Memphis to Rolla, MO
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3-4
I woke up around 6:00 and decided to go ahead and get ready and then start the Cheese Grits in the crock pot. I had been dreaming/worrying about it all through the night for some reason. When I got to the bus and looked at the recipe it said it had to cook for 6 hours. Well that’s a problem. It was already 7:15. I threw all the ingredients in the crock pot and got it turned on as quickly as I could. Mary had already cut up all the veggies so we were just going to saute them in the electric skillet and then throw them in the roaster with some pre-cooked chicken to stay warm until lunch.
We loaded every one’s luggage in the bus around 8:45 and then we all walked down to the Rock and Soul Museum. It had a great little intro video telling about how Soul music came about and how Memphis effected it and it effected Memphis. It was a great little museum but I expected it to have a little more about Rock. It just had a little about Elvis and Jerry Lee Jones.
On our way out of town we stopped at the hotel where Martin Luther King Jr was shot. It looked so normal. It’s hard to imagine such a huge loss at such an innocent looking place.
Once we left Memphis is was pretty much just driving and bathroom breaks until we got to Rolla. I tasted the Cheese Grits after a few hours and they tasted fine except that they needed alot more cheese. I added another block of cream cheese and the rest of the bag of shredded cheddar. Now that’s more like it. I thought our lunch was delicious. A few people loved the Cheese Grits, but we threw away a lot of plates with Cheese Grits still on them. You can’t please everyone.
We passed lots of cotton bales along the way the last few days. They were all wrapped in pink, light blue or yellow wrappers. Similar to big bales of hay.
We dropped off the first passenger in the Missouri boothill around 1:45. Then the next stop St Louis (Fenton) and then to Rolla. We got back around 4:45. everyone wanted to hear how our first trip went. Ronda who had trained me was there waiting for us. We finished unloading the bus around 6:15. They apparently had complete faith in us because Saul left the bus on so that we would have light and heat. We had turned if off before, but it felt very final this time. Saul left around 5:30. Next all the office people left and told us just to pull the office door shut when we left. Nothing says small business like being the last one to leave a place you’ve “worked” for 2 weeks. It was a fun trip, but we were very glad to be “home”. We spent the night with my mom in Rolla. After dinner I told my mom I was going to go ahead and go to bed because I was exhausted. Then I looked at my watch and it was 7:25. What!?! So I stayed up a few more hours until it was an acceptable time for bed. We got every thing sorted and ready to take off for Wichita tomorrow.
I haven’t mentioned much about the guests or posted many pictures of them because I feel like it would be disrespectful to them since they didn’t sign up for the blog. But I really enjoyed all the passengers. We had 5 single ladies and 5 couples ranging in age from 60 on up. We had several former nurses and teachers, a chiropractor, a farmer and business people. A great group! And I think they liked us too because they tipped us very generously!