Rain, Pappy’s, and Driving Some More

Joe points to George Takei’s menu

2019-10-11 (Friday)

It rained a lot early this morning, and before bedtime last night too. Not sure I mentioned it in last night’s blog, but with all the rain, we discovered we have a leak over our bed where Joe replaced the old, non-working exhaust fan this summer with a new one. There was definitely a very damp spot in the ceiling before we fell asleep, and it was notably larger when we woke up. This is not good news, and will have to be dealt with asap (but not before we get home.)

We left our very damp campground at about 10 as usual, and noted that every river we passed in the vicinity was overflowing. Wow, it was wet everywhere! But we were fortunate that it didn’t rain at all today while we were driving. It was just gray skies all day, that’s all.

We stayed off the interstate as long as possible, rejoining it about 30 miles from St. Louis. Then we gave ourselves a treat—we drove into the city to have a late lunch at Pappy’s Smokehouse. Pappy’s was voted the best ribs in the country by the Food Network, and I think Joe agrees. However, today he didn’t have ribs, he had a pulled pork sandwich, while I had my usual, the BBQ pulled chicken. I even have notes on my phone to remind myself not to bother ordering the brisket, because the chicken is “that good!”  Seriously yummy— we really enjoyed it!

Inside Pappy’s— walls lined with celebrity menus

Just a little more about Pappy’s— it is not a pretentious place, but man, is it popular! We were there at about 2:30 or 3:00... and there were about 20-30 people in line ahead of us! The place just never stops. The wait time is pretty short, and while you are on line, you can read all the famous autographed messages on menus lining the walls. (We sat next to one from George Takei.) In order to make it go fast (which it does), they hand out menus while you wait in line. Then you get up to the cashier, give him your order, pay, and move out of the way. If you ordered a fountain drink, they give you a huge cup, and you move on to fill it. Then another staff person finds you a table in the large but basic dining room. A minute or two later (literally), another staff person emerges from the kitchen with your food on a plate, calling out your name. I went to the ladies room to wash my hands as soon as we were given a table, and by the time I came back (and wash my hands was ALL I did!), the sandwiches were already on the table.

Folks waiting on line at Pappy’s. Sometimes the line is out the back door.

So we tried not to wolf our food down, hungry as we were by that time. Another thing I didn’t mention was the parking. You’d think it’s brave to take an RV towing a Jeep into a city. And it is. But I just don’t “get” this neighborhood. The street Pappy’s is on—a major street with a bus route—never has anyone parked on it! It has metered spaces, and we just drove up to the curb and parked (we took up two spaces with the Jeep.) This has been our experience every time we’ve gone there. I think maybe it’s kind of on the fringes, in a semi-industrial area on one side of the street, and a small college on the other (we parked next to the college.) But in any other place with a college, all the spaces would be taken. We’ve never seen that here. And it’s only a few blocks from the interstate exit. So we get off, drive two blocks, park on this totally empty street, eat, come back, and hop back on the interstate. It’s ridiculous by east coast standards, if you ask me.

Anyway.... that was our excitement for the day. After lunch, back on the I-70,and we zoomed past the St. Louis Arch, over the Mississippi River, and into Illinois. We planned to stop at the Illinois side of the border with Indiana, but the Walmart we went to, despite getting good “overnight reviews” on our RV Parky app, told us (when we asked inside) that we couldn’t stay there. So we had to drive another 25 miles or so into Indiana, and we are staying at a Walmart in Terre Haute. We were tired and not very hungry when we got here, so we “hung out” a little bit, and now we’re going to sleep. We want to make a reasonably early start tomorrow, because we are heading to visit Jan and Gary in Ohio, and watch the football game with them.