How-dy! We're Just So Proud To Be Here!

This will be a rather long post since we have a lot of catching up to do. So, let me start by giving you a quote from Crazysister. "This is better than any alcohol that I could have had!" You will need to stay tuned all of the way to the end of post to find out what in the name of all things holy she could have possibly been talking about...
On Saturday we toured Nashville. We visited the Country Music Hall of Fame; we walked on Broadway (the main drag), and we took that good ole trolley ride 'cept that the trolley had broken down... so it was just a bus ride. Grayson and Katie got the horse drawn carriage ride in Nashville with a 90 year old man leading an even older horse. Honestly, I thought that it was Fred Mertz off of I Love Lucy... but I guess that he would be dead by now. (Be sure to check out the pictures of Downtown Nashville.) We headed back to the KOA and then hustled over to the Grand Ole Opry for what turned out to be what I like to refer to as "Nursing Home Nite" at the Opry. Now, don't get me wrong- we thoroughly enjoyed the Grand Ole Opry, but we didn't see anyone (except for Hal Ketchum) all night that was under 75 years old! Little Jimmy Dickens was sick so our first host was Jim Ed Brown ( I think that was his name... you know ... Pop the Top Again- that beer song with the sound effects). We heard a cajun cowboy, Riders in the Sky, Jean Shepherd (she's a yodeler ... I think she had a hit like in the 40's), Roy Clark, 'Whispering' Bill Anderson, and Connie Smith. Oh Lord, I almost forgot the Opry Land Square Dancers... one of them 'bout flipped plum off of the stage. After we hiked the 5 miles back to the Excursion, we returned to our humble "residence" for a few shorts hours of rest. Jeanie and I apparently were the only ones to hear the wild banshee or 'cat in heat' multiple times throughout the night. Not even Spawn of Crazysister who was sleeping outside in his hammock claimed to hear the screeching sounds. We were the first 'settlers' to awaken at the KOA, and we rolled out of Nashville about 7:30am heading for St. Louis. After we discovered that somehow we had missed I-24, (off course this was 15 miles from Bowling Green, Kentucky) we began the master plan to try to get "reacquainted" with it. Eventually we did, but in our unplanned detour ... low and behold ... what did we see in the horizon - but the Washington Monument (not really ) . We had found ourselves in Fairview, Kentucky. Do you know who was born in Fairview? The man (who my father-in-law claims) was -and still is- our "only" president, Mr. Jefferson Davis. It seems that his hometown built an 351 foot obelisk in his memory. We promptly paid the $4 fee for the museum tour and the elevator ride to the top. Crazysister is rather claustrophobic so she decided to ask the guide if the elevator had ever broken down... Our guide got this kinda funny look on her face and said, "As a matter of fact - it broke down last Thursday ... and Friday." Crazysister made a sound like the late Jerry Clower ( you know - hawwwww) . However, we did safely arrive at the bottom. Crazysister did have the map during this cat and mouse game with I-24 ... so, she decided that she should be called our "doppler" radar. Yeah ... right!
We left Kentucky by way of Paducah ( which Sister Wendy pronounces as Pa-dooky) and headed into Illinois and to the land of crappy roads (at least from what we have traveled on so far). Our KOA for tonight is actually in Granite City, Illinois (11 miles east of St. Louis). We were a little worried as we began to approach the area ... it appeared to be a subdivision of Piney (yes, the one near Gamewell). However, our little KOA is a nice little oasis. We arrived in time for Katie, Grayson, and Nate to take a dip in the pool. We ordered them pizza, and it was delivered right to our little patch of grass and gravel. While they were eating their pizzas, the older adults headed off to a restaurant that was recommended... Ravanelli's. The menu consisted of fried chicken, meatloaf, mashed taters, and homemade desserts. Ravanelli's made up for the fact that I missed my trip to the Loveless Cafe. The food was amazing! Uncle Bud tried to make us feel bad because he ordered "grilled chicken salad." We ate until we were about to puke... and like all good southerners... then, ordered dessert. The waitress recommended the cheesecake. Jeanie, Wendy, and I all got cheesecake. Crazysister, who happens to be trying to low-carb, opted for the sugar-free butterscotch pie. Her excitement upon tasting her pie was unlike anything we had ever seen before... it was like a combination of limitless beer and beef jerky with free lottery tickets thrown in! She oooed and ahh'ed and closed her eyes and laughed until the whipped cream about shot out of her nostrils. She did let us try a bite of her pie, and it was outstanding (more so to her because she has been living off of peanut butter for several weeks!) I knew that she was serious when she said that the pie was better than alcohol.

Tomorrow we head into St. Louis to ride up into the Gateway Arch and tour Anheuser-Busch. I hope that we leave with our entire group, but that might be a challenge.