03/30/09 Memphis by mistake

I can’t believe it snowed this weekend!! It’s the end of March and I am set for spring, not winter!

A couple of Sundays ago we had a chicken and dumpling dinner at church. Randy suggested it as a way to collect some money for the Family Benefit Fund. They got about $800, although the church decided to split it between the Family Benefit Fund and the Marriage Retreat. 

I finally broke down and bought some new clothes – some items for work and a couple of casual clothes. And then new dress shoes and tennis shoes. Then Randy went shopping with me, so I also got a couple of dresses.  

Last weekend Randy and I took a mini-vacation. Tuesday Randy drove to Theresa’s house with all the pets because she agreed to baby-sit them while we were gone. That’s a lot of driving to get there and back in one day, but he couldn’t space it out more because of his commitments to the RV Park and Aaron. Wednesday night after I got off work we drove out of St. Louis and headed for Hot Springs, Arkansas. We didn’t go too far that night so we got a hotel, and Thursday morning drove on. Around mid-morning while Randy was driving, I started making calls to find a hotel and Hot Springs bath/massage. There are several natural hot mineral springs in that area and hotels have been built up around them, so you have to make a reservation at most of them. When I looked up from my phone and hotel books, we were at an exit I didn’t recognize. Thanks to a wrong turn, we were on our way to Memphis! Since I had learned that most of the hotels were already full, we just went on to Memphis. Got a hotel there in downtown and walked to Neeley’s for BBQ. It was pretty good, but not nearly as good as Corky’s, which is where we usually go for BBQ in Memphis. We caught the trolley back to the hotel afterwards because it was a bit too dark to be walking around. The next day we just walked around Memphis to see the sights. We went to Beale Street, which is very famous. In the day it was pretty quiet – not much going on. We went to Corky’s for a late lunch, and I am telling you that Corky’s is the best dry-rub BBQ in the world! (The best wet BBQ is Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City.) When it got dark we went back to Beale Street – what a difference! The street was crowded and there were blues bands playing everywhere. We enjoyed the whole scene for awhile.

In the morning we thought we would go to Graceland, since we were in Memphis and we’ve never been to Graceland. It was around 9 am and it had been raining all morning so I thought there might not be much of a line. But there was a real crowd lined up, and neither Randy or I wanted to see it enough to wait in a line like that, so we skipped it. We thought about going to Nashville, but decided to come home. I’m really glad we did because it while we were picking up the pets, Sharon called to tell us about the ATV accident, and we were close enough to go to the hospital. Sharon’s daughter Vicki has a 31-year old daughter named Kama. Kama and her 9-year old daughter Paige were on an ATV (without helmets) and it crashed. Kama got a lot of broken bones – she broke her collarbone, pelvic bones and several ribs, which also got her a punctured lung. But all that will heal normally.  Paige, unfortunately, was thrown head-first into a tree. She had severe internal bleeding in her brain and was so bad that after a couple of days there was talk of “pulling the plug”. However, by the grace of God she is actually getting better. She is still in a coma but she is breathing 50% on her own now, and the bleeding at her brain stem has stopped. 

03/30/09

I can’t believe it snowed this weekend!!!!  It’s the end of March and I am set for spring, not winter! Last Sunday we had Sunday lunch at Aaron and Dezina.  Randy made Bella Napoli, which is sort of an Italian version of nachos. It’s really wonderful!  Along with that he made the “Mushroom Mayhem” sandwiches he used to sell in the restaurant. Dezina made a huge salad, and bought most of the ingredients for Randy. We sat around and played “Scene It” with them and their son Jordon and his girlfriend Metcha.  

03/09/09

One nice thing about living at the St. Louis RV Park is that we are close to so many things.  Friday we went to the Home and Garden show at the America’s Center.  A couple who sell a product at shows like that is staying at the RV Park while the show is going on, and they gave us free tickets.  The show was huge – about twice the size of the RV show!  They had everything there.  One section was for landscaping, and all of the presenters had created an example of their work.  Most of them were about 15 feet across; some were larger.  They created small backyard settings, included fencing, mulching, flowers, waterfalls – everything!

For Randy’s birthday, he took the day off.  We had breakfast at the Black Bear Café.  They are well-known for their bakery goods and they have a weekend buffet so we thought we would try it.  They had pancakes (small and thin, almost like crepes), eggs, fried potatoes, red pepper gravy, fresh fruit, and a few other things.  It was OK, but we probably won’t go back.  

As Randy’s birthday present I got him some attachments for the Wii.  The Wii is pretty cool, because we can use it inside the RV.

We also put in a new faucet in the bathroom sink on Saturday.  The old one was short, ugly, and it leaked.  The new one is taller, very pretty…and it leaks.  Just a bit.  The RV is different from a home, so the things that Lowe’s has don’t always work exactly right.  Randy’s going to work with it and I’ll bet he can fix it.

For dinner we went out with friends.  Aaron and Dezina came over with their son Jordon and his girlfriend. A young man how works with Aaron and Randy, named Jarod, also came. We went to Shaffley’s because they had an Oyster festival that weekend. They brought in something like 25,000 fresh oysters, still in the shell. The waiting time for a seat in the regular restaurant was about an hour, but during that time we went upstairs for oysters. It was pretty casual – we stood in line for about 10-15 minutes, paid cash at the door for what we wanted, then helped ourselves at a long table. On one side of the table were several guys wearing heavy gloves, shucking oysters out of the shell as fast as they could and putting them on trays of crushed ice. On the other side of the table were folks like us, loading our plates with the fresh oysters. There was another table with condiments. The common way to eat raw oysters around here is on a cracker, with a spoonful of cocktail sauce, half a spoonful of horseradish sauce and a few drops of Tabasco sauce. Our group of 7 ordered a few dozen raw oysters and a dozen cooked oysters. The cooked ones are breaded and deep-fried. Then we had to find a place to eat. It was so packed there was no chance of finding chairs, but we did find a long window seat, so we put the food out on it and stood around, scarfing oysters. 

I have eaten raw oysters before and they are OK, but I ate the cooked oysters and left the raw ones to the guys who really love them.  Randy said they were really, really good oysters – must have been because they were so fresh. Just as we were finishing the oysters, our table was ready. We were pretty full by then, so Randy and I just split a burger. But Shaffley’s has some good food – Jordon had a lamb sandwich that was good, and Aaron had a beef pie that was great. Dezina had a huge salad and had to take most of it home. Also, Shaffley’s is a local brewer that is quite famous for their beers, so everyone sampled different beers. I still don’t care for beer so I stuck to Diet Coke. The irony is that I was the only person who spilled her drink – I dropped the whole glass!  Randy joked that I just can’t hold my Diet Coke and he was going to have to cut me off! Randy usually likes the Oatmeal Stout, but he tried a coffee beer – I had a sip, and it was pretty good. After dinner we all went back to the RV and had ice cream cake. Oberwise is a local company with really great ice cream, so I went there and got a German Chocolate ice cream cake. We sat around talking until after 10. 

Unfortunately, thanks to Daylight savings, it was really midnight when we got to bed, instead of 11. And the next morning Randy had to get up early. Once a month he and Judy Glass fix breakfast at the church, with the contributions going towards the church’s Family Benefit Fund.  The breakfast starts at 8:30 and he has to fix everything before then, so I really don’t know how early he got up that day.   The breakfast this month was French toast, banana-nut oatmeal and apple-cinnamon oatmeal. Seriously, Randy makes the best oatmeal.

Sunday was very windy here. When I got home from church, I found that the wind had torn off one of our awnings. When the living room section of the RV slides out to make more room, there is an awing that automatically slides out over it. The purpose is to keep leaves and stuff from falling onto the top of the slide so when it pulls back in, there isn’t anything on top that can hang-up and cause damage. But the awning is totally ruined so we’ll have to see about getting that fixed.

And today I’m back at work. I really, really like working 4 10-hour days and having 3 days off every weekend.