Popeye and the great motorcycle escort

After two nights in St. Louis, it was time to move along. I left via the Poplar Street Bridge. This once again placed me for a brief time on an interstate – I-64 – that passes just south of the new baseball stadium (built so that seems to abut the highway) and the Gateway Arch a few blocks more to the north. I picked up the Illinois GRR nearly immediately upon entering Illinois. As I had come to expect by this point in the sojourn, the road promptly curved away from the river which I didn’t as much as glimpse until I arrived in Chester and then only after turning right and driving west for a mile or so.

Chester, Illinois made my list of places to visit because it’s the birthplace of Elzie Segar. Elzie Segar created the character that, in 2002, TV Guide ranked 20th on its “50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time” list, Popeye the Sailor. Since, like that famous character, I sweet potato what I sweet potato (or as he might express it, “I yam what I yam.”) I thought the stop was one I should make.

Lest you think being home to Popeye isn’t a big deal to Chester, where they hold the annual Popeye Picnic the weekend after Labor Day, think again. The bronze statue in the folder linked above is adjacent to the Visitors Center which also has some lovely views of the river.

Thursday was one of those cloudy-sunny-cloudy mornings that induced me to wear my Field of Dreams cap rather than my straw hat. When I exited the Visitors Center where the woman at the information desk had been quite helpful, a group of six motorcycle enthusiasts (at least four of them on Harleys) was chatting in the lot outside. One of them asked about the FoD cap and I told him that I’d been there a few days earlier. Pointing to a bright red Cadillac STS, he said he wouldn’t have expected someone who drives a car like that to have made a visit to a place like the Field of Dreams. I responded that I was flattered he thought I looked like a Cadillac man but that my car was the Honda Civic.

They told me they were just out for a ride and headed down the River Road to Grand Tower. When they saw the Caddy, they thought it might be fun to escort it down the road if it happened to be heading in that direction. I told them I’d planned to cross back to the Missouri side at that point but I’d be happy to change my plans and have them escort my Honda. They told me since I was willing to change my plans they were happy to change theirs and for about 25 or 30 miles down the Illinois GRR I had a six motorcycle escort – three in front and three behind – until they peeled off to go to Grand Tower.

I might have stopped at Grand Tower but my next planned stop was the Trail of Tears State Park in Missouri and it was an important one. Though I’d thoroughly enjoyed the escort, it meant I had to cross the river at Cape Girardeau. Thus, the little detour added time to my drive because I now had to drive through the town both coming and going. Had I crossed the river at Chester, I would have reached the Trail of Tears Park north of Cape Girardeau, made my visit, then recrossed the river from the Missouri town. Because I’d chosen my escorted detour in lieu of the direct route, I had to double back north 10 or 15 miles to reach the park. The extra drive alone added nearly an hour in the car and when I coupled that with my growing knowledge that I’d consistently been spending more time than I’d planned at places like this, I waved off my escort and drove on.

I barely stopped in Cape Girardeau. However, I did snap a few pictures of one of the town’s better known attractions – the levee wall murals. From there it was on to the park.

The Visitors Center at the park runs a brief film about the roundup of the Cherokee in Georgia and their forced relocation together with the Choctaw, Muscogee, Seminole, and Chickasaw Nations to points west of the Mississippi River. While the film certainly paints an unflattering picture of the white citizens of the area in general and of Andrew Jackson in particular, I would have to believe it sanitizes the manner in which the tribes were treated as they were rounded up and sent on this forced march. (Since the Cherokee had input in making the film, I assumed they softened the depiction to keep the film family friendly.)

The Trail of Tears Park has two other notable features. The first is a river overlook on a platform accessible down a boarded walk. While I found the view pleasant, I wasn’t moved to take any photos. The other is the Bushyhead Memorial. The marker on the grave reads:

“Here is buried, Princess Otahki, daughter of Chief Jesse Bushyhead, wife of Sam Hildebrand. One of the several hundred Cherokee Indians who died here in the delayed (by ice) crossing of the Mississippi River in the United States forced exodus from Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in the severe winter of 1838-1839. This memorial erected by the Rotary Club of Cape Girardeau.”

Wanting to be certain I drove at least a small section of the Great River Road in each of the ten states, I crossed back to the Illinois side so I could drive along the small Kentucky section of the road. Passing through Cairo, IL and into Kentucky, I encountered the most traffic I’d seen to date on any of the two-lane sections of the road and possibly more than many of the four lane sections as well.

Cairo (pronounced care-oh) holds several distinctions. It’s the southernmost city in Illinois, at 315 feet, it’s the city with the lowest elevation, and it’s the only city in Illinois surrounded by levees. The need for the levees becomes apparent when you learn that Cairo also sits at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Since it was now nearly 15:00 and the GRR route to Memphis required at least three hours to drive, and ,since even Trip Advisor only listed two attractions on its “Things to do” page, I drove on.

The Kentucky section of the Great River Road provides occasional glimpses of a river. I write ‘a’ river because I am frankly uncertain whether the river I saw was the Mississippi or the Ohio. About an hour after I crossed into Tennessee on U.S. 51, I passed a sign for Henning and the Alex Haley House and Interpretive Center. Though he was born in Ithaca, NY, Haley lived a significant portion of his childhood with his grandparents in Henning, Tennessee.

For those among you who are unfamiliar with Haley, he is an important and somewhat controversial figure in American writing and culture. His 1962 interview of Miles Davis for Playboy Magazine led to a contract for a series of interviews with other prominent African-Americans. This eventually led to Haley co-authoring The Autobiography of Malcom X and this catapulted Haley to prominence and fame as a writer.

He followed this publication by researching and writing the work for which he is best known, Roots which I view as a historical novel. In 1977, ABC television (and for you youngsters this was a time when there were essentially only three commercial television networks and PBS) turned Roots into a miniseries. While the miniseries form predated this show, Roots was the first blockbuster miniseries. Its viewership exceeded 130 million viewers and, some cities declared the week of its broadcast “Roots Week.”

It might have been an interesting and worthwhile detour but it was past 16:00 and I thought it likely that the House and Interpretive Center would be closed or about to close by the time I arrived. I drove on.

When I crossed into Tipton County I passed a sign that read “Tipton County Birthplace of Isaac Hayes.” I don’t know whether the recording artist and composer of the score for the movie Shaft is honored in any other way in the county but he has a sign. I drove on.

After a long day of driving on, I reached Memphis. I don’t eat pork I had to try Memphis Barbeque. Based on Trip Advisor reviews and, given a fortunate proximity to my hotel, I went to Corky’s. It was well past 19:00 and the restaurant was still busy. I took this as a good sign. I ordered half a chicken. Though it was tasty, I’ll stick with my local pollo a la brasa as the superior choice. I did enjoy the High Cotton Saison beer, though.

Tomorrow, I’ll explore the city that calls itself the Home of the Blues and the Birthplace of Rock and Roll.