{"id":3247,"date":"2014-10-08T22:04:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T03:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=3247"},"modified":"2014-10-08T22:04:15","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T03:04:15","slug":"king-biscuit-blues-fest-day-1-on-the-road-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=3247","title":{"rendered":"King Biscuit Blues Fest: Day 1 On the road again"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 7:00 this morning, Sascha starts throwing herself down on the floor and sighing really big.\u00a0 I mean, really big.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised the air isn\u2019t sucked out of the room.\u00a0 That\u2019s her sign she is tired of watching me sleep.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to put her outside.\u00a0 Yeah, she\u2019s right.\u00a0 I\u2019ve probably slept enough.\u00a0 I drag myself out and get ready for the morning.<\/p>\n

I get the paper, make coffee, and settle in to read while everyone sleeps.\u00a0 I turn on \u201cYour Roots\u201d to see what Tuesday night\u2019s show was.\u00a0 I love this show.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about genealogy, DNA, and family stories.\u00a0 This is something I love to do myself.\u00a0 Anderson Cooper, Ken Burns, and Ann Deveare Smith are the guests.\u00a0 There were great stories and great family trees.<\/p>\n

Rick wonders out of his room and says hello.\u00a0 It\u2019s time for him to get ready and get out of the house of his first class of the day.\u00a0 He gets his breakfast, dresses and looks out of the window.\u00a0 Then he dashes out of the back door without a word.\u00a0 Wait!\u00a0 This isn\u2019t good.<\/p>\n

Sascha has been digging in one of my flowerbeds again!\u00a0 She seems to get a denning instinct in the fall and wants to create a huge body hole to hide in.\u00a0 Just not in my flowerbed!!\u00a0 She knows she has done wrong.\u00a0 Rick brings her in and she heads straight for Rich\u2019s desk.\u00a0 She is hiding in her inside den.<\/p>\n

I got and find shoes so I can repair the damages.\u00a0 Rick waves from his car as I get a shovel to scrape up the dirt.\u00a0 The patio is covered in loose dirt.\u00a0 Sascha managed to dig below the tree stump that is hidden under the dirt in that bed.\u00a0 She even dislodged the bricks around the edge.\u00a0 Darn her!<\/p>\n

I use the shovel to scrap up what dirt I can return to the bed.\u00a0 I shuffle dirt around until I have it filled in.\u00a0 Then I go looking for plywood to lay down on the flowerbed.\u00a0 I stack the loose bricks all around the plywood and over the loose dirt that I didn\u2019t cover.\u00a0 I\u2019ll know she\u2019ll find a way in, but I hope it won\u2019t be easy.\u00a0 Darn her!\u00a0 I said that already!<\/p>\n

By now, Rich is up and moving around.\u00a0 He has showered and is working on his packing.\u00a0 He never packs ahead.\u00a0 He waits until the morning of to figure out what goes into his bag.\u00a0 I guess guys have an easier time of packing.\u00a0 I head off to the shower and then finish up my packing.\u00a0 Last of all, I pack my computer and electronics.\u00a0 How would I write this blog without my computer?<\/p>\n

Next step is to get everything into the car.\u00a0 At this point, Sascha is out from under the desk and at the back door competing to get out to the car.\u00a0 She so wants to go and not get left behind with Rick yet again.\u00a0 Sorry, girl.\u00a0 There\u2019s no room for you at King Biscuit Blues Fest.\u00a0 We manage to get by her and get everything transferred to the car.<\/p>\n

Sascha gets a big hug and a pat on the head.\u00a0 Maybe next year.\u00a0 Then we head out to Island Caf\u00e9 for breakfast.\u00a0 There are maybe three tables of people.\u00a0 This should be easy.\u00a0 We order our food and get our mugs filled with steaming coffee.\u00a0 Ah, that\u2019s better.\u00a0 Time to start this vacation right.<\/p>\n

Right after we run by the credit union at work to get Rich\u2019s debit card straightened out.\u00a0 He tried to activate it over the phone without any luck.\u00a0 Who knew you would need to know 10 different things about your life and what you answered as security questions 2 years ago!\u00a0 Luckily, it took 5 minutes to fix.\u00a0 Cash in hand, we were ready for the big highway.<\/p>\n

We got onto 290 and down to 355 before we knew it.\u00a0 The GPS was telling us to stay on 355 to 80 and take 57 down through Illinois.\u00a0 It had been quite a while since I had gone down that way.\u00a0 The traffic was light with only a few trucks along the way.\u00a0 It was almost like a weekend or a holiday.<\/p>\n

Auto Nag on the car was driving me crazy though.\u00a0 The car wants to stop you from hurting yourself or even getting yourself into a possible situation.\u00a0 It slows the car down when you get within so many feet of a car.\u00a0 It tries to stop when you speed up.\u00a0 I was actually getting in the way of traffic with the cruise control turned on.\u00a0 I turned off Auto Nag and just dealt with the features on cruise control.\u00a0 That meant turning off the cruise when I need to stay up with traffic and avoiding clogging up a situation.\u00a0 Darn car!<\/p>\n

We made a pit stop in Effingham.\u00a0 This was to get Rich coffee for his missed 2:00 break.\u00a0 Yesh!\u00a0 When I got back on the highway, I got behind a motorcyclist who was very fond of expressing his frustrations.\u00a0 He took his hands off the bar, put them on his head and then raised them to the sky.\u00a0 I could hear him say, \u201cWTF\u201d with his body language.\u00a0 As I followed him, he continued to make very large gestures to the car in front of him.\u00a0 This was the car that refused to move out of the left lane into the right lane to let others pass him, including me.\u00a0 So I definitely felt the motorcyclist\u2019s frustrations, too.\u00a0 He was communicating his feelings quite clearly, but I must have been the only one watching.<\/p>\n

Traffic opened up and we all got around the slow guys.\u00a0 When did the left lane become the driving lane!\u00a0 Is that in the Rules of the Road handbook?\u00a0 Saw a lot of cars taking up space in the left lane today.\u00a0 If this sounds like you, know that I\u2019m shaking my head at you for the error of your ways.<\/p>\n

We went down the road some more.\u00a0 Finally, we got to the turn off to head toward Cape Girardeau.\u00a0 Then I look down and realize I\u2019m almost out of gas!\u00a0 How did that happen?\u00a0 We got the 5 miles to the exit and there is a gas station there!\u00a0 Thank goodness.\u00a0 Rich went in to pay and I realized I parked on the wrong side of the tank.<\/p>\n

After 6 months of owning this car, you\u2019d think I\u2019d understand where the gas tank is.\u00a0 According to Rich, the girl behind the counter said she would wait to punch in the island until I turned around.\u00a0 He looks out of the window to see me jump in and turn the car around to face the other direction.\u00a0 I guess they\u2019ve had some people not be very successfully at this.\u00a0 As someone in the station said they thought they would have to move the gas pump island for someone turning around once.\u00a0 That\u2019s crazy.\u00a0 I\u2019m very good at the quick turn.\u00a0 No problem.<\/p>\n

As you approach the Mississippi down this winding back road, you go through a lot of bottom land. \u00a0There are a lot of private and public hunting clubs down in these lowlands.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s big business here.\u00a0 They convince people from other places to come in to hunt.\u00a0 They act as guides, provide you with the opportunity, and collect your money for making you a successful hunter.<\/p>\n

We made it to the Mississippi River.\u00a0 I heard on my record show this morning that people from Mississippi actually say Missippee.\u00a0 That\u2019s like the people from Louisville who can say it one of 5 different ways.\u00a0 My favorite is still the one we all learned from the Bank of Luval commercials growing up.\u00a0 Luval.\u00a0 Or as my friend, Kim, says:\u00a0 Put your fist in your mouth first and then say Louisville.<\/p>\n

So anyway, we cross the really cool suspension bridge over the Mississippi River.\u00a0 It looks much better at night when it is all lit up.\u00a0 Rich is trying to take pictures out of the window.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think they will turn out that well.\u00a0 Maybe we can get better pictures tonight from the river walk.<\/p>\n

We find the hotel and ask for recommendations since we found that Buckner\u2019s is closed. \u00a0Rich was trying to find the address when he ran across an article that they were closed because they didn\u2019t pay their employee taxes to the government.\u00a0 What a shame.\u00a0 They had great food and great beer.\u00a0 That\u2019s really hard to come by.\u00a0 The IRS doesn\u2019t look lightly on tax offenses.\u00a0 We heard about the Broadway Biergarten and Port Cape.\u00a0 OK, that would do.<\/p>\n

We left to check out the Broadway Biergarten.\u00a0 On the outside, the bar was decorated in Bavarian flags and blues.\u00a0 That was a good sign.\u00a0 Inside, there were a lot of taps and a lot of bottles on display.\u00a0 The beer list was impressive and took up two pages.\u00a0 Rich got a Vitus weitzenboch. \u00a0His second beer was Mother\u2019s Oktoberfest.\u00a0 Mother\u2019s is a local brewery.\u00a0 He got that one after he got a sample of it and the Hubrew Oktoberfest.\u00a0 Mother\u2019s won out.<\/p>\n

We got dirty fried pretzel bites, which are rolled in wing sauce before frying.\u00a0 Along with this, we each got a burger.\u00a0 The food was nothing to write home about, but it did fill you up.<\/p>\n

The bar is an old converted department store from around the early 1900s.\u00a0 The ceiling was original tin.\u00a0 Tables were long with benches along both sides.\u00a0 It was more beer tent style than restaurant.\u00a0 Even the display areas in the front windows had tables and benches.\u00a0 I can image the place being full and the best drinkers and partiers are on display.<\/p>\n

We drove down to the river to walk along the river walk.\u00a0 But first, we noticed a small bar called LoDo.\u00a0 It advertised craft beers.\u00a0 We went in to check it out.\u00a0 The place was nice, but did smell of cigarette smoke.\u00a0 I\u2019d say it was a typical old style bar in a small town.\u00a0 They are in the process of expanding and so they didn\u2019t have any taps working.\u00a0 It was only bottled beers.\u00a0 Rich decided to stay anyway.<\/p>\n

The girl behind the bar was willing to tell us about what she had.\u00a0 One of the patrons was extremely vocal and jumped in with what he knew.\u00a0 The owner came in and we ended up having a conversation about all of the beers in the coolers and why one over another.\u00a0 The owner brought out several choices and Rich decided on the Piney River Brewery\u2019s Black Walnut Wheat.\u00a0 It was along the same line as an English brown nut ale.\u00a0 It was pretty good.<\/p>\n

We talked about the bar and its d\u00e9cor.\u00a0 The patron had been coming into that bar since 1988 and had seen it change over the years to many different types of bars.\u00a0 The owner has several original ad signs up on the top of the wall.\u00a0 Some of them are worth some money, but it sounded like they will stay for a while.<\/p>\n

There were three sets of shelves set up on the side wall with beer cans.\u00a0 Apparently, the cans were there when the owner took over the bar.\u00a0 Some of them were pretty old and most brands don\u2019t exist anymore.\u00a0 He had some original Falstaff cans with beer in them upstairs in storage.\u00a0 He said they were worth a lot of money on eBay.\u00a0 Who would pay for Falstaff like that?<\/p>\n

We headed out and down to the river walk.\u00a0 The moon was shining across the water.\u00a0 I took a picture, not expecting to get anything.\u00a0 It looked pretty good.\u00a0 It would be a perfect Facebook picture.\u00a0 Rich got some good pictures of the suspension bridge all lit up.\u00a0 It would have been great with the moon behind it.\u00a0 Oh well, probably too early in the night.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s after 8:00 at this point.\u00a0 Time to go back to the hotel, write up this blog for the day, and relax.\u00a0 Tomorrow, we headed down to Tunica, MS where our hotel for the next few days is located.\u00a0 Then we\u2019ll check out our surroundings.\u00a0 On Friday, we\u2018ll put in our first full day of music on the Mississippi.\u00a0 Saturday should be the same.\u00a0 Sunday, we plan to go to Clarksdale for the Cat Head mini blues fest and spend the night.\u00a0 Can\u2019t wait for that.<\/p>\n

Good night!<\/p>\n

\"Moon<\/a>
Moon was full and shining on the Mississippi River when we walked down to the river walk.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 7:00 this morning, Sascha starts throwing herself down on the floor and sighing really big.\u00a0 I mean, really big.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised the air isn\u2019t sucked out of the room.\u00a0 That\u2019s her sign she is tired of watching me sleep.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to put her outside.\u00a0 Yeah, she\u2019s right.\u00a0 I\u2019ve probably slept enough.\u00a0 I drag […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3249,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3247\/revisions\/3249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}