Category: Review

Mississippi here we come

Sunday April 5th 2020

Ok let me say this right off the top … we did not get a cross the Mississippi River today as we had planned, oh we could have but we decided, supporting one of our favourite restaurants in a time of need was more important, not to mention we had been thinking about this dinner since we first threw the idea out. So we are tucked into another Cracker Barrel, I know but it’s been so quiet in their lots right now compared to truck or rest stops … plus I love their breakfast.

So let’s talk about where we have came from and where we are heading for, today marked our seventh day in a row of travel. With today’s 193 miles (310 kilometres) added in our total is 1512 miles (2433 kilometres) leaving us around 700 miles (1127 kilometres) to go, so we are averaging just over 200 miles (320 kilometres) per day which is our normal speed. So that is where we came from, now to as where we are heading after we cross the Ole Mississippi River tomorrow morning we are heading toward Chicago as we continue north to the bottom of Lake Michigan, from there we will head easterly toward Port Huron Michigan and the Blue Water Bridge And back into Canada. We were planing on staying a little further south to catch up with the Ward family but we know with the pandemic, avoiding any unnecessary contact is the right thing to do, it just means a little longer visit in the fall. So all indications have us at or near the border on Wednesday afternoon, at that point we will do our final supply run before our mandatory fourteen quarantine after crossing the border, I would like to cross on Wednesday afternoon as it just starts our 14 days one day earlier so it’s done on a Thursday morning instead of a Friday but not a big deal one way or another.

So I discovered today some of the worst and stupidest drivers in a while, passenger vehicle traffic was higher today, I thought Missouri was on a shelter in place order but I must have mistaken, and the ones on the road today all seemed to be on cell phones, infact one particularly dumb driver was driving along at 50 in a 60 zone while texting on the steering wheel and sucking on a cigarette, all at once, obviously not one of Missouri’s finer specimens. What makes it stand out even more is the fact that while the traffic is lighter than usual, you can notice the dumber ones even easier.

Sauce on the side

The Strike Zone

Mozzarella, Sliced Apple Brats, Bacon, Giardiniera & Pepper Mix and Havarti Cheese . Served with Queso on the side.

This was my choice for dinner, Miss Laurie ordered the 5-0, with? Yes you guessed it has pineapple.

We first encountered this little restaurant, while visiting St. Louis for one of Laurie’s Scentsy conventions, we needed to find lunch each day, we tripped on this fond and have visited it every time back through the area. Sauce on the Side is a fast, casual restaurant specializing in gourmet calzones and fresh salads. The three owners/operators have been friends for decades, all sharing the same dream – to feed the community and provide you with the best service possible. Now expanding throughout the Midwest, they hope to find others who would like to share the same dream by making their own into a reality. When we first visited a number of years ago it was a little hole in the wall in downtown, when we visited three years ago it was redone at a new downtown location, today we are visiting a franchise location but hoping for the same quality, and we have not been disappointed … mmmm mmmm good … just saying

Lake Havasu Balloon Festival – Review

This festival was scheduled for January 2020, the festival is celebrating its tenth year, general admission is $15, for a wrist band good for entry for all four days. It brags of having 70 balloons, and runs Thursday thru Sunday. So as far as pricing it would easily fall into the inexpensive category. There were some $45 to $65 VIP pass that is only good for one day, these passes provides you front row seating and parking. To park the coach was $200 for a spot from Tuesday thru Monday it included the RV plus one vehicle it also came with two wrist bands. It is dry camping in a parking lot that is on a first come first pick spot unless you book as a group, then the organizers pick a row in the parking lot and put all your group in one row. The parking lot was not level and because of the angle of rows are not solar harvest friendly so it means no end to the generator noise.

The actually scheduled festival events were to start at noon on Thursday and runs until early afternoon on Sunday, the festival had scheduled a never ending line up of entertainment at the main stage, while an amazing site to see when a mass ascension takes place there is a lot of time between the planned balloon events. This was one of the events we were looking forward to since booking this stop last fall, while Albuquerque is the largest event with up to 500 balloons but being an October event it makes it almost impossible for us being Canadians to get to if our plan is to winter in the States. So this seemed like a great option, and while I understand everything is dependent on weather and wind, it seemed to us that most of the balloon pilots did not want to travel far to land, as when the mass ascension did finally take place most only travelled a couple of miles to the island, where they landed after a short flight time.

So in review…the wrist band is a great value for four days of entry, and if the weather co-operates to inflate the balloons and being that close to the action is amazing. The events that were happening through the parks are almost country fair like…and had it been warmer and had we not been recovering from our colds maybe we would have been spent some time there. There were vendors selling lots of products, we walked through but having spent many weekends at vendor shows it’s was just a lot of the same. The parking lot camping was not a good value, there was to be shuttle busses but they were few and far between, so we walked the mile and a half most times, the noise of generators running all day long was ridiculous, most had quiet units but a few had near construction noise level old Champion generators. So a much better option would be BLM land with a zero cost and drive to the parking lots where there were more shuttles and a wrist band purchase, the benefit of camping there was pavement instead of sand seemed like a good idea, but the noise was unbelievable and a large put off. We were disappointed that the balloon pilots were unable to get in the air except the final morning.

So in closing we would not schedule this event again, we would go get a day pass if we were in the area and the weather was co-operating, could be better if a group was involved to help fill the time between events but the dry camping at $170 was not a good value…just saying