Valdosta?

Yes, indeedy. Valdosta, Georgia is where we landed tonight, after a quiet day and a half at the Mystic Springs Cove, Inc., an Airstream Park about 25 miles north of Pensacola on the Escambia River and site of our close call last November when flood waters covered the road one early morning.

We got a middling late start after breakfast and then poked along on Interstate 10 for a bit before turning the nose of the Ford northward for Georgia. It will come as no surprise to anyone between Key West and Boston that it was a hot day, in the upper 90's for the most part, so there was no sense of urgency. Just walking from the truck to a rest room was enough to soak my clothing. Actually working in these temperatures and humidity levels can be excruciating. I was so heat sick on Monday before I quit that I contemplated hospitalization!

We did manage to score some fresh tomatoes, Vidalia onions, peaches and the best boiled peanuts I've ever had, hands down, from a little stand at the junction of a couple of secondary roads in Georgia. Drove through Havana, Florida, named after Havana, Cuba as the town took up cigar production for a thirty year period (1940's through the late 1960's). Also Cairo, Georgia, the birthplace of Jackie Robinson, and got to admire the range of architecture in that fair burg after a wrong turn (darn GPS) forced me to travel over several residential and downtown streets to get where I wanted to go. Almost had a cute blonde officer as an escort vehicle, but she circled the block and made sure we left town without causing too much mischief. Damn Yankees! Hrumph!

No pictures today - too busy driving, I guess.

Arrived in Valdosta just before sundown. I hate setting up in the dark as I always seem to injure or break something, so I was unwarrantedly PO'd when my dear wife's navigational skills had us retracing our path multiple times trying to locate the campground entrance. After doubling back yet another time we hit upon the magic combination of chicken bones and tea leaves and found the place, right where they said they'd be. Funny, that.

That's about all for tonight. No excitement. Cooked a mean mess of sauteed onions and Chicken-Spinach and roasted garlic sausages (the last of our stash of Sam's Club tube steaks) along with a [late of fresh tomato wedges and pickled beets for supper. Finished up with a still warm, juicy Georgia Peach. Yum!


Well, off to sleep. Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Finally!

Getting ready to pull out of Baton Rouge for Maine in the morning. First stop will be in the Pensacola, Florida area.

We expect to be turning North at Jacksonville. Then next stop somewhere around Charlotte, S.C.

More as we actually hit the road.



Update: Corrected a misspelling & deleted the gratuitous line about my cell phone service. It hit 103°F. this afternoon - not much packing done. Can't imagine why...

Here's a new one on me...

It's raining hard here today. Between an inch and 2 inches per hour. So hard, in fact, that somehow it has managed to overtop the holding tank vents and fill both the gray and black water tanks. Full.

So now I have to go out in the pouring rain and hook-up a pump system to drain the tanks into the sanitary sewer line for the house.

Did I mention it is pouring buckets out there? I'd be dryer on the deck of one of those crabbers on The Deadliest Catch.

UPDATE: Tanks were not full, thanks be to Cthulhu. Instead, it appears something has blown on the monitor circuit board as EVERYTHING reads full, including the fresh water tank which I know to be empty as the drain valve is open. All of which wasn't discovered until AFTER I stood in the downpour running the pump.

Never rains but what it pours...

Mill-doing

Hanging tight in P.F. due to wx forecast of severe thunderstorms. Yesterday drove up and over the Great Smoky Mountains to Cherokee, N.C. What a depressing reservation (and I've been on quite a few). The people are wonderful, though and are a handsome mix of Amerind and Eurowasps. Fell in love with a half dozen maidens working in the shops. None even glanced my way (pout). They sure liked my wife and her c.c. - she added to their coffers with the purchase of an Airstream-shaped birdhouse while I went off on a musical bent with a Cherokee traditional flute from the Wolf clan and an ocarina from Peru (don't ask).

If ever you get over that way, take a moment to stop at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center on the Cherokee side of the park. It was built by the CCC - the Civilian Conservation Corps - in 1941 and is trimmed out inside with stained American Chestnut. Oh my, what a wonderful wood and such a shame to have lost it all to blight. Also check out the working grist mill up the road - Mingus' Mill - and the Mountain Farm Museum next to the visitor center.

We plan on leaving tomorrow. Taking today to relax and regroup.

Shanghaied by Christians!

Bloody awful hot on Friday. Only made 300 miles or so. Made the mistake of getting off the highway at Pigeon Ford, Tennessee. That's right, home to Dollywood and about 1000 outlet stores, theaters, restaurants and other tourist traps. The main strip puts me in mind of Myrtle Beach, NC. All that is missing are the honky-tonks and strip joints. Pigeon Ford is all about family fun.

Anyway, pulled in to the River Bend Campground after deciding that two previous facilities looked at were a bit too religious, what with Jesus in flashing lights on the office rooves. It was what seemed like a reasonable hour -- 8 o'clock. Darned if the office wasn't closed up tight (turns out we'd crossed a timezone line and didn't know it - it was late, after all). Finally a tall skinny fellow gets out of his motorhome next to the pavilion and introduces himself as "Pastor Ron". Bloody Jesus-folks snuck one by me, dang-it-all! He helped get us signed in, but only after extracting a promise from my wife that we would attend the Saturday night gospel singing! If you hear of a pavilion collapsing on a bunch of gospel singing folk, you'll know why.

We'll be here a few days to play then onwards towards the soggy Northeast.

We're off!

Lots of false starts and failed attempts later, but we have departed for points North. Hard slog in 95° heat and high humidity. Put some miles on, despite a lateish departure time. Saw one bad accident (fatalities, I think) involving a 15 passenger van, a pick-up and a couple of cars. Somehow, two more cars and an 18 wheeler got tied up trying to avoid the mess.

Arrived at the Good Sam Campground - Birmingham South (in Pelham, AL) just at dark. I think I described it as a "rabbit warren" in an email to family. Lots about 25' by 60', small concrete pad with picnic table, hook-ups. No shade to be had. All for the low, low price of $37 a night with our club discount. Now, to be fair, they have significant overhead, pool, restrooms, mowing, etc. Still, even with lots of headaches and high taxes, it is a money maker, for sure.

Heading further north today . Haven't decided whether we're going up the east side or the west side of the Appalachian Mountains. Have to wait to see how the better half is feeling. She has developed a sore throat and laryngitis. All that money spent for cell phones and now she can't talk.

And So It Goes...

We Made It!

After the weather gods finally let us loose from the sub-zero blizzard followed by nearly Spring-like monsoons accompanied by extremely high winds, we had a false start involving missing trailer brakes that suddenly reappeared and didn't bother the rest of the trip, we would have made it to Maryland in near record time - except for the pea-soup New Jersey smmog that forced a layover for 12 hours. Nevertheless, we made it on Sunday. After a nice visit with my Uncle and Aunt, we took off on New Year's Day afternoon and arrived here in Louisiana this evening! We even squeezed in a nice visit to Mystic Springs Airstream Camp yesterday on the Florida panhandle.

Off to bed, I'm beat. More on the flip side.

And this is how my wife would have me decorate our Airstream for Halloween...

Airstream Halloween Light Show @ Yahoo! Video

Oh No, Mr. Bill ... Say It Isn't So!!!

The Air Conditioner on the trailer died this morning. Now a balmy 99 degrees - the highest our thermometer in there goes to. Outside ... it was 97° F in the shade at 3:00 PM.

Fly like an Eagle

My sincere apologies for the unexplained absence. I and my wife are fine, given our limitations and my advancing decrepitude...

My last post caused dissension in the ranks and resulted in some hurt feelings, so I've taken a blog vacation for six weeks or so. In that period, I made a trip to Maine to register the truck and get some new plates – Maine being one of the few places in the country that doesn't have a thriving business in “brokers” who do such things for you. Seems they want you to appear in person to accomplish such a task. Who'd a thunk it?

Tried to go for a camping trip down to Grand Isle, Louisiana, after I got back but had another blowout (other side) of the trailer. This time it was due to an object about an inch in diameter that blew the tire on I-310 outside New Orleans. That ate two days of beautiful weather getting new tires and having all of the wheel studs and wheel nuts replaced. Why? To restore some peace of mind and satisfy the powers that be at the Northern Maine AAA office who were making noises about dropping us due to the stripped wheel studs that were found when the local AAA wrecker came to swap out my blown tire for the spare. At least this time I managed to stop before the tire's tread turned into a strip of trailer-destroying rubber and steel mace. The camping trip was a dud due to gale force winds blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico the entire time we were there. While more-or-less temperate, beach walks were more like a walk through a sandblast booth at a shipyard. Cooking out on the grill would have resulted in Barbecued Steak Sandies... A shame, really, as it is a beautiful place and home to great surf fishing and bird watching, when they aren't being blown sideways across the beach; the birds, that is.

So, back to Baton Rouge we went and that's where I am writing from today. Hope to take off in a few days for parts East and/or South for a little camping before the return to the great frozen North. No sense in going back now when there is still about six weeks of serious winter to get through up there before Jack Frost releases his gnarly grip in favor of the sleet infested grayness we call Spring in Maine.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, the “Eagle Cam” is back in operation for another season. Not much to see yet (as they just got 16 inches of snow and it's around zero tonight up there). That means the loon cam, also run by the same folks, shoul be going active as soon as the ice is out - say 4 to 5 weeks from now.

Other news will have to wait and there is a bit of news – there's been a new addition to our traveling band of snow bunnies. Details to follow later.

Brrr.... It's Almost Cold (And the promised update)

Blew a gale here on Saturday morning. Picked up 2 1/2" of rain with the heavy winds. Interesting driving -- seems like it never occurred to the local road builders to crown the pavement sufficiently to allow drainage from the inevitable ruts created by the heavy traffic, particularly on the concrete roads so prevalent here. Some really impressive hydro-planing results. Fun ... not.

Cleared out about mid-morning and started getting colder. Hit a low of 29 overnight. Ground surface still too warm to freeze, but standing water puddles froze with skim ice - some Louisianians are now convinced that global warming is a myth cooked up by freezing Yankees to extract oil price concessions from Southern refineries. (Not so - we all want cheaper gas!)

Back up to the low 30's after the sun came up, but I'm sure the damage was done - muy mucho frozen and/or busted pipes. Stopped by the Flea Market of Louisiana (no link available) yesterday afternoon and the venders were absolutely miserable. We ended up having to put the kids back in the van after 20 minutes -- they were approaching hypothermia.

So far, the repairs are satisfactory, so I'd give the RV Service Center (new name on Jan. 1st - formerly Family RV Center, LLC) of Walker, Louisiana, a qualified 3 out of 5 stars. The repairs were performed in a workmanlike manner. They used factory manufactured parts whenever possible. The quality of the part(s) manufactured on-site is fair to good (they really aren't skilled cabinet makers). The negatives have to do with failed promises and unrealistic estimates of what the work entailed, resulting in having to request supplemental funds for the work done from the insurance company. (My cost remained the same. If there hadn't been an insurance company footing the bill, I suspect the results would not have been as satisfactory -- an additional 10 days and over a thousand dollars above the original estimate for nearly double the amount of labor originally estimated. And then there's the cost of motels for an additional 10 days over the original 4 working day estimate, some of which is attributable to weekends and sickness of the employee doing the cabinetry. Still, it means an additional grand in motel and food costs and the possible loss of my wife's job due to the likely miss of a mandatory return-to-work date. All collateral consequences of the delays in completion of the job.)