Louisiana, Mississippi, Still Going to Alabama...

From 186 miles we were on I-20 in Louisiana, going east towards Mississippi. The road in Louisiana was very rough, and made for a painful ride for me.

I was very happy to see the Mississippi River up ahead. I always love when we cross the Mississippi, whichever direction we are going. 

When we are headed east, it always symbolizes to me that we are officially back in the south. We spent the last 18 months in Arizona, and while I love it out there, it definitely is not the south. So when we crossed the river, I was very happy to be "home".

We made really good time across Mississippi. The Weather Channel was calling for heavy rains, but we never got any of it. The radar maps showed it all north of us. I was very thankful for that. The road improved and smoothed out after we cross the state line. I was thankful for that, too.  

We stopped for the night in Pelahatchie at Yogi On The Lake RV park. It is a part of Legacy Resorts Corporation--I did not like it that when we called to make a reservation, the person we talked to was not at the campground we were making the reservation for. They told us that the office would be closed when we arrived but that they would leave us a map to our site. 

When we got there, there was no late arrival info for us. I was a little bit upset by that, as I have worked at campgrounds for 9 years now, and I have always left maps for the late arrivals. I felt like it was poor service to us.  The other thing is that they DO have wireless internet in the park, and we picked up a fantastic signal for it, but they required a sign-in code, which we did not have because they did not leave our information outside for us as late arrivals. Just something to be aware of if you are traveling through Mississippi anytime in the future.

 

They do have long pull through sites, and they are quite level, so that was a plus. Just be sure to ask for your sign-in code for the Wi-Fi when  you have them on the phone if you are going to get there after the office closes. 

Wichita Falls, Texas to Shreveport

We left Wichita Falls headed for Shreveport, still going south on 287, looking into this gorgeous east Texas sunrise that seemed to go on forever. It is a monotonous road, with mile after mile of nothing but Texas to see out the window.  

 

The highlight of the day was going through Paris. Paris, Texas, that is. It is a quaint little town, with a cute town square, but not much else is there. 

 

 

 

We finally wound up on I-20 late in the afternoon at Marshall, Texas, and then it was only about 40 more miles to Shreveport. 

We planned to spend the night at a casino in Shreveport, play the slots, eat dinner, and get to bed early. Which we did, except that there was a railroad yard right outside the RV park, which we did not know was there.

 

So, if you are planning to stay at a campground at a casino in Shreveport, don't pick Diamond Jack's. You'll be jarred away in the wee hours of the dark by trains adding boxcars on that track right over there.  We ate dinner at the buffet there, though, and that was pretty good. They had fried catfish breaded with corn meal, and steamed shrimp, and some killer parslied new potatoes. We gave them some money in their slot machines, then went to bed. When we got up the next morning, it was cloudy and humid, 100% humidity but not raining. And it was about 75 degrees, so it was that cloying, smothering, southern humidness that I know so well. Welcome to the south!

And then we got on that bumpy road, and oh mah holy hell, the girls were in trouble all day!

Still Going To Alabama....

At least we waited til after the sun came up to leave Tucumcari.  We saw lots of windmills and wind turbines in New Mexico. The old fashioned windmills pump water for the many cows and other agricultural uses:

And the modern wind turbines produce electricity. If you click the photo below to enlarge it you may be able to see the turbines on the ridge across this field. I counted at least 60 of them over there. They are HUGE! A sign we saw says that each one produces 1.5 megawatts of electricity. I don't know exactly how much that is but it must be a lot.

 Ok, so I looked it up for us all to know. From this website: Oregon Power Solutions:

"...How many homes can one megawatt of wind energy supply?
An average U.S. household uses about 10,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity each year. A one-megawatt wind turbine can generate between 2.4 million and 4 million kWh annually, depending on the average wind speed at the site. Therefore, a single one-megawatt wind turbine generates enough electricity to power 240 to 400 households...."

So, if there were 60 of those things, they could produce enough electricity for up to  24,000 homes. Wow!

 

The turbines were out in the fields, so a farmer could still use the land to ranch or grow cotton or peanuts, and also receive lease payments for a power company to put those wind turbines on their property.  That is a good use of resources in my opinion. 

 

 

Another thing that was amazing to me is that there was so many ranches and farms, and you could see at a glance what these people do to make a living. They grow cotton, peanuts, sorghum, and corn. We saw a peanut processing plant, cotton gins, feed lots, feed and seed silos, farm implement sales lots. I guess I lived in cities for so long I either never knew or forgot about all the agricultural occupations that existed. See how beautiful that cotton field is?

 

We saw flocks of geese flying south for the winter. That is also amazing to me how those birds know when the cold weather is coming, and take flight before the first snow. 

 

 

We DIDN'T see any rattlesnakes, but this sign had me looking for them. This was at a rest area east of Amarillo on Hwy 287. 

 

We stopped for the night at Wichita Falls RV Park in Wichita Falls, Texas.  The guy who works in the office there can not give directions. We called him twice, and he failed to give correct directions both times. If you are going south on Hwy 287, take exit 1-A, get all the way over to the right, turn right at the first light, and stay on that road until  you see the sign for the RV park. That guy had us running all over Wichita Falls pulling that trailer. It is hard to turn around when you have a 34' trailer behind you, ya know?  They weren't making any dinner for us, either, so I made some potato salad.

 

 

And this was a little interesting: a collection of fire hydrants, each one painted a different color, at the RV park. Hmmmm......

 

We made about 410 miles today--not bad. Tomorrow, we head for Shreveport.

The Semi-Annual Toss Out and Straighten Up

Every six months or so, when we move from one place to another, I do the Toss Out.  You know, where you go through every closet, cabinet, drawer, and bin in the place and get rid of things you don't really need, things you haven't used in a year, stained and torn clothing, etc.  

Just how much can two people accumulate in just six months?  Um, about 12 bags full.  See: 

 

  

And then there was a pesky mouse in the pantry, too. So, I had to pull everything out of the cabinet under the sink, and get everything out of the pantry that a mouse could chew into. What a pain in the arse!!

 

This whole cleaning out of stuff has taken me a whole week to do, and I am not finished yet. I still have one drawer under my seat at the dinette, that has to be sorted through. I have saved that one for last, though, because I know it will be an even bigger pain in the arse--it is my "office" drawer, where I keep all my papers, office supplies, things to be filed, things I need to keep track of.

Like, a big wad of business cards, little pieces of paper with people's phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses that I have intended to put in a little photo album to be able to keep up with them,.......

 

Thought I was just kidding, didn't you?

In the middle of all this, it started to snow, so I had to go out and drive around a bit to take some pictures:

 

  

I did get back to the job at hand, and have finished most of it, except of course for that drawer. I will have to wait until I get to a town to be able to buy a little album for those business cards, but it is at the TOP of my list of things to do in the future. Right up there with buying some extra mouse traps to keep on hand. 

So, now, the trailer is looking good! See:

 

 A nice clean, neat kitchen counter. I'm gonna bake that pumpkin and make a souffle!

 

My closet hasn't been so neat in years!

 

In two days, we'll head out to Alabama. The trip is about 1800 miles, and will take us about a week. The trailer is about 200 pounds lighter. Maybe we won't buy a bunch of stuff over the winter to fill it up again.

Our Newest Assignment

Everyone has been asking me where we are going for the next season. Today, I am happy to announce that we are to Payne Lake Campground in the Talledega National Forest, about 35 miles south of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  It is about 185 miles from our hometown in Georgia, so that we will be able to visit our family and friends there over the winter. We will arrive around November 1, and will be there until about April 15, 2010. We are really looking forward to being there. See that lake? We haven't seen that much water in over a year! I can not wait to go fishing. Their website says there are Crappie, Bream, Shell Cracker and Channel catfish in that lake. I am ready to get out my fishing pole!

(photo sent to me by the forest service ranger)

The job we will be doing is volunteer camp hosts. We will live onsite, make sure the campground is neat and clean, and check people in and sell sites to people who want to camp there. We have been volunteers before, at Unicoi State Park, and at Tanner State Park, both in Georgia. We have found that each park has differerent duties expected of volunteers, but they are usually about the same at each place. We pick up litter, clean fire pits, give out information about the area, advise people of the rules of the facility, and call for a ranger if someone gets out of hand. 

In exchange for our duties there, we will receive a full hook up campsite, free propane, a telephone line, and free satellite internet service at our site. We will be provided our uniforms and a truck to drive while we perform our duties. It is a win win situation for both sides.

(photo sent to me by the forest service ranger)

We'll be leaving the North Rim on Sunday. It will be about 1800 miles to reach our destination, but I am sure we will find lots of neat things to see on our way. Can't wait to be on the road again!  Oh, and if you are in the area over the winter, come on by and visit for a spell!

I Can Not Believe I Forgot To Post Something Yesterday!

Really, I didn't do it on purpose, I just plain forgot. What with all the cleaning and straightening and packing shit up, I just forgot.

So, yesterday was spent cleaning out my side of the wardrobe closet, refolding and rearranging my clothes, and tossing out about half of my shirts because they all had a grease stain in the same place. Right in the middle of my chest, where food always lands when I am eating. I guess I should look into getting myself a big bib!

After I did that, and cleaned out the dresser drawers, I cleaned out the pantry cabinet. I say if we haven't eaten something in a year, we ain't gonna, so that stuff got tossed out, too. When everything was finished, Jim said he thinks I tossed at least 75 pounds of stuff.

Then, I did all the laundry, including sheets, bedspread, and rugs, while we still have access to free use of laundry facilities. That shit can get expensive if you have to pay for it. I borrowed a super duper extra sucking power vacuum cleaner from the admin office, too. So, when I came home from doing the laundry, I vacuumed the whole house (all 280 square feet of it, hahaha), even used the attachments to vacuum the window shades and valances, the ceiling, and the walls. I'm telling ya, this place is spotless!

Today, so far, I have read my emails and my google reader subscriptions, shopped online for a new wireless aircard and cellphone provider, cooked breakfast, talked to Becca on the phone, packed up some things in the kitchen, and called to disconnect my land line for tomorrow. And I still have a gajillion things on my list to do.

For instance, I have to pay bills online sometime today because I don't know when I'll have internet access again, and I don't want to be late on anything. I have to finish packing up the kitchen, figure out what to do with the little refrigerator we bought a couple of months ago, take a shower, and ..... Crap, I better get busy!

Kanab, Utah

We decided to go to Kanab, Utah on Monday to buy new batteries for our truck. FabGrandpa wanted to have someone check the batteries and the altenator first before w spent the money. When we got to Little’s Diesel and Livestock, we found out we didn’t need a battery at all. The problem we had been having with cranking our truck turned out to be that the glow plugs and the glow plug controller were burnt out.

Since the mechanic couldn’t get to our truck until Tuesday morning, they arranged for us to spend the night in Kanab, rather than have to drive all the way back up to the North Rim and come back in the morning.

We stayed at Aiken’s Lodge, a little motel on the north side of town. The room was small but very clean, and the bed was sooooo comfortable. We checked in before going to Honey’s Jubilee Grocery store, because I wanted to see if they had a bathtub, which they did. I got some Calgon and had a nice soaking bubble bath. Ahhhhhh!

For dinner, we walked over to Houston’s Trails End Restaurant. The ad in the motel information book for Trail’s End said “Where our girls have a gun on their hips and a smile on their lips”. Sure enough, all the waitresses had a holster with a pistol hanging off their belt.

Houston’s is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For dinner on Monday night, FabGrandpa had a country fried streak, mashed potatoes and gravy. I had stir-fried garlic shrimp with vegetables over rice. The stir-fry had broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, snow peas, and zucchini. All very good and so much I couldn’t eat it all. We went back there for breakfast on Tuesday. The biscuits Jim had looked so good, but I didn’t even ask to smell them (ok, I sniff wheat bread. At least I don’t eat it.)

After breakfast, we took the truck over to Little’s. We expected to sit there while they worked on our truck, but they gave us a little Chevy truck to drive and told us to come back around lunch time, so we decided to ‘do Kanab” like tourists.

What, you ask, is there to do in Kanab, Utah? A lot. We went to Denny’s Wigwam, and bought some souvineers. We stopped in at Linda Lea’s Coffee Shop for an expresso and a cappacino. I went into a hair salon and got a hair cut. We went into another store where I bought a new backpack and FabGrandpa got some new boots.

There is a museum here where they have buildings from movie sets of movies that have been filmed here. There was one from “The Outlaw Josey Wales” . One from “Sergeants 3” which starred Frank Sinatra. One from a Kenny Loggins music video that was actually filmed at Lee’s Ferry. It was interesting to look at all the stuff they had there.

Moqui Cave is a natural cave in the side of a mountain north of Kanab. The tour guide there told us that his father bought the property in 1950 and in 1951 he opened a bar and a dance hall in the cave. The temperature inside the cave stays cool, so he had a cool place for a cold drink and socializing, and did a brisk business for such a sparsely populated area. There were exhibits of dinosaur tracks that were found in other places in Utah. And some really neat fluorescent minerals that glowed colorfully in black lights in the display cases.

Another interesting thing we learned is that the T-Shirt shop in Kanab printed the “Kanab Cowboys” T-shirt that was worn in the movie “Napolean Dynamite.” Sweet. They had some in the shop and also had some that said “Vote For Pedro”.

The folks at Little’s had our truck ready when we got back over there. The bill for the repair was $583.93, which was not too bad. All the people who work there are so nice, too. The customer service they provided was just as valuable as their repair work. They made us feel like we were at least one of their best friends, if not a part of their family. If you are ever in this area and need work on your diesel truck, this is the place to go. Before we left, they had given us each a T-shirt, a pen and a coupon good for 10 cents per gallon off diesel fuel at their gas station in town.

Before we went home, we stopped at the Food Town to get a few groceries. This was the first time I had shopped in that store. I was glad I went in there, because even though it is a tiny grocery store in a town with a population of under 5,000 people, they had a very good gluten free section. I got some Glutino bread stick, some Mrs. Leepers hamburger helper, and a gluten free pizza crust mix.

I told FabGrandpa that I could live in that town for sure.

Hiking The Uncle Jim Trail

On June 9, Jim and I and our neighbor across the street went for a hike on the Uncle Jim Trail. The Uncle Jim is a 5 mile loop, that starts out at the North Kaibab Trailhead. The North Kaibab is the trail that goes down into the canyon. It goes across to the South Rim, where you meet up with the Bright Angel Trail and up to the top of the South Rim. The Uncle Jim Trail takes you through the forest out onto the North Rim, where you can get a fabulous view of the winding North Kaibab Trail. This first picture is the beginning of the Uncle Jim Trail.




One thing I did not like about the Uncle Jim Trail is that you have to share the trail with the mule rides, so you can just guess what it LOOKED like and what it SMELLED like. (can you say peee yewwww!!!) But after about a mile or so, the mule rides turn left and follow the Ken Patrick Trail and the Uncle Jim Trail turn right, so it did improve after that. Here is FabGrandpa standing at the intersection of the Ken Patrick and the Uncle Jim Trails.

I was ready for this hike, or so I thought, because I brought plenty of water and snacks, and it was ONLY 5 miles, right? But, we were surprised by the ravenous mosquitos. They came out after two o'clock, and wouldn't let us rest. We couldn't sit down or take a break at all, because if we did, the vicious little b#$@%r&* were relentless. I learned on THIS hike that I should pack some bug repellent wipes or spray in my backpack. Oh, and another thing I learned is that your hiking partner needs to take their own backpack. Here is the backpackless Jim hiking along on the Uncle Jim Trail:




This view of the canyon is from the Uncle Jim Trail, along the top of the ridge from the first "up" om the trail. You come out of the forest to the edge and see this :

At the top of the trail, near the edge of the canyon, is a lovely field of lupine. They were growing everywhere up there, all in a beautiful blue bloom:

Jim and Gary went all the way to the edge. I was a little afraid, so I didn't go down there. Don't they look like they are observing their kingdom?
If you click on the picture below, you will be able to see the winding North Kaibab Trail, down in the canyon below. You would not believe how many people hike down that trail to get to the bottom of the canyon. And can you believe those shear rock walls? It is an awesome view that just boggles my mind about how this area was formed.



It seems like everywhere I go on the North Rim, I wind up taking pictures of Humphrey's Peak. The mountain in the distance in this pic is 70 miles away, in Flagstaff. It still has a snowcap. When we were on our way up here we camped at a campground on the other side of that mountain.


Here is a picture of my elbow after the mosquitos got through with it. I am still itching over a week later. I will definitely have some bug stuff next time I go hiking!

And, I know this is not an attractive picture, but I wanted to show you that my feet are ok. No blisters, no sores, no cracks. Just fat feet. Oh, and I have to tell you, I have lost 17 pounds since I got here in April, so this hiking stuff is beginning to pay off. Yay me!