After 12 days on the road, I figured that it was about time that I had a little input on this blog.
From the first time that I took the 40' 5th wheel accross our little country bridge, I was a little concerned about getting it back out because of a hill straight across the road and railings on the bridge that I thought the rear of the trailer would swing out and hit because of having to turn so sharply. All my fears were eliminated and it came out easily (with two spotters watching). I then drove about 5 miles to our local Walmart where I planned to meet Deb after her hair appointment.
As soon as I arrived in the Walmart parking lot, I started searching for anything that I could get rid of due to the fact that we were overloaded. When you move from a 3,000+ sq ft house into a 40' trailer and are used to having everything that you could ever possibly need at your finger tips, you have a tendancy to take more stuff than is neccessary. Once Deb arrived, we loaded the back of Robin's SUV with some of the extra stuff I had decided to leave behind and we hit the road.
I'm pulling this rig with a Chevy 2500HD with a 6.6L diesel engine and a six speed Allison transmision. I got it up to 60 and set the cruise control and wound our way thru the Pigeon River Gorge on I-40 thru the Smokey Mountains. The truck performed admirably (although I could use a little more brake since we are still overloaded) but we passed slower traffic as we climbed up hills. Once we hit the slightly flatter country of east TN, the cruise was set at 65 and we never looked back. At our first fuel stop, I found that we got slightly more than 10 mpg which made me very happy since I'm sure that we are in excess of 12-1/2 tons.
Our first stop was Edgar Evins State Park on Center Hill Lake about 40 miles east of Nashville. We had called every other campground around the lake to see if there were any openings but since 4th of July weekend was just 3 days away, we expected that we would not find any open spots where reservations were taken. Such was the case so we headed to Edgar Evins which is strictly first come, first serve. I had called about a week earlier to discuss their sites with someone on the phone because the web site makes it very clear that all of the sites are platforms (decks) built off the side of the hill and that each was just 33' long. When I asked about the 33' length and expressed my desire to put a "little bigger" rig in the park, the person on the phone assured me that someone could fit a 35-36' rig into a few of the slightly larger spots. I figured 35-36', that's about 40', NO PROBLEM!
We made it thru the weekend of the 4th but we did not really like the park so we drove another 40 miles or so to Nashville and spent two nights in a great park on J. Piercy Priest Lake. The next time that we are in the Nashville area we will plan to spend a couple weeks at that park.
200 more miles down the road put us in West Memphis on the Mississippi River. HOT, HOT, HOT is the only way that I can describe our stay. Those of you in the northeast this week have experienced the same kind of weather but we were expecting it.
Our RV only has one air conditioner on top and it has been running constantly. I went to the Walmart yesterday and bought an indoor/outdoor thermometer. I placed the outdoor unit in the bedroom and the indoor one in the living area. It was 74 in the living room and 86 in the bedroom. We could definitely use a second A/C unit if we were going to spend any amount of time in a climate like this but we are turning the compass to the north tomorrow so we'll live with it for one more day. Thankfully, it cools down enough at night that the bedroom is the same temp as the living room when we go to bed.
While here, we took in The Pink Palace Museum, Graceland, Beale Street and saw the ghost of Elvis down on Union Avenue. We ate crawfish and ribs and had an overall great time. We only went out one night, so I never had the opportunity to try the catfish which I've heard, the people in the Memphis area know how to cook.
This morning, my fishing equipment started calling so I pulled out an ultra-light rod and got set up. 10 minutes later, I was in a good fight with a perfect sized catfish, the size that you get when they are farm raised. Shortly after, the sun broke thru the overcast and it got too damn hot to fish any longer.
Tonight we are having southern surf and turf. Venison steaks and catfish. Tomorrow we pack up and head for Branson, MO.
We spent a lot of time with Mat. This has been another one of our enormous blessings, our son is getting his life back and we are getting our son back. It can be attributed to a variety of reasons, the main one being Mat was ready to fix himself. He has some very solid people in his life who are mentoring him as well. People who have been down the addiction road and put their lives back together. Religion and a belief in God and forgiveness has played a huge part. This is an answer to our prayers. Our lives are lookin' pretty damn good these days.
