So on down the road we go in hopes that the next park was in better shape. Not a chance! It was worse than the first! Just a few blocks down the road we found it. Picture this.... an old gutted gas station building with the overhang resting on the ground at one corner. Windows busted out and trash all over the place. Now picture next to this a half dozen old RV's lined up haphazardly. THAT was what we saw for the next "campground". Uh-uh,,,not for us. Let's get out of Louisiana!
It didn't take us long to make that decision. We're sure Louisiana has some great places, we just didn't see them. We had hoped to get to New Orleans but we had heard there were no campgrounds available as they are still filled with FEMA trailers housing displaced residents and construction workers who came to help with the re-building.
Onward to TEXAS!
We were headed towards Beaumont to spend a few days there as Bob is hoping to get some fishing in at Port Arthur.
So here we are rolling along, minding our own business and all of a sudden Bob yelled something unmentionable here. I looked up and saw something on the windshield but didn't realize what was happening. Bob was finally able to tell me what was going on. A delivery truck in the left hand lane was having mechanical problems and was spewing its oil all over the place! That means all over our truck and 5th wheel! We watched this truck as the driver put on the emergency flashers and proceeded to the center and right lanes to get to the shoulder. We couldn't get away from him so the oil spray was just getting worse! We couldn't get over to pull over as we were in the center lane and traffic wouldn't allow us to move over. We had no choice but to keep going. I did grab the cell phone and punch in the number listed on the truck so that I could call them and let them know what happened. In my haste I guess I transposed two numbers and got some fella named Doug who had never heard of Pittman Wholesale Flowers. Oh no, what were we going to do now as we were well past the truck on the side of the road at this point. We did pull over as soon as we got to the next exit and Bob tried to get the oil off of the front of the rig but I guess it dried fast with the traveling at 60 mph that we were doing. What a mess! We were just sick.
We did pull into the first rest stop over the Texas state line and got these shots.
We finally made it to the RV park by late afternoon. We were so no sooner set up and I was on the computer trying to find Pittman Wholesale Flowers. I couldn't find anything on them and it was extremely frustrating. I called several agencies in Louisiana that might have some connection to the wholesale florist trade but kept running into brick walls. Then it dawned on me. I checked to see where the area code I had was for. Not being familiar with area codes in this part of the country and coming from a state with just one area code....well, it was a shot in the dark. PAYDAY! The area code I had was for Arkansas! Here I was looking in the wrong place. So I "googled" wholesale flowers in Arkansas and sure enough I found Pittman Flowers. What a relief! I was just one number off in the phone number I punched into my cell. The prefix was 234, not 324.
I called and asked for the dispatcher or vehicle service manager and was connected with Ashley, the dispatcher. I explained that we were I-10 and saw that one of their drivers was having a problem on the road and asked if he was ok. She assured me he was. I just wanted her to confirm that one of their trucks did have a problem. I then went on to explain what had happened and she assured me that the company would do whatever it took to make things right for us. We took pictures and emailed them to her which was a monumental task in itself. We had a very weak Wifi signal and I kept getting kicked offline. Here are some of the pics we sent her.
Double click on the pics for a better idea of what happened.
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