Week 7 - end...steadily heading back east

Barbara at Ingrid's Kitchen

    We left Santa Rosa and had a windy drive across Texas and Oklahoma to Oklahoma City.  The land got flatter and flatter.  Oklahoma City was a pleasant surprise.  Mark looked up a good place to eat from the "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" website and we found Ingrid's Restaurant and Deli, a German restaurant.  And, we let the Garmin direct us there.  We had a really good meal.  We both had weiner schnitzel which was yummy and split a German beer.

Bricktown, Oklahoma City

   Very full, we then went downtown and parked by the botanical garden and wandered around.  We found the touristy Brick Town which centers around a canal.  Along the canal are restaurants, bars, hotels and flower gardens.  We took a lovely stroll.  It was a great end to a day of driving.

BB King Statue

Beale Street of Blues, Memphis

   From Oklahoma City, we drove to Memphis, Tennessee, another city which we have passed by before, but never visited.  Once we crossed the mighty Mississippi, we pulled into the downtown tourist information center.  Besides information, the information center had two large statues of their most famous musicians - Elvis and B.B. King.  The people at the information center directed us to a trolley because they told us that it might be difficult to park on Beale Street, the famous street of blues.  So, we hopped on the trolley and got off at Beale Street. The part filled with blues restaurants and bars is pedestrianized.  It was a beautiful, sunny day and we strolled the street, eventually stopped at City House of Blues where Mark had ribs and I had a seafood gumbo.  We decided not to take the trolley back because we needed a good walk.

Mark and Cole, almost 13

Cole and Nana

     And, to end the week, we had a longest drive of the return trip - 580 miles from Memphis to Morganton, N.C. where our grandson Cole lives.  He turns 13 in a few days and we thought it would be great to take him out to dinner and give him his birthday present.  It was a lovely day and we ate outside on the river at a restaurant called "Judges".  It was great to see him.