400 miles fueled by junk… (TX)

Bob and Jan got us a round of excellent breakfast tacos from yet a different Mexican restaurant and at 9:30 we left, Bob watching carefully as I unwound the trailer from his utility lines.

This was perhaps our most horrible driving day food wise, as we subsisted on a bag of potato chips, a bag of ginger snaps, a 32-oz soda, some chocolate, an apple, a DQ cookie-dough blizzard, a soft-serve vanilla, more chips and cookies, and finally a nice light diner of leftover beans, cheese, and tortillas, and some green vegetables from the refrigerator.

We covered a little over 400 miles today and have taken a diversion, to Fort Davis, a Texas State Park and National Historic Site.

We visit Jan & Bob in San Antonio… (TX)

Mileage has ticked up another decimal place to 15.8 MPG, hard to believe after around 7000 miles. Diesel clicked down a bit in price, about $3.27/gal as we approached San Antonio TX.

We left Vinton LA (a few miles short of the TX border) about 9 on a foggy morning continuing on I-10, bypassing (somewhat) Houston on I-610, then returning to I-10. The Houston area remains as ugly from the freeway as I remembered it, but the long drive to San Antonio was nice. Marcia drove about an hour when the sun began to make me drowsy – the temperature was in the 80s.

We arrived at Jan and Bob’s house in San Antonio about 3:30 PM, covering 327 miles today. They graciously let us spend the night in their driveway, which required some maneuvering as their street is very narrow. Only when we were in place did we notice the power lines overhead! They are touching plastic and fiberglass elements of the trailer roof.

Marcia visited Jan a couple years ago and raved about a certain Mexican restaurant, so after some conversation and a couple glasses of wine we were off to downtown San Antonio – a much larger city then when I was stationed here 1964-65. The restaurant is called Picante Grill and it is indeed fantastic. A very unassuming place but food well beyond you staples of excellent tacos, enchiladas, burritos, fajitas, etc. I had a chili stuffed with minced pork and Marcia had the casserola problana (spelling?). Sadly I can’t think of a comparable Mexican restaurant in San Diego, my previous gold standard, let alone Roseville.

We returned to Jan’s for a couple games of dominos, more conversation, amusement watching their four dogs and three cats (all but one a former stray), then it was off to bed.

Burning miles... (FL, AL, MS, LA)

Photos, mostly from moving car, top to bottom: Mobile AL; Mississippi; Mississippi Visitor Center (a genuinely classy place, a bit colonial); Baton Rouge LA; Atchafalaya NWA LA (from a causeway that went for many miles over this very large NWA).

Our drive yesterday confirmed that we must press on, burning miles with little opportunity to investigate the things the route has to offer. This is sad.

We left Wal-Mart at 9 AM continuing west through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and to 40 miles short of Texas before camping in Vinton, Louisiana, about 4:30 PM. Touring consisted of our first visit to a Cracker Barrel, a home-cooking restaurant favored by RVers. Excellent RV parking, OK food. Might be fun to try for a breakfast.

Otherwise, the only thing of interest was the decline in the quality of the pine trees bordering the freeways as we went west. Some of this was Katrina damage – trees broken off several feet above the ground, other trees bare of branches, fields with few trees still standing. Our campground in Vinton only recently reopened because of storm damage. But the casinos are back – they make up at least half the signs along the freeways, and certainly 90% of the newer signs.

Marcia and Cam head for home! (GA FL)

We got off at 9:30 this morning, but not without incident. We forgot our Airstream doormat, which was on a picnic table drying from the previous night's disaster. Others found it and by very circuitous handoffs we should receive it back about March or April.

Then, perhaps an omen, I nearly clocked a pelican as we drove off the island. He was flying crosswise to us at low level, passing not too many feet in front of our truck.

We drove south on I-95 and eventually picked up I-10 heading west through Florida. We decided to change to Hwy 20, which had been suggested to us as more interesting. This narrower road dropped our driving speed by about 10 MPH but we thought it might be worth it, and then all traffic came to a halt. Ahead of us was a spilled motorcycle, nobody around, and maybe 200 yards on was a car crosswise to the road and something in the street. By the time we abandoned hope of forward, we had lost maybe an hour and had to retrace our steps back to I-10 in order to resume our journey west. We drove until 6:30 PM, far later than we intended, and spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot about an hour short of Pensacola.

We shutdown the camp bringing shame to the caravan… (GA)

Pulling into our campsite after the party, I ran into a PVC hose bib, creating a mini-geyser. Water began to build rapidly and flow toward the neighbors and out on the road.

The campground office was closed so I went to Jamie’s rig – he who thought he was rid of us just minutes previous.

I was in luck; Marcia’s thank-you gift of a watercolor (ironic) apparently extended a protective shield to me, and Susan and I went to find the campground host. She identified herself and hesitating just briefly said that I had a leaky hose big. The host said he’d come check so I thanked Susan and road back with the host in his campground golf cart.

There we saw water still spraying and a good-sized lake, extending from my site to the neighbors. The neighbor, his spouse, and their teenage daughters—the daughters probably very bored until this point—were standing around trying to decide how bad things were going to be. The host sped off in his cart as I made small-talk with my neighbor, reminiscing about my days with a tent-trailer as he too has one. The lake now extended under his trailer and was moving toward their fire pit, and he made the comment he couldn’t find matches anyway. He was such a good sport I went and found him matches.

Then out of the dark two golf carts converged on the now comparatively quiet hose-bib, and five strangers to me gathered in the headlights to figure out what to do. This is when I learned the campground was now totally without water, creating some urgency. The five were actually having a good time, nothing much apparently having happened this season. One said it was too bad only Jim knew where to turn the water off, and they should do something about that. The others offered advice to someone (Jim?) on how to deal with the broken pipe, still flowing readily because the break was at ground-level making it the drainage point for the 100+ site campground. The one person that knew what he was doing made some lighthearted comment and the next thing I knew the thing was fixed; some kind of 3-second PVC glue that works under water. At least that’s what one of the don't-know-what-to-do guys told me.

I said goodnight to my neighbors, who were now enjoying their campfire, picked up some things around our site so they could dry out, and adjourned to my trailer. There I found Marcia intently playing computer solitaire, pretending in her way that she was no part of what had happened.

The caravan disbands… (GA)

We all went to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel for cocktails, a beautiful sunset, and dinner – the last event of our 40 day caravan. Only Cathy (with a ‘c’) couldn’t make it – too uncomfortable with a dislocated shoulder and sprained ankle from her Vertigo attack.

This was an incredible 40 days, thanks to our great co-leaders Jamie and Susan, the excellent chemistry between the 48 participants, and the southern seaboard that we toured.

We will definitely do another caravan.

Jamie and Susan get an MHM signed original…(GA)

As our thank-you to our caravan leaders, Marcia painted this “follower” view of their rig, an early Airstream motorhome.   I delivered the painting, and we later learned from Jamie and Susan how pleased they were to receive it. Good job, Marcia.