On the Road Again

In case anyone has decided we fell off the face of the earth when I didn't blog anything on our last trip, here I am again, trying to catch up with that before trying (again!) to be a good girl for 2018's trips. If you forgot, in 2017 I blogged our plans in "Now What?" about a year ago. Life conspired and I never managed to blog as we traveled ... anyway, time to catch up.

After a short shakedown ride on Sunday May 21st, down to the Pilot at CR 206 where we topped off the gas tanks - it was raining so they wouldn't do the propane - we headed out early. Well, we thought 5am was early but at 6am headed west on I-10, it was busy! Where are all these people going?

We've been out this way on I-10 a few times but there are often some interesting sights anyway like the whole bunch of itty bitty goats in a meadow out near the I-75 junction and a sign for Buc-ee's which isn't until Texas and said "You can hold it! 737 miles to go!"

We stopped around 11:30 at a rest area and made sandwiches and Geoff announced he had decided to put mayo on his ham sandwich! I nearly fell off my seat, in nearly 25 years he has never had anything but mustard on his ham sandwiches! When we left I was exceedingly grateful to those truckers who move over a lane when a pokey RV is coming out on to the highway.

For our first overnight we went to the Pensacola RV Park we stayed at last year and had beef stroganoff Mountain House meals. Nice and easy, just pour the boiling water into the pouch, wait a little bit and chow down.

Looks like our adventures are already starting to show their ugly little heads again. The gasket around the slide-out is poking out into the inside of the RV <sigh>. It rained pretty much all night but at least the gasket problem doesn't seem to be leaking.

We headed west again early, about 5am although being Central Time now that is like 6am I guess in Eastern, right? I was writing in my journal by the light of the Puppy Pad (the name we gave the RV GPS tablet) as Geoff cruised along I-10 west out of the Pensacola area. Of course I had to head for the head as he moved along and on the way back I managed to fall down for the first time in over 20 years, nearly doing a face plant into the console and definitely getting rug burn on my knees and bruises on my legs. I felt rather like a beached whale as I struggled to get back up, eventually scooting over to where the steps go down by the door out and with my feet down there I could grab hold of the side of the sink and manage to haul myself upright again. I think getting back up was worse than the fall!

It was a cold grey morning as around six we crossed Mobile Bay with strong cross winds and then a downpour shortly before the tunnel where a sign says 40 MPH and Geoff commented "40 my f**king ass," a rather un-Geoffrey like comment! By 6:30 we were in Mississippi with the sun coming up behind us as we crossed the Pascagoula River. The sun soon went behind the clouds again leaving us in a mostly grey day, windy and rainy, but the 'challenge' keeps Geoff awake and alert. By 8 we were lost in a truck stop parking lot. By the time we finally found our way out, we decided not to even try heading back in for gas but just continued down the road. Of course the sun came back up briefly so it could shine in our eyes as we struggled out of the truck stop.

It seems that Alabama, Mississippi and even Florida along I-10 have lots of wetlands and lily ponds and crossing the Pearl River into Louisiana did not seem to change much. The road seems to run forever elevated above the wetlands and swamps.

It is only mid-morning when we stop at a rest area at the beginning of I-12 near Slidell. I-12 cuts across avoiding New Orleans, making a shortcut in I-10. At the rest area we discover there is a rather large pool of water across the bottom of the windshield so we dumped some rags down into it pulling out three sopping wet rags, replacing them with more.

We are sure glad we are headed west as the east bound side is backed up and slow as molasses. Perhaps it is yet another pickup full of stuff that has not tied down their load. We have already seen two with parts of their loads flying off. This stretch of road is bouncy as can be and the water at the bottom of the windshield is jumping around and a screw in my side window has come loose.

It must be wet here a lot as we're now passing a number of rice fields and water ponds with something apparently being grown in them. At least there is one good thing about the rain, it washes away the bug guts that like to accumulate on the windshield!! Finally we reach Texas where we now face 880 miles of I-10 and we soon pull into the Gulf Coast RV Park in Beaumont for the night.