ONE MORE SLEEP!

Well, we made it to Jackson, Michigan the last stop before home. Yahoo! We are both excited about getting home now. It has been a great ride. I plan on doing a final blog on Wednesday to give some closing comments and facts about our journey. Hope you will check it out.

When we were leaving Clarksville we saw these prison attendees doing garbage detail and an officer watching over them. Great idea.

We drove through a couple of showers and that was it, however, it remained mostly cloudy throughout the day. The temperature reached a high of 20C and it is currently 18 while I do this (5 o’clock). The winds are a little gusty right now but are to subside shortly.

This campground is quite large and had just turned the water on today. I am sure it was a farm with the farmer converting it all to a campground. The majority of sites are taken up by seasonal people and they seem to provide a great family atmosphere.  We don’t think they have many coaches come in or are really familiar with them as they wanted us to park on a grassed section. There was no way I was going to put our 12 ton unit on a wet, grassy area in the spring after some rain. After some site checking we talked them into letting us park on one of their roadways where our hydro cable would reach.

 So here we are parked on the road for the night.

 Not many pictures for today so I added some taken at Graceland.

Living room

Dining room

Kitchen

Pool room with fabric covering the ceiling and walls.

Ceiling

Jungle room with brick fountain and green shag carpet on the ceiling and floor. (wow!)

One last day with a 5-6 hour drive ahead of us.

http://goo.gl/maps/Fnu1L

MADE IT TO INDIANA

Today it was cloudy when we left West Memphis and as we drove through Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and into Indiana we hit a couple of showers (nothing serious), sunshine and then some clouds again. The high here in Clarksville, Indiana which is located across from Louisville Kentucky is 22C.   

The rolling hills of Tennessee.

It was a long drive which included a traffic jam just south of Louisville delaying us for one hour. We don’t even know what created the holdup. All of a sudden the traffic started to move again.

Not moving too fast here.

People really thought they were getting ahead by switching lanes all the time.

This KOA campground is pretty much empty but we talked to two other couples that rolled in today as well. One couple lives in Michigan and the other from Cornwall, Ontario. So it seems this time of year the campground is a stopping point for the northern people on their way home. The trees here are just starting to bud out and the grass is green.

We also caught up today with Ontario time, so no more adjusting the clocks. Yea!

http://goo.gl/maps/fVFxL

On the move again tomorrow.... (only two days from home)

DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS TENNESSEE

 It was a nice 22C today with a little cloud and winds.

Cathy was all excited about seeing the Peabody Duck March more than she was about seeing Graceland, so off we went to the Peabody Hotel. The “Duck Master” marches one drake and four hens out on the red carpet to the fountain in the middle of the hotel lobby at 11 o’clock and parades them back to their $100,000 penthouse “Royal Duck Palace” at 5 o’clock. They come down by elevator and when the doors open they make a mad dash to the fountain and are very excited to be in the water.

The Fountain - thought it would be larger.

Lots of people watching - the elevator is to the left of the fountain.

The Duck Master

The ducks have 3 stairs to climb to get up to the fountain ledge.

Once the elevator doors open they run straight for the fountain.

How it all began.

After the ducky event we took a walk over to Beale Street, they close a section off from vehicles on the weekend so you can walk down the street and look at the restaurants and stores. We had lunch on an outside patio here and then walked over to check out the Cotton Museum at the Cotton Exchange. This was a very interesting museum and was quite educational. It showed the different harvesters, covered the black labour, the impact of the cotton gin and the economical impact as well in the southern states.

    

Beale Street

Another T-shirt

A cigar box guitar for $350.00

A cotton bale (on the left!)

Boll Weevils

We passed this pyramid and found out it was a Pyramid Arena being renovated into a Bass Pro Shop Mega store.

 

We are on the road tomorrow.

GRACELAND!

In yesterday’s blog I never mention where we are so I want to get that out. We are in West Memphis located in Arkansas just over the border from Memphis Tennessee.

The rain quit last night and became very foggy in the morning reaching 7C but warming up to 18C with lots of sun through the day.

The fog is clearing.

While letting the sun warm up in the morning Cathy and I took a bicycle ride around the campground and to check out the roadways throughout to see which one won’t muck up the Wing too badly. While touring around the site we came across a building indicating the water level from the flood here in 2011.

Talking to one of the guys who work here, he says they have a good warning prior to the actual flooding and they have time to get the buildings moved (that is why they are wheels) and hydro turned off at the sites, etc.

As John Cash would sing "How high is the water momma".

Just hook on and haul away.

After lunch the fog had cleared and we jumped on the Wing, crossed the border and headed to Graceland even though Cathy says she wasn’t a real Elvis fan. It was a short 15 minute drive. Graceland is located in the city but went Elvis bought the property it was in the outskirts. Elvis bought this house and 13 acres from a Doctor and his wife for $100,000.00. The house was gift to the Dr. and his wife, from the wife’s aunt called “Grace”. They called the property Graceland.

Front

Back

We took the tour through the house (can’t go upstairs), the racquetball building, trophy room, office building, the two airplanes and several buildings with his outfits, record awards and vehicles he owned and of course the cemetery where Elvis, his parents and grandmother are buried.    

Front gate - if you look closely at the bricks you can see the names and dates people have put on them.

The whole wall was covered.

A constant supply of flowers are dropped off daily and are removed when they are spent.

I have more pictures which I will post later.

We then came back to the campground and sat on the bank of the river and watched the flatboats go by pushing the barges. They go by every 10 minutes or so.

Till tomorrow....

“HI Y’ALL” FROM ARKANSAS

It continued drizzling on and off all day in our travels today with a cooler 8C for a high. We noticed some differences as we ventured north, the greenness of the grass was turning browner and the trees have not started to leaf out yet.

We took a section of the Natchez Trace Parkway.

It was really weird at one point as we crossed over a bridge; I felt the urge to jump off of it when Cathy said we were going over the Tallahatchie River (hint - Ode to Billy Joe). Just after our lunch Cathy started having problems with both gps devices. One completely froze up and the other was indicating a weak signal. Cathy was worried not having her support there to help her but she managed fine. She did however make a call to tech. support after we got settled in and found out one of the satellites was down for service or repositioning by the government. They did start working later on.

Tallahatchie River

We journeyed north through Mississippi, across the south-west corner of Tennessee and ended up just inside the Arkansas border. We are in “Tom Sawyer’s” RV Park located right on the Mississippi and I mean right on the river. We are parked about 90 feet from the bank. As we look out the front of the coach we can see the barges going by. I am not sure if I will be able to sleep with all of this rain, as the river level could go up (yikes)!

The view

Cathy checking things out.

 http://goo.gl/maps/w6MJe

All for now - I have to mark the water level on the river bank.