Vacation Wrap Up

 Sorry about the ranting about work in yesterday's post.  I should say that one good thing happened at work on Tuesday.  I was wearing my Birthplace of Kermit the frog t-shirt and one of the museum visitors was quite enamored with it.  Her husband's name is Leland, so they are trying to visit every place named Leland.  She hadn't heard of Leland, Mississippi, but it's on her list now.

So let's finish up the vacation, shall we?

After leaving Vicksburg, we drove north through the Delta.  It's a good thing we had a full tank of gas because there wasn't really anyplace to stop until we got to Kermit's place in Leland.  While we had grown weary of all the really tall trees when traveling south through Mississippi towards Laurel, we had a very different landscape now.  Corn fields and bean fields made up the majority of the scenery and for the first of June, they were some amazing crops.  The corn was already tasseled and the beans were gorgeous and it looked like it was all growing in sand!  Of course, they irrigate everything.  

After visiting Kermit, we headed to Belmont Plantation which was pretty close by.  It was built in 1857 and is open for tours and as a bed and breakfast and for events.  Our tour guide was very informative even though she was just filling in for Miss Camille who was on vacation.  I only took photos of the outside because I loved the big old magnolia trees.  (You should be reading in your southern accent here because the guide's accent was very thick.)

After the tour and grabbing some lunch in Greenville, we headed on to Batesville, Arkansas for the night.  The goal was Marshall Dry Goods, a fabric warehouse with over 6 million yards of fabric!

We were there bright and early when they opened at 8:30 am.  Here is the fabric I purchased for a backing for one of my mom's quilts...........$1.50/yard!

It truly was a warehouse.  I didn't count the bolts.

And it was very overwhelming.  

They had everything.........wholesale bolts, yardage, sale bins, upholstery, tractor seat fabric, trust me there was something for everyone.  I purchased one wholesale bolt ($2.75/yard), and then some flat folds and paid no more than 3.99/yard for anything.  We were there for two and a half hours.  It was kind of a relief to leave.

We headed north through the HILLS and CURVES of northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri.  We drove through Mansfield, the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder of the Little House books.  We stopped at Lebanon, MO at a quilt shop...........an actual quilt shop with a NORMAL amount of fabric!  This was our first actual quilt shop stop!  It was a cute little shop and I loved the way she was displaying some of her bolts!

I picked up a pattern and a quarter yard of a fabric I needed to finish up a project.  We made one more stop at the farmer's market in Sedalia for some strawberries and were home for supper with Sarah.  She had grilled pork chops for us.

So, wrapping it up........

1.  BEST RESTROOM AWARD goes to The American Tractor Museum..........Elvis was a close second.  Restroom facilities got progressively worse the further we went.  More on restrooms later.

2.  FOOD - So, have you seen the commercial about new home owners becoming like their parents and trying to save money.........where they pack food and snacks for trips? (my Mom hates this commercial because it makes fun of things she does)  Well, we did that.  We packed stuff for breakfast and lunch.  We had a nice shady picnic at a rest stop in Illinois the first day, the second day on the way to Laurel, we were parked in the shade next to a weed patch behind a gas station and ate in the car, and we ate our picnic in a park next to the river in Vicksburg.  While the hotels supposedly had breakfast, David doesn't consider a breakfast bar and coffee to be suitable.  We did try the hotel breakfast in Laurel because the clerk told us there were omlets...........turned out to be premade rubbery things and when I asked for bread to make toast, they were out.  We didn't want to eat at any chain restaurants or Mexican restaurants (we have 7 of those in Marshall now) and the only time we did this was at Burger King for lunch on the last day...........I was pretty carsick from all the hills, so it really didn't matter much what we ate that day.  We had BBQ the first evening in Mississippi.  It was ok.  Then in Laurel, we went to a seafood restaurant and it was delicious.  The rooftop restaurant in Vicksburg was also very good, and in Batesville, AR, we went to a local Italian place that was delicious.  We ate lunch out after the plantation tour in Greenville, MS.  It was a Monday, so the selection was limited.  We would have tried Doe's Eat Place had it been open.  We mentioned it to the plantation tour guide and she agreed that it would be the best steak you ever ate, but to not look at the kitchen as they walked you through to your table.  (Elvis liked to get a steak at Doe's.)  She suggested a local diner called Jim's Cafe.  Apparently President Obama has eaten there and Food Network's Alton Brown recommended it.  It has been around for a long time, and they haven't updated the decor or the eclectic memorabilia on the walls EVER!  The lighting was dim (which was probably good), they were the friendliest people, and the food was delicious.  David had a view of the kitchen and we don't know when a health inspector might have ever been there.  Now for the rest of the restroom story.  As I was using the dark dingy small restroom which would have backed the kitchen, I noticed a big hole in the corner of the wall down by the floor that was filled with steel wool.........probably to keep the rats away!  But again, let me say, the food was delicious.

MUSEUMS & TOURS - We did 9!  They were all enjoyable.  Some were free and none were really overpriced.  The only guided ones were the driving tour through Laurel and the plantation tour.  

UNPLANNED THINGS - In Vicksburg we went to the movie theatre to see the new Top Gun movie Maverick.  It was excellent and we loved the reclining seats.

WOULD WE DO IT AGAIN? - Probably wouldn't go to Mississippi again except maybe to Greenville/Leland to stay at the plantation.  When we toured that morning, they had cleaned up from breakfast, but it still smelled wonderful.  And I would love to eat at Doe's Eat Place.  I think there might be a few other small things to see in the area to make it worth a short trip.  I would highly recommend the tractor museum and would always go back to the quilt museum.  I would visit the quilt shop in Lebanon again and would definitely go back to Marshall Dry Goods...........with a plan for what I should purchase!  

So that's a wrap on the vacation!  Time to head out to pick my peas!

Christi