Day Two: Cairo, ribs and Wild Bills

Sorry for not keeping up with this so well. I got to hear it from Margaux today who is my most faithful reader. Since I'm so far behind, this entry is about Saturday, August 20. We left Peoria, and had breakfast at the IHOP in East Peoria. We made our way down the rest of Illinois (damn, it's a long state) to revisit Cairo. I had written a song about this town and wanted to get some footage for an accompanying video. If you care about the history of this town you can read about it here. It was once a booming town at the junction of the Ohio and Mississipi Rivers but has since fell into disarray. Here are some pictures.

I'll let everyone know when my video is done and post it on YouTube-it could still be awhile.

Anyway, after leaving Cairo we crossed over to Missouri and made our way down the freeway to Memphis. We were both getting kind of hungry so it was a good time to get there. We called the Rendevous rib place and were surprised to hear there was no wait so decided to head there before checking in to our hotel. We had eaten there last year and were not disappointed. Our first mistake was having a beer before dinner.

Our second mistake was ordering the full rack of ribs.

These are dry rub ribs but they are served on a bed of vinegar to dip them into. They were very good. There is nothing like this in Eau Claire-sorry Mikes and Famous Daves. What is nice is that you get beans and slaw but no huge potato kind of thing to waste your time with so you can get right down to eating the meat. Both of us cleaned our plates and licked our fingers clean! We  slowly made our way back to the parking ramp and headed for our hotel. We had made reservations to stay at the Four Points by Sheraton. Unfortunately, their website lied about the way the rooms looked too. This was a bit nicer than Peoria, but the bathroom was still teeny. At least the staff was very nice during our stay but it would have been nice to have a bit bigger room for the three days we were there.

We laid around for awhile digesting our pig meat and about 9:30 decided it was time to make our way to Wild Bill's. We stopped at a liquor store to get some booze because Wild Bill's only sells big 40 oz. cans of crappy beer or set-ups for what you bring in. We got there about 10:00 and there still weren't too many people there so we got a decent seat. This a juke joint and is not fancy, but the music is amazing. Here is a picture of the teeny area where the band performs.

There weren't too many people there this night, so it worries that this place may be on the way out. I sure hope not. Here is a picture of the tables and seating area.

The waitress brought us a set-up for our rum.

The band started playing about quarter to midnight. We only stayed until about one-thirty because Lindy was getting scared when a guy started fighting with his girl and the bouncers pulled them apart and the guy started reaching into his pocket. We never got to see if he had a knife or a gun 'cos the bouncers grabbed him and took him outside. Lindy said-"OK, it's time to go". The music and performers were incredible. It is so dark in there that even though I took video, it didn't turn out to be able to see anything. So off we went back to our hotel. We made sure to take our rum with us! We had to sleep fast for tomorrow was another big day.