4/19-4/21/2010 On the Road Again

It’s time to leave San Antonio. We didn’t see nearly everything we wanted to but then we weren’t counting on all the rain either. There is still lots more to see in this area so we’ll put this on our ever growing list of places to come back to.

This was certainly a nice FamCamp we were in and the spaces for each RV was fairly large.

We weren’t on the road all that long and we had a problem. When we were in Austin Bob had noticed that the hose going to the turbo thing-y was kinked. (This was installed new less than a month ago by the Ford dealership in Casa Grande) He took it off, shortened it and put it back on. All was good. We are also keeping an eye on a tire that isn’t wearing evenly at all. So we’re going down the road and we both hear this noise. We both lean forward and it sounds like a “whining sound” and then a we heard a loud pop. My first thought was the tire. Bob said, “No, it’s not the tire, its the turbo hose.” He got us safely off the road, lifted the hood, got out the stepladder, some wrenches and sockets, a screwdriver, a piece of canvas to put over the hot engine and started working on it. In about 15 minutes he was putting the stepladder away and we were on our way again. A hundred miles down the road we stopped to check it and it was nearly off again. He got everything out again, fixed again and we were off yet again. Every stop we made he checked it again but it seems he got it on just right and its holding.

As we were going through the most eastern part of Texas we took note of the these YELLOW fields! BUTTERCUPS!

Thousands and thousands of buttercups.

It wasn’t long before we were in Louisiana.

We weren’t in this state at all before we were back in Arkansas.

We spent the night in some non-descript campground (I say that because now, a few days later when I’m writing this, neither one of us can remember it)

Tuesday brought us a pretty day and hoses and tires were holding. We found the Gator Den RV Park to spend the night in our Woodall’s Campground Book and I called ahead to make sure there is room. I talked to the owner of the campground and could not understand a word he said with that very pronounced southern drawl. Actually, I did catch a couple of them, I heard road construction and detour. That is never good. It took another phone call before we were able to find it. During the second the call I repeated everything he said as he said it so that Bob could have an idea of where we were going too. He told us to pick a spot and get set up and that he would be over in the evening to collect the $20.00 nightly fee.

We found it with no problem and we were set up in no time. We have this down to a science practically and within a half hour of pulling in we are both sitting at our computers or watching TV with everything that has to be done,,,,done. We are GOOD!

So we’re hanging out and we hear a knock at the door. I go to the door and I invited him in and for the next 45 minutes we learned so much about Randy. His father-in-law is the one who built the campground but has now handed it over to Randy to run and take care of. It’s not a huge campground but it has a nice sized pond that is stocked.

Randy is so friendly! We talked about campgrounds, politics, raising three boys on his own, education today and a multitude of other subjects. One that was especially fun was the weather. There has been a lot of talk on local TV about tornadoes and of course the subject came up. The conversation turned to why tornadoes seem to always target trailer parks. Randy has his own thoughts on this subject and he shared them with us. Here’s how it went.

He explained that tornadoes take out much more than just a trailer park. It can take a roof off the garage or the roof off a of a $400,000 home but we’ll never hear about it. A tornado can take a piece of construction equipment that belongs to a well to do construction company and turn it on its side and ruin it, but we’ll never hear about it. The news people won’t go to talk to the well groomed gentleman in the sports coat and slacks about his ruined equipment. The news people won’t talk to the well coiffed, well dressed lady of the house who lost the roof. Oh no, the news people will search out the 300 pound woman with the missing front tooth, her dirty hair pulled straight back in a rubber band, wearing a pair Daisy Dukes and no bra with a tight, dirty, pink T-shirt with the word S E X Y written in glitter across the front. She is one they will talk to as they stand in front of what once was a mobile home. Of course the 64 Fairlane is still in place, untouched. You know the one, the right front side is resting on a cinder block, the hood is raised, weeds are growing out of the driver’s side window and the rear quarter panel is missing. Yep, this is who you will see on the news.

Oh my gosh, we laughed so hard at this.

Randy is probably one of the friendliest people we have ever met. He’s even easier to understand when standing in the same room with him and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with him. So if you are ever driving through El Dorado, Arkansas and need a place to park the RV for a night, by all means, stop at the Gator Den, its twenty bucks well spent.

Wednesday took us past fields and fields of corn breaking through the ground.

We saw smoke down the road before we could see what was causing it. Seems as though there was an accident between a train and a car. Oh, this brought back memories!

We were back in buttercup country again.

Here the ground seems to be solid yellow.

LaVon….I found a dead tree for you!

We passed over the state line to Tennessee while on a bridge as the river separates Arkansas from Tennessee.

It was an easy run today and we made it further than what we thought we would. We finally pulled in to a campground in Denmark, TN. A nice little campground with exceptionally nice owners. Bob asked the man who was cleaning out the sewer lines how far a walk it would be to the liquor store, that we knew was on the same road, since he was out of beer. The fellow, who happened to be the owner, said, “It’s walkable but you don’t have to, just take my truck, the keys are in it.” I guess he figured it was a good bet that Bob was coming back.

So there’s the first three days of this week. I’ll get caught up sooner or later.