The trip home

No pictures from these two days - so we'll have to just go on my own failing memories.

We got an early start on Saturday, loaded the minivan, and checked out by 10:00am. We took 98 west through Pensacola, then across Mobile bay into Alabama (phbbbt!). The drive across the bay was interesting and pleasant. We saw a cruise ship leaving for the Caribbean as we crossed the bridge, and then descended into a tunnel, emerging into the city of Mobile (and unfortunately, no longer on any sort of highway). The city was beautiful (at least, the part we saw of it while trying to find our way back to any major artery). Lots of plantation style homes with Spanish Moss hanging from oak trees, whose branches formed an arched canopy across the street.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We quickly left Alabama (Yay!) and crossed into Mississippi (Boo! - just kidding [not really]). Mississippi is just as long as Alabama, and not any more engaging. We proceeded northwest to Hattiesburg (which is remarkable only in its complete lack of noteworthy characteristics). We stopped at a Subway/Gas Station for sandwiches and fuel (and it had one of the filthiest restrooms I've ever seen - yuck!), then continued to Jackson to meet up with I-55. We continued north to Horn Lake, a Memphis suburb which is just south of the Tennessee state line.

We spent the night at a Drury Inn, which was big enough for all of us, but not really very upscale. The room smelled like someone had been drying beef jerky when we walked in - a strong hickory smoke odor. It was a "suite" - a main room with bathroom, couch, chair and a TV in a cheap-looking entertainment center, and a separate bedroom with two queen beds and a nightstand. We ducked out quickly after checking in for dinner (I think we found an Applebees or something like that).

We came back to the room (man oh man - what is causing that horrible smoky smell?), and changed into swimming suits for a dip in the pool. The girls swam for a while (Lorie's strategy - wear them out late at night with activity so they will sleep well and be ready to go in the morning). After they closed the pool around 10:00pm, we returned to the room (whoa! Smell that smoke!) and went to bed.

In the morning, I went in search of the coffee maker. I was sure we had one, but I had trouble locating it. Then I found it, on a slide-out shelf in the cheapo entertainment center. That's when I figured out where the smell was coming from. Apparently, some previous occupant or occupants had started the coffee maker and slid the shelf in. With the coffee maker heating water and its burner on in that enclosed space, it generates enough heat to scorch the particle board interior. The result is that sickening smell.

We had a short day of driving, so we checked out at a leisurely pace and visited the hot breakfast in the hotel lobby. It was better than the one we had at the hotel in Nashville. They actually had people bringing hot food out from a kitchen somewhere (as opposed to just providing microwave biscuits). But all-in-all, I was under-impressed by the Drury Inn. I miss my SpringHill Suites.

We loaded up into the Suburban Assault Vehicle and headed north, through Memphis. We saw 15 or 20 minutes of the state of Tennessee before crossing into Arkansas for an hour or so, then entered Missouri through the bootheel.

There were armadillos on the side of the road in Southern Missouri! This shocked me. I've never seen an armadillo in person, and I assumed they all lived in Texas. I certainly had no idea that they inhabited our own state. There were also plenty of cotton farms where fascinating-looking machines were busy bailing white fluff into building-sized cubes. Who knew we grew cotton in Missouri?

We stopped in Sikeston, I'm ashamed to say, to visit Lambert's Restaurant - the home of the "throwed rolls".

I was watching the Food Network just a week or so ago, and they had a show called "Top 10 Places to Pig Out" (or something like that). Lambert's was the #1 Pigout place in the country.

This place is surreal. First of all, we were there around 2:00pm, and it was packed! Bikers were everywhere, along with plenty of families. We waited about 45 minutes to be seated. This is apparently the norm, as they provide plenty of outside seating, and a playground complete with a homemade-looking, wooden choo-choo train for the kids.

The restaurant building is huge with its own giftshop. The inside looks sort of like a immense log cabin, and the classiest decorative feature was the hundreds of old license plates on the walls. We were seated at a long picnic bench style table.

The menu didn't have a lot of low-carb entrees. Chicken fried Pork Chops, Deep Fried Breaded Spare Ribs, Whole fried turkeys stuffed with barbecued sausages and Snickers bars... Well, I exaggerate slightly.

I ordered a barbecued pork steak, and it came with two sides. In addition to that, they provide "pass-arounds": additional side dishes (like fried okra, fried potatoes, blackeyed peas, macaroni and tomatoes, sorghum [whatever the hell that is], etc). You just wait for someone to walk by your table that happens to have a pot in his or her hands, get his/her attention, and they slop more food on your plate.

And they literally do throw hot dinner rolls at you. A guy pushes a cart with a 12-dozen size muffin pan full of yeasty Parker House rolls fresh from the oven. You wave him down, and he pops one out and throws it across the room to you. (You can't have one if he's standing right next to you - you have to wait for him to put some distance between you and him so he has some throwing room.) You have to catch it barehanded, and it is HOT, and moving pretty fast, so it's not as easy as it might sound.

Well, nobody left that place hungry, and we all had to-go boxes filled with leftovers. I think I probably gained 14 pounds just from that one meal.

We hit I-55 North and made it home by 5:00. All three kids had school the next day, so we unloaded as quickly as possible, had leftover Lambert's grub for dinner, and hit the sack early.