Not Exactly Cape Archives

June 26, 2011March 1, 2012

Catfish Kitchen in Draffenville

On my final leg back to Cape, I was starting to get hungry. I knew I’d get home later than Wife Lila and Mother would want to wait (not even taking into consideration that I’d pick up a tired bike tourist), so I started thinking about what I wanted. Since I was on I-24 in the vicinity of Paducah, I pulled up the GPS waypoint for the Catfish Kitchen, which is near Draffenville, which is near Benton, Ky, which isn’t near much of anything.

The actual address is 136 Teal Run, about a mile south of Draffenville, Ky., off US 641. Just follow the cars. They’re open Wednesday through Saturday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Google the restaurant and there are plenty of maps showing you the location.

Be prepared to wait

Since the folks had a trailer on Kentucky lake not far away, I’ve eaten a lot of catfish, frog legs, white beans and hushpuppies there. The only catfish around Cape that comes close to it is at Sandy’s Place at the airport on Friday night.

Because it is popular, long waits are common. That’s not such a bad thing, though. Behind the restaurant is a small lake full of fish, turtles and waterfowl. Kids and adults alike love to toss bread and hushpuppies into the water and see the size of the fish that snatch them up.

Ducks, turtles, fish and bugs

I found photos going back to 2002 without much searching. These ducks were floating around in October of that year.

Comfortable waiting room

If the weather’s not conducive to hanging around the lake or wandering outside looking at antique farm equipment, there’s a comfortable waiting room. There are plenty of toys and games to keep the kids from getting too squirmy. If they get too much out of hand, you can always feed them to the bear.

Meet Uncle Ezra

The service is fast and the servers are great about checking to see if you want refills of the unlimited white beans, hushpuppies, slaw and drinks. Mother and I took Wife Lila’s brother, John Perry over there once. They must have had to harvest another field of beans to handle his requests for refills. (I made sure to take him a half-pint of them when I left the other night.)

The inside of the restaurant is decorated with a whimsy. There’s plenty to look at while you’re waiting. The first time I saw Uncle Ezra, I thought he was real.

Antique farm machinery

You can wander around scoping out the antique farm machinery dotting the road. They have a PA system loud enough to hear your party being called, so don’t worry about losing your place in line.

Photo gallery of Catfish Kitchen

Here’s a collection of photos I’ve taken of the Catfish Kitchen over the years. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

June 25, 2011September 22, 2011

Kentucky Rest Area and Tired Biker

Right outside Nashville, I hit a torrential rainstorm that lasted about 10 miles. I was glad that it waited until the outskirts of town instead of adding poor vision and hydroplaning to city traffic. By the time I got to the Tennessee / Kentucky line, I was feeling a little sleepy, so I pulled into the Welcome to Kentucky rest area near Ft. Campbell for a 22-minute nap. ( I set the alarm on my Droid for 25 minutes; it usually takes me about three minutes to fall asleep.)

It’s a nice stop with clean restrooms and friendly people working in it. I’ve shot it in all seasons and it’s pretty no matter what time of year. I KNOW I have some spring and fall pix, but couldn’t find them.

Winds were gusting

The winds weren’t as bad as the ones that nearly blew me off the road south of Atlanta, but they were gusty enough to keep you on your toes. I was glad I had the nap so I was sharp.

Ran across tired biker

Cutting across 146 east of Anna, I saw a cyclist pushing his bike up a steep hill. When I got closer, I could tell he was a tourist by the BOB trailer and the stuff he was carrying. I pulled over at the top of the hill to shoot his picture and see if he needed help. This is a stretch of road I wouldn’t like to ride: traffic is fairly light, but it’s fast, there are no shoulders, some of the hills are steep and it was the time of day when windshield glare could hide a rider.

We introduced ourselves – he was David “Laughin Wolf” Edwards – and I asked where he was headed. “You mean tonight or at the end? I’m headed home to Washington State, but I was hoping to make Cape Girardeau tonight. The way things are going, I’m going to be lucky to make it to Anna.”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings by asking, but do you want to throw your bike on the rack? I’m headed to Cape.” His legs hurt more than his feelings, so he quickly stripped off his gear and piled it into the van. His next stop was St. Louis and the KATY Trail, so I suggested he take Rt. W, go through Altenburg, Frohna and then drop to to the Mississippi River flats to Chester.

Free-camping to save money

When we got to Cape, I asked where he wanted to be dropped off. He said that bad weather and flooding had caused him to spend all his lodging budget by May, so he was free-camping on the side of the road to save money. He defined “free-camping” as finding any place he could spread out a ground cloth and sleeping bag. Cemeteries and church yards were good places, he said. He tries to be gone before anyone even knows he’s been there.

Almost all of the places that I thought might work have been victims of development. We stopped at Jones Heritage Farms on Rt. W where a very nice woman called the owner to see if he could camp there, but he was turned down. “Maybe if he had called in advance…”

I finally left him off near the bridge over Cape LaCroix Creek on Rt. W, where he unrolled his sleeping bag onto some soft grass.

He called me this morning to say that he had stopped at Heritage Farms on his way out of town, got permission from the owner to camp on the grounds and had planned to take a rest day and listen to a band at the place Friday night.

June 22, 2011September 22, 2011

Road Trip Fires and Floods

I got a late start getting out of West Palm Beach because of auto repairs. Wife Lila always says that Florida does good clouds, so I snagged this shot of a brush-fire-enhanced sunset somewhere along the Florida Turnpike.

Advantages of traveling alone

Wife Lila has discovered that she’d rather be trapped on board a flying aluminum cigar tube than spend 2-1/2 days on the road with me. In fairness, part of it is because she’s found out that I can’t ever leave on time and she’s ended up flying back home to get to work. Since she’s operating on a tighter schedule than I am (and would rather do lots of short trips instead of fewer long ones), flying makes sense for her.

That means I can spread out all of my junk food on the passenger seat next to me, play whatever I want on the radio, stop if I want to stop or drive forever if the mood hits me. My motel standards are lower than hers, too. All I ask for is for the room to be clean, to have AC in the summer, a decent shower and sheets that aren’t still warm.

Room was broiling hot

When I started getting tired long about the Florida line, I was delighted to see the prices on this hotel. The desk clerk looked a little sketchy, but the lobby seemed clean. When I got to my room, though, it was broiling hot. I went back to the clerk and asked, “What are the odds that little window AC unit is actually going to get the room cooler than the surface of the sun?”

He said he’d upgrade me to a double on the first floor where the air had been running. He did and I had a good night’s sleep for a reasonable price. (That’s a relative term. I stayed in a room in the Ozarks for two bucks a night. Motel 6 and Super 8 got their names from the amount of money they charged for a room.)

Fires and floods in Georgia

My good weather luck ran out on this trip. I saw on the radar that there was a chance I was going to hit rain going through Atlanta, but I had pretty much clear skies about 90 miles south of there. I passed a section of road where a whole section of trees were snapped off and blown down by this spring’s storms.

About an hour south of Atlanta, just about the time I crested a hill, I saw all kinds of debris blowing across the road. It was a good thing traffic was light, because I got hit with a crosswind that blew me all the way over to the next lane. There was no rain yet, but the wind was spectacular. I decided to take the next exit to see what the storm was going to do. After about 20 minutes of torrential rain, it looked like it was slacking off, so I headed off again.

Signs warned of structure fire

Just south of Atlanta, highway advisory signs warned of a large structure fire on the west side of I-75. They weren’t kidding. There was a major column of jet-black smoke rising high into the sky, then blowing off to the east.

The combination of rain and rush hour made Atlanta one huge parking lot. I let the GPS send me off on an alternate route through the countryside that probably didn’t save me any time, but was a lot nicer than inching through the traffic.

Back in the old CB days, we were running northbound with a bunch of truckers when we got word of a jam like that. One of the drivers said, “Follow me. I’ll get us around it.” The next thing we knew there was a huge convoy of 18-wheelers and my little Mazda blasting through a raft of small George towns. I bet some of their stop lights are still spinning.

February 14, 2011

It’s a Boy!!!!!!!!

Son Adam and Daughter-in-Law Carly presented us with Grandson Graham Louis Steinhoff on Valentine’s Day 2011 at 8:13 p.m. He weighed 6 lbs 12 oz and was 19 inches long. He was born with more hair than his father and grandfather combined.

Louis was my Dad’s first name and carried on a semi-tradition of having a middle name starting with “L”; Graham “just sounded good,” they said.

Mother Carly is doing well

Adam called at 6:44 Sunday night to say, “something’s happening.” That was followed by an email 12:48 a.m., with the subject, “Not looking like tonight,” with the message “She’s laboring, but not ready to go to the hospital yet.”

Lila’s brother, John, (of termite, plumbing, missing wall fame) was set to fly back to Missouri this afternoon. He kept telling her to PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! because he wanted to hold HER (he was sure it was going to be a girl) before he got on the plane.

Father Adam looks pretty good, too

The baby was born at 8:13; Adam emailed me a photo with the subject line, “Baby boy!” at 8:17, and John’s plane landed in St. Louis at 8:19 our time. Lila, who was out running an errand, got a call from me at 8:18 with the good news. Adam posted a bulletin on Facebook at about 9:00. Electrons were flying in every which direction.

Old-time birth announcements

Adam and Matt’s arrivals were announced with mockups of newspaper pages. This was back in the days before folks had computers at home and could knock off stuff like this with their eyes closed. I had to call in some favors from my friends in the art department to throw these together, then run to a print shop with the paste-ups.

Matt’s announcement

You can tell from the headlines how competitive the boys were going to be. Adam’s reads, “7 Lb. 8 Oz. Weight Only 1/2 Ounce Less Than Weight of Firstborn.”

We didn’t have time to write creative stories to go under the headlines, so the artists pulled real stories out of the paper to fill the space. That’s why there are stories about the Space Shuttle, how we’ve been misled by history, unethical conduct by a politician, and a 60 per cent increase in accidents by county employees on the pages.