You know, it's Dead Elvis Week...

Chris just announced “I think I see the arch!” We are driving outside of St. Louis, so this would have signified identification of a major landmark in the area. But alas, it was in fact a McDonald’s sign in the distance. Well, if this were Futurama it would be the St. Louis arch sponsored by McDonalds. Ride the walrus.

After a very pleasant evening and morning with the Millers in Lone Jack, we hit the road at 7AM this morning. That is because we have a 550+ mile day today. We are still on schedule though, as we have already had lunch and are back on on the road by noon. What a road this is across Missouri. I have never seen such a concentration of truck stop strip clubs. Not even in Las Vegas. Fortunately, aside from being old married fathers, we are constantly in a state of meat-induced lethargy on this trip so none of them were particularly appealing.

Lunch was at Super Smokers BBQ in Eureka, MO (just outside St. Louis). Super Smokers has the distinction of having won 1st place in the Whole Hog division of the Memphis in May World BBQ competition. For those of you who are not BBQ aficionados (although if you are reading this you likely are), this is sort of like the World Series of BBQ. They have also won 1st place in ribs at the Murphysboro BBQ competition which is run by Mike Mills, who I consider my BBQ guru. So I was pretty excited about this place. They are a departure from many of the classic BBQ places we have been in that they have six different sauces at the table. Kansas City, St. Louis, Tennessee, Hot Texas, Sweet Carolina, and Championship. I personally like this, although a purist would argue that you should just do one thing well. The ribs were, in my mind, absolutely deserving of the trophies that filled the room. Chris has already announced that he plans to write a counterpoint position, but they may in fact be my favorite. They use baby back, which is also in distinction to many other places. I think that it is fair to judge them with this in mind however as each place should put forward their best product. I also had jalepeno cornbread, which was OK, but could have used more jalepeno, and slaw which was purely vinegar based with no mayonanaise to be found. The pulled pork went well with the sauces, but was not overwhelming. Chris also had the pulled chicken (a first) which was moist but not as good as White Lightning. The potato salad was fresh but not too special, and the last side was a tomato/cucumber/onion salad which was refreshing and sweet. And there was a convertible Jaguar parked in the lot next to the restaurant, so all in all, I was happy.

The long day continues down the belly of Missouri on I-55, far from the field of dreams…well, given the amount of porn shops around here, I guess it sort of is a field of dreams [just a certain type].

Josh and I drink a lot of liquids when we drive to keep us moving. The Prius is actually more efficient than we are. It only needs to stop about once every 500 miles, we probably stop about every 75 miles because of boredom, thirst, or to pee. We see the choice piece of Americana that is the interstate gas station, which here includes a number of different bumper stickers with the confederate flag. They even find some way of working it into a bumper sticker for bass fishing…I don’t know how being a rebel makes you a better bass fisherman. BTW: this isn’t the bible belt, as some of you may be misinformed, it is the “bass belt”. While we have seen a number of different megachurches of various sizes, nothing can rival the size and ubiquity of the Bass Pro Shops [some of which are complete with an indoor stream].

We crossed into Memphis at about 5 PM and headed to our three-star priceline hotel in the eastern part of the city. We found the most expensive tennis court I have ever been on and played for about 1.75 hours. At the end, the nice gentleman running the place informed us that Memphis had the worst crime in the county and then proceeded to tell us all his personal stories of being robbed as well as those of his neighbors – including one where his neighbor shot dead an intruder. Many of you who know me know that I’m suspicious whenever anyone says they have the best/worst anything in the country, but this made Josh and I in our uber-intimidating Prius wielding tennis rackets a bit worried.

We showered for the good of the whole town and headed to the Blues City BBQ [recommended to us by Mike, a fellow BBQ addict from Mississippi] restaurant near the world-famous Beale Street in downtown Memphis. After “tipping” a local homeless gentleman for helping us park [long story short – he saw us parking and didn’t leave us alone until we gave him some money], we headed to a very vibrant downtown. Memphis is probably an awesome place if you are single and don’t want to be temporarily, but we were here for business. Many of the restaurants in downtown Memphis have a dude out front who tries to convince you to come into their place [similar to any other tourist area in the world], another guy brings you to your table. A woman is the “hostess” for the entire restaurant – in our case, a very petite, mid-thirties eastern European – some guys work the meat area, and other guys bring your food to your table. We ordered a full slab of ribs, which comes with fries, cole slaw, beans, and texas toast. We also ordered a bowl of seafood gumbo [which is sort of BBQ]. The cole slaw was “fine” – a little mayo, sugar, no vinegar, and cucumber with some of the skin still on it. The beans were nothing special, the toast was also not much special, and the fries were slightly above average. The gumbo was truly excellent – this is a combination of us not eating anything other than BBQ for a long time, a nice spice, and some great seafood flavor [don’t forget the okra, either!]. The sweet tea is lacking, but I haven’t really had good sweet tea since Dreamland in Alabama.

Let’s talk about the ribs. They are baby backs, with a dry rub, and a sweet glaze. We know we are in Memphis because there is no sauce served on the side or at the table. The ribs were tender, not particularly smoky, but retained a very distinctive pork flavor. When you get a mouthful of the sweet glaze, the ribs are wonderful, but they lack any real smoky flavor after the glaze is off. They are a great eat, but, particularly given that we have eaten Super Smokers’ ribs today, they are probably in fourth place behind, in no particular order: Gates, Dreamland, and Super Smoker’s [maybe even fifth for me, behind Big Al’s beef ribs]. Now, this does not mean that they weren’t any good [far from it], just that in the world of BBQ they could improve somewhat. We are going to stay in Memphis for lunch tomorrow to try and get an alternative slab of ribs and then head to Nashville.