Bengal Trailer Invades Arizona Part 3

This is part 3 of a 3 part Blog recapping the epic Bengal Trailer Trip to Arizona:

To read part one click here

To read part two click here

Monday

Well we did it. The Bengal Trailer had conquered Arizona. It was one more stadium off the list on the Bengal Trailer Tour (soon to be world tour with the announcement of the game in London in 2016). All that was left was the long trip home. The plan was to make as many random stops as we could fit in. So once we woke up and loaded the bus we were on the road around 10 am. However, we couldn’t do this road trip without some breakfast. So I did a quick search on Google Maps and found a restaurant called Butters Pancake Cafe. We pulled into a shopping plaza which had architecture that was reminiscent of the old south west and there was Butters.

We walked into Butters to find out there would be a 15 minute wait. Keep in mind this was a 15 minute wait on a Monday at 10:30 am. We knew this place had to be good with a wait at that time. We ordered our food and the wait was justified. I had one of the fluffiest omelettes I’ve ever eaten and Anthony had pancakes that were covered in oreos and tasted like smores.  This was not a bad way to start a trek across the country.

We decided to take a less direct route home and do a little sightseeing along the way. The first stop…a 2 hour drive  north and an ear popping elevation increase to beautiful Sedona, AZ. If you have never been there, GO! Like NOW! This place is majestic. Whatever pictures I post on here will not do Sedona justice. The rocks are as red as wine and the rock formations are out of this world.  If you are a person who loves the outdoors and outdoor activities, Cincinnati, OH is not doing you any favors. We drove through a town that I can only describe as a higher end Gatlinburg. It was miles of small shops and turnabouts all draped in the background of the awe inspiring red rock formations. We decided we were going to take an off road adventure in a modified Humvee, complete with 4 elevated rows of seats. We then negotiated with the tour company to give us the online price (we saved $6/each and some spent that on an ice cream shop next door).

The humvee had arrived to pick us up and our tour guide (I think his name was Eddie) explained that the back row is the bumpiest and gets milder as you move closer to the front driver and shotgun row. So we picked out our seats and moved on. We were all a little disappointed when we found out more people than those in our group were going to be taking the 4 extra seats in the Humvee. It turned out to be a family of 4 so we all knew to be on our best behaviors!

We pulled off the road (maybe a foreshadowing of what was going to come later) and onto an off road trail.  As we rode along Eddie challenged us that he would give us a quarter for every animal we saw. I am assuming it was late in the year and most animals in the wild have found refuge for the winter. But game on! Eddie schooled us on many things about the rocks and plants  we were passing along. At some point along the ride I looked off to my left in a deep valley and spotted what looked like 3 deer. I am not sure exactly what they were (you can most likely ask Tony Wolfe) but I was up to $.75! We were also passing other off roaders and spotting another type of animals with them….dogs. So we kept calling out “dog” every time we saw one and were keeping track of just how much Eddie owed us.

The views during this trek blew me away. This is about as picturesque as it comes. Literally the stuff postcards are made of! As we drove along as close to the edges you can go without going over, we gazed in awe at what we were seeing. At home we can look up to the clouds and see what different clouds look like. In Sedona, they name rock formations as to what they look like. From a squirrell, to 3 wiseman, to an elephant head, these rocks came in all shapes and sizes. It was unreal! Another thing that was noteworthy was how much temperature dropped in the shade. I am guessing when we left the sunshine it dropped 15-20 degrees in an instant. We were told it can drop 20+ degrees in 5 minutes when the sun begins going down.

As we made it to the peak of our journey we stopped and got out for a photo-op. I’m not sure if it was the view that got to me or what, but I have say I was incredibly thankful to be surrounded by such a great group of people at that moment. But all good things must come to an end and we began our trip back down. The trip back down was pretty bumpy. Every 15 feet or so I was going “uuuuuuuugh” as we went over rock after rock and I was flying in and out of my seat. I am glad there were seat belts! Once back Eddie made good on his wager and gave me a dollar bill. I gave him quite a few more than that for a tip. We got ourselves back in the bus and continued on our way.

As we drove down the road we passed through huge forests and it was amazing to see how quickly you went from mountains and desert, to flat forests and snow.  It was an incredible drive. Once we got back onto the highway, Kathleen noticed a billboard mentioning a meteor crater in the middle of the Arizona desert. So of course we thought, “LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”. We saw they were only going to open for about 20 minutes by the time we would get there so it was pedal to the metal! We pulled off an exit created specifically for this tourist attraction. The only things off the exit were a gas station that had a name like “Meteor Crater Gas Station” and a campground named “Meteor Crater Camp Ground”. Needless to say this was going to be the best thing we have probably ever seen in our lives (sarcasm intended). We pulled in and saw a barbed wire fence around the perimeter and a building that looked like a compound but that didn’t stop us as we raced up to the door. After purchasing an $18 ticket to see this beast of nature we made our way to the meteor crater movie theater to watch a 6 minute movie of the crater (does it honestly get any better?). The worker there told us, “with only 20 minutes left  you are probably going to want to spend some time with the crater”. He was talking about the crater like it was a person on their deathbed. So we rushed outside and went to the highest viewing deck and saw….you guessed it….a HUGE hole in the ground. Here is a Google Earth pin drop of the crater  I’m downplaying this a little. It was actually pretty cool. To think 5,000 years ago a meteor crashed into the Arizona desert and left this huge hole. NASA has used it to train astronauts to walk on the moon as the moon has huge craters as well. The next observation deck hung out over the crater and had viewing scopes where you can see objects in the crater so you can get a feel for the scale of this hole. If anyone knows me I am terrified of heights and this was incredibly high as it hung over this huge hole in the ground. It took everything in me to walk out onto the platform. It took me about 3 minutes to make it all the way out and about 3 seconds for me to run back to solid ground as Greg tried to scare me. We then went to a third observation deck where you could get a pretty panoramic look at the crater. Obviously this was the place we took the standard selfies and group picture!

We went back inside and walked through the museum as quickly as we could before they closed. We were never able to make the 6 minute movie of the crater so of course Greg bought it from the gift shop for us to watch on the way back. I was a little disappointed they didn’t have it on BluRay but DVD did just fine. If you are ever passing through Winslow, AZ you should stop on by (http://meteorcrater.com).

It was getting late in the day so all we had in front of us was the open road. I truthfully wish we could close out Monday night here but things got a little rough for the Bengal Trailer. It was about 1:00 am and Greg B was driving along the New Mexico highway when all of sudden the trailer started pulling the bus again. It was the same feeling as when Adam was driving down (read part 1). Greg finally got control of it but someone in the back yelled out, “there are a lot of sparks coming off the back”. We pulled over and realized a hub on the axle broke off and one of the trailer tires fell off. We were dragging the trailer for about 30 yards causing the sparks. Once we pulled over we un-hooked the trailer and started calling tow companies. We finally found one who had a flat bed which was going to pick up the trailer and take it to their shop. While we waited for the tow truck we drove up to the next exit and turned back around to see if we could find the tire. We had no such luck. Reality was setting in that we would have to leave the Bengal Trailer behind in New Mexico. I couldn’t help but think of Amy’s parting words to us before we left on Thursday…”If it breaks down just leave it on the side of the road”. And all at once the trailer was in the hands of a New Mexico tow truck driver and we were back on our way. During the earlier hours of the morning, Greg had been doing some research on how we could get the trailer shipped back to us. He found a broker and they came back with a quote which was incredibly reasonable. We booked it and at the time of this blog, we are still waiting for the trailer to arrive back home.

Even leaving the trailer behind would not stop our journey and having some fun. We kept on truckin’! This time our sites were set on 1 place…Memphis, TN and the former home of the great Elvis Aaron Presley; Graceland! As we cruised along Oklahoma we came up upon Garth Brooks Blvd. and a tourist sign that said birthplace of Garth Brooks. We made a quick exit to try to find the birthplace home of Garth. With no road signs we relied on our phones but no one could come up with the location quickly (I found it once I got home. (Here’s an itinerary of Garth Brooks stops for any Garth fan out there). So we instead stopped into town and took a group pic in front of a country bar we just assumed Garth must have played at, at least once in his life (we have absolutely zero evidence that this is the case).

So we kept going on with Memphis still in our sites. However, we came across another interesting road sign; Toad Suck, Arkansas. So I quickly swerved off the highway and got off the exit to check it out. It wasn’t until we got off the exit we realized Toad Suck was about 15 minutes away. Being that would take us at least 30 minutes off course we quickly abandoned our dream of seeing Toad Suck and settled for a picture in front of a road sign.

Well, we didn’t plan our trip very well, because we forgot about the time changes and delays but we made it to Memphis. Unfortunately, we made it after Graceland tours were closed. If you know how much I love Elvis you can only imagine how disappointed I was. However, we got to see Graceland from the outside. As you drove down the street that Graceland sits on you see nothing but Elvis shops and even a hotel called Heartbreak Hotel. Across the street from the historic residence sets Elvis’ personal plane the “Lisa Marie”, named after his daughter. The lawn of Graceland was lit up like Vegas with Christmas lights. As we pulled off the road to snap some pics we pulled up to stone wall surrounding the home of the King. The wall was literally completely covered with signatures of visitors who have visited the shrine to the King of Rock and Roll. The gate leading up to Graceland is music notes which is fitting for the man who changed music forever.

As we decided to move on we thought we should stop at the Sun Recording studios where names like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis all have recorded. This place is about as historic in music history as it gets.

On December 4, 1956 an impromptu jam session among Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash took place at this very place. The four were dubbed the Million Dollar Quartet. How cool is that!?

We stopped off at Gus’s World famous chicken on the advice of Greg’s cousin Nick. In what was a little hole in the wall in a sketchy part of Memphis sat Gus’s. The place was literally surrounded in barbed wire and they cooked the food from a garage in the back behind the restaurant. I was not sure what to expect. When we walked in I felt like I was taken back in time to a mom and pop restaurant in the 50’s even outfitted with an old jukebox in the corner. Of course I had to play some Elvis, Johnny Cash, and BB King while in Memphis. We ordered our chicken and out it came. The one notable thing about the chicken was the breading was spicy. It definitely had a kick like no fried chicken breading I’ve ever had. I will say this, I will take the Eagle in OTR over this place for fried chicken any and every day of the week. However, it was an experience I wouldn’t have traded.  

After leaving Gus’s we cruised down Beale street and even for a Tuesday night was hopping. The neon lights from the rhythm and blues bars were electric. I would’ve loved to have been able to spent some time on Beale and listen to some of the performers but we had another music city and music scene we wanted to get to before we made it back home….Nashville!

We drove 3 hours northeast to one of my favorite cities in the world…NASHVILLE! If you like live music, if you like country music, this is your scene! There is no place like Nashville. Broadway st. is filled with bars with some of the best live music and best musicians you can find. We had time to stop in a couple of bars before we had to get back on the road. We of course stopped in the world famous Tootsie’s where we all shared jack and cokes. While we were there I met a girl from Chicago who asked me about my Bengals hoodie. I happily talked trash about the Bears to her. Before we parted I asked her politely if she would say “Who Dey” but she refused. After we finished up at Tootsies we cruised a couple of bars over to see a band which I think everyone in the band was related. We all ordered a drink and enjoyed the music at our last stop and celebrated our last few hours together. We requested the song “On the Road Again” as a fitting tribute to the end of our journey.

Once the song was over we got back into the bus and it was a short 4 hour drive back home. We cruised into the Bengal Trailer Barn at around 4:30 am. The journey was over. We were home at last. We saw so many sights, made a ton of friends, and gained memories that won’t soon be forgot. I wish some of the other Bengal Trailer regulars (you know who you are) would have been able to make it and experience it but Greg put it best when he said “you couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to drive 3,600 miles across country. We went through 11 states (Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Arkansas, and Tennessee), broke down 3 times, made countless gas station purchases, and enjoyed some of the best sights and memories. I had such an amazing time and I hope you enjoyed reading along.

The Bengal Trailer will be back up and running on Sunday with or without the trailer! Its not the equipment we use, its the people we surround ourselves with that make the tailgate what it is. I’ll leave you with some Willie Nelson lyrics and a video below (right click and run plug in if you can’t view). Until next time…WHO DEY!!!

On the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way
Is on the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again