Memphis and St. Louis

Friday, November 13, 2015

Here we go again!  This time it was just a short weekend trip down to visit my sister. We had a morning flight out of Detroit and landed in St. Louis a short while later. It was nice to have such a short flight. The flight was smooth and we ended up with awesome seats right near the front – we were thinking that maybe not spending the extra cash to pick a seat was not so bad after all.

Bollinger Mill State Historic Site

Once we picked up the rental car (Budget – super cheap and a very short line!) we headed south towards Cape Girardeau, MO. My sister had to work part of the day so we stopped by the Bollinger Mill State Historic Site along the way. It was a nice site (free, except if you wanted to tour a part of the mill).

We had lunch at My Daddy’s Cheesecake in Cape Girardeau. I had the Apple Harvest Salad -it was yummy. Mike had the Cuban sandwich – he enjoyed it.  I tried the Red Velvet Cheesecake – was not impressed. Mike had a frosted brownie, which he though was good.

Downtown Memphis

After picking my sis up, we headed south to Memphis, TN. We arrived in Memphis around 5pm and decided to check out Beale Street. There was a lot of parking around – mostly $10. BB Kings Blues Club was our dinner choice. There was a $5 cover to pay the band. The band that was playing while we were there. Will Tucker Band – they were good. The food was good and reasonably priced.

To book the hotel, I used a website that was linked from KAYAK.com.  Hoteltravel.com was the name of the booking website. I was a little worried – I should have researched before I booked – the site had mixed reviews.  Luckily everything worked out great.  We stayed at the Comfort Inn near “Mud Island”. Our room was on the 14^th floor and we had a lovely view. The room appeared to have been recently updated. The bathroom was a little run down, but everything else was good.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

National Ornamental Metal Museum - Art

Once we finished the normal breakfast fare at the hotel, we walked around for a while. We attempted to go to Mud Island, but it was closed for the season.  After the adventure walk, we decided to head to the National Ornamental Metal Museum – mostly because it was the only thing that opened at 10am. It was a neat place with some very interesting metalworks. There was a $6 fee to view the displays in the buildings, but I think you can walk the grounds for free. We spent about 45 minutes at the site.

Visiting Graceland was our main objective for the day. Before heading there, we stopped for lunch at a local BBQ place – we choose Central BBQ. We were disappointed – it was not anything special, it was just normal BBQ.

Graceland was pretty neat, despite not being a big Elvis fan.  We opted for the Graceland Platinum Tour ($40 or $36 with the AAA discount). The tour is guided via a tablet. Once inside the mansion it was a bit rushed feeling. Eventually it thins out a little and you can actually see everything as the tablet is telling you about it. The tour got really congested once it got the award building. It did not seem to be an overly busy day based on the parking lot. I would hate to see it on a “busy” day. Also be sure to take photos of the front of the house before entering the mansion. It is kind of a hassle to afterwards – the line is for the bus. You can tell the person you want to take photos of the front but then you will have to get back in the bus line again. The problem with this is that there were other people still waiting to start the tour so the front of the house was never really clear of people. The “Jungle Room” was by far the most hideous room of the house. Viewing the cars was neat – they had nice displays. The archives were kind of neat also. We probably spent about 3 hours visiting all things Elvis.

Heading back to Cape Girardeau, we stopped at Lambert’s Cafe – Home of Throwed Rolls. It was a very big restaurant and a lot of fun. Wait staff comes around with rolls, black eyed peas, fried potatoes and onions, fried okra, macaroni and tomatoes (yum!), and apple butter. Some things rotate around more than others, for example I wanted to try to macaroni and tomatoes but it came by before we had got the food that we had ordered. We were all done and paid our bill before it came around again. It is a lot of fun watching a roll get tossed across the room – people are pretty good at catching them!  I had the chicken potpie – very tasty. Make sure you visit when you are hungry – you will be stuffed when you leave! From Lambert’s we had about a half an hour drive back to Cape Girardeau.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Forest Park

My sister took us for a tour of the town and then we headed back to St. Louis. In St. Louis, we visited the Ulysses S. Grant Home NPS. We had visited this site back in 2012. The video had been updated so we watched that and then headed to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. The custard was really good – I am not a custard fan usually. After the custard, we headed to Imo’s Pizza. The pizza was mega thin crust and had awesome cheese. We also tried the baked ravioli - that was also pretty good.  It was recommended to use to try the above food items – I can totally see why!

Originally I had planned to go check out the botanical garden, but then decided to check out Forest Park instead.  Forest Park was okay. It would be a lot prettier when the fountains were going and there were flowers.

We got the rental car returned and sat around the airport for a while. The security lines were probably about the shortest I have ever seen. The not picking our seat thing did not work nearly as well on the return flight. We ended up at the second row from the back. It worked out okay though, since when we landed and arrived at the baggage return our luggage was waiting. The flight arrived about 25 minutes early. We had our luggage picked up by the time we were scheduled for arrival. All and all we had another great trip!