Day 2, Part 3 - The Final Leg (And a Few Ribs Too)

Next stop---Cairo, IL, just across the Ohio River. We anticipated 2 places, but found Mack’s boarded up. As we drove through town on Washington and then Sycamore, we wondered what had happened to this town? There’s a beautiful stone Town Hall/Courthouse that’s 4 stories with a grand lawn majestic Customs house next door, with battlement relics out front—remnants of a busy, strong town. We’re right on the Ohio River, so easy access via river. Cairo also has a Historic Park District, with big beautiful run-down Victorians. We’ll have to find out more. We made a stop at Shemwell’s Barbeque on Washington. “The Best Bar-B-Q in Town.” Now seems to be the only BBQ in town. Sean is picking up a homemade sauce with a splash of Apple. Shemwell's has a massive fireplace where they do all their smoking.

We realize that it is 2:30 pm, and have planned 5 more BBQ stops along I-55, and decided that we will push right through to Memphis for the kids’ sake of eating at a reasonable time. The benefit of this route happens to be that we will pass all of these stops as we travel to St. Louis on Day 6. So with the foot on the gas, we speed down I-55 for our dinner destination. We roll into Memphis at 5:25 and the sun is breaking through the clouds, shining against the sides of the now defunct pyramid on the Northwestern boundary of the city, and we can feel that we are all excited to get out of the van. We reached the Leavitt-Rush household in one piece, and the kids just exploded out of the van and into the home of Oliver and baby Reagan. Oh yeah, and Jenelle and Bradley.



For the last meal of the day, we decide to get one of the Big 3 in Memphis and order Corky’s Ribs to eat at the house. As the family is unwinding, Sean is sent out to get the food and meet with Krista, manager of Corky’s Cordova. Known as the newer restaurant, the drive through lane is backed up 25 cars deep. This seems to be the location that all of the locals come too, while they let the tourists go to the much smaller/older locale. Told to get the ribs done dry, and the sauce on the side, Sean spends a little time getting pictures of the food being prepared on the grill and shoving his head in the smoker to get some shots of tomorrow's pork shoulders. The food is amazing. The rub has a little bit of a heat kick to it, the sauce is quite good. It doesn't have the excessive sweetness that some Chicago or KC sauces have. The sides are perfect, and complement the meat very well. The ribs are extremely tender and the meat falls off the bone very easily. Kuddos to our hosts for making this a suggestion for dinner on night #1.


Sean returns to the house to crazy kids running everywhere, two mothers that seem to have a bit more straggly hair than when he left, and he thinks, “Will they ever get to bed?” The answer is yes, because we have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow.