June 7, 2016

Staying put here for another night. Its a beautiful afternoon in Ocala, Florida. With all the rain we found some leaks in the basement (the storage bays on the bottom of the rig).  So we did some drying out and then spent some time in the pool. We're bringing the rig in for a tune up tomorrow at Tampa Truck Center.

So that's all folks! We had an awesome time on our first cross country adventure!! We saw a lot of this beautiful country (over 13,000 miles in 157 days) and met a lot of fantastic people!! Looking forward to our next adventure but for now we're happy to stay put for a little while.