Trip Stats

 For those who wonder: We put 3,570 miles on the coach and 2,300 miles on the Flex while we were gone.

Day 123 - Thursday, April 4 - Back in Missouri

 No problems during my overnight stay at the Wright City rest area. The 95 mile trip to Centertown went fine. I was parked and set up before 11 AM.

This will be my last post for awhile. I will start again when we head to Michigan for the summer, Lord willing.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 121 & 122 - Tuesday & Wednesday, April 2 & 3 - Leak Fixes & Travelling

 Tuesday - I dropped the coach off at Lakeshore at 7:30 and then drove in to Iuka for breakfast (& free WiFi) at McDonalds. I downloaded several episodes of a TV series and a movie while there. After that I drove to the park and read until around noon. I tried Taco Bell for lunch. It has been ages since I had a taco from Taco Bell, they weren't bad.

Bryan/Lakeshore texted me in the early afternoon to tell me that think they have the leaks fixed and that he had parked the coach back on the site. When I got back he explained what they had done and I paid him.

Several rainstorms went through the area in the evening and during the night. No leaks but no high winds. There was a tornado watch during part of the evening.

Wednesday - I headed for Missouri at 8:10AM. My plan was to get at least half way home today. I did miss a couple of turns in the first 100 miles but, PTL, getting back on track was easy in both cases and it only added about 6 miles to my travels. The first 125 miles, Lakeshore to Dyersburg, TN, was Mississippi county roads, Mississippi state highways and US highways. The road surfaces were decent and traffic was light. When I headed west on I155, out of Dyersburg, the wind became noticeable. I don't think the wind speed increased but the country was more open so I felt it more. When I turned north on I55, I was driving through a lot of open, flat areas. The wind out of the west made driving interesting. I drove through one little "storm", it wasn't raining very hard,  where I got hit with several big gusts of wind. They pushed me over onto the paved shoulder, tires on the wrong side of the rumble strip. That slowed me down to 45-50 mph for awhile.

Our generator draws diesel from the main fuel tank. Once the fuel level is down to 1/4 it can't get more fuel. It made that way so that you don't strand yourself by running the generator until you are totally out of fuel. I didn't know where I was going to stop for the night, and I wanted the flexibility of being able to run the generator as much as I wanted. I stopped and bought $100 worth of fuel in Marston, MO, price $3.72/gal. I planned on filling up at Mr. Fuel, west of St. Louis. We often buy fuel there when we go through St. Louis, because it usually the cheapest price around. The price $3.55/gallon. Seventeen cents a gallon adds up, it took 86 gallons to fill up.

For lunch I stopped at a truck parking area and made myself a sandwich.

After fighting the wind and St. Louis traffic (not to bad, only one 12 mile slow down and then a 6 miles stop and go) I knew I was to tired to drive the rest of the way home and arrive after dark.

I'm spending the night at the Wright City rest area, 395 miles from Lakeshore and 90 miles from Centertown. 

I haven't driven this far in a long time. I think that without the wind I could do a 500 mile day.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 119 & 120 - Sunday, March 31 & Monday, April 1 - EASTER & the promise of eternal life for believers.

 Sunday - I didn't actually do anything Easter Sunday. I watched the Cowboy Church Sunrise Service, wishing I was there. It must have been great sitting out on the bleachers at sunrise, by the corral and listening to Chris give the message using a horse for a visual aid. 

Jeff, my cousin who is in prison in Texas had asked me for information on payload and towing capacity for gas and diesel RAM 2500's & 3500's. He also asked for some information on Airstream trailers. This spring he was denied parole for the 3rd time. He will apply again this fall. Once he is out he wants some type of mobile home (motorhome, 5th wheel, travel trailer, pickup camper) a truck(?) and a bass fishing boat. (He has access to reasonable resources when he gets out.) His daughter and I are his only contacts with the outside world now that his Dad died a couple of months ago. Over the past several years I've been his "go to guy" digging out information on trucks, campers, boats, etc. I spent about 6 hours gathering information and putting together emails to transfer it to him. I also keep send him emails updating him on our travels.

I talked to Kathy. She is working herself to a frazzle helping Kelsey, which she enjoys immensely.

Monday - kind of a null day. I didn't do much again today. I did go down and drive around the J B Coleman State Park some more. It was supposed to be warm today (78) but I don't think it ever got above 71. It felt quite cool while I was out washing the RV windshield after I returned. I did spend another couple of hours putting together emails (you can only send 5 photos with each email) to catch Jeff up on our travels. This evening I need to get things around to minimize what I need to do before taking the coach over to Lakeshore at 7:30 tomorrow morning.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 117 & 118 - Friday & Saturday, March 29 & 30 - Exploring

 Friday - I went to McDonalds for breakfast and spent an hour on their WiFi. The Iuka McDonalds is 11 miles south of where I am parked. I downloaded some a couple of episodes of a TV series and a movie. The J. P. Coleman State Park is only a little over a mile from where I am parked. Kathy and I have driven through it previously. It is a nice park. It is right on the Tennessee River. I drove down to it to see if it might be worth getting my bike out and doing some riding. No way! It seemed like it was all downhill getting to the park and there was no way I would be able to ride back up the hill. When I got to the park the roads were more hilly than I remembered. It was a nice day for a short drive around the park. On the way  in and out I noticed the trunk of this tree that had fallen over. If the people in the mobile home were home when it happened I bet it was quite exciting.

I didn't do much the remainder of the beautiful day.

Saturday - I went back to McDonalds for breakfast and WiFi access. Again I was there at least an hour. When I parked I noticed a guy in a car parked diagonally over from me. He was working on some type of handheld device. When I left he was still working on it, probably he was also taking advantage of the WiFi access.

After breakfast I drove up to Pickwick Dam in Tennessee, It's 21 miles from McDonalds and 17 miles from where I am parked. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. 

The first several photos show the upstream side of the dam. The dam is 7,715' long and 113' high. The water behind the dam is about 85' deep. It was built by the TVA in 1935-38. The hydroelectric plant started commercial generation of power in 1942. There are 6 generating units that produce 247 megawatts. On the far side are two locks; one 110'x600' and the other 110'x1,000'.

This is one of the original carbon steel turbines. They were replaced during a 1982 upgrade. The blades are 24' in diameter and it is 13' tall. It weighs 125 tons.

I drove around to the downstream side and was amazed at all the people fishing. Standing where I was I counted over 70 people fishing from the bank and 13 boats. Before I walked away 6 more people were walking down to fish.

They were pulling fish in regularly. The guy in photo below had two hooks on his line and I saw him pull in two fish several times.

This guy also was fishing with two hooks. I was told they were catching "shipjacks". 

There were more people along the shore well down past the bend in the river.

I walked down the upper area of the riverbank until I saw a "path" leading down to the water.

Looking back up.

I'm not sure why someone cut up these fish but they took a filet off the side of one of them. There were people with grills set up. Maybe they cleaned the fish down at the water and took them up to cook for lunch.

More people fishing along the bank.

Once I was back up top I continued walking towards the campground. What a nice place.

This unit was parked in a handicapped slot. It was on a concrete pad and there was a sidewalk to the nearby restroom and shower facility.

I was surprised that there were vacant sites. The rock/gravel sites were 70' deep with lots of space between them. The sites had water and electricity but no sewer. At the entry to the campground there was a dump station. The two lanes were set up so that you could dump your tanks on the way in and then on the way out.

I was over a mile from the car at this point and did not walk down to look at more of the campsites.

Driving back home I saw a sign for a marina and drove down to take a look. This is one of dozens of marinas in the area.

There must be thousands of boats with 15 miles of where I am parked. I also bet that more of them cost over $100,000 than cost less than $10,000.

After I left the marina I drove by a boat storage place. It had a rack storage building, open on one side, that had boats stacked 5 high. I was driving and the road was winding. I didn't go back to look to get an idea of the length of the building. Where do people get the money for them? This place is over 2 hours and 125 miles from Memphis, 2.5 hours and 150 miles from Birmingham, AL. almost 3 hours and 160 miles from Nashville & 3.5 hours and 210 miles from Chattanooga.

Back home I fixed myself a nice salad for lunch. I sat outside some while I did a couple of loads of laundry. 

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 115 & 116 - Wednesday & Thursday, March 27 & 28 - West Memphis, AR

 Wednesday - Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia & Nolan went to the Memphis Zoo for the day. They had a great time. I stayed at the coach. I stayed home and went grocery shopping. Well...I had instructions to get milk, eggs and see if I could find more Eckrich Smok-Y Links. Original, not the fake Lil Smokies, Smok-Y Links are a breakfast treat that I have enjoyed since I was a kid in Michigan. Sadly, there aren't that many places where you can still buy them. I tried both Kroger & Wal-Mart stores in West Memphis with no success.  

Thursday - The original plan was for Kelsey to return home today while the kids rode home with us, over two days. That plan changed during Tuesday(?) nights heavy rain in West Memphis. The new seals on our dining room slide still leaked. They were replaced when we were at Lakeshore (Iuka, MS) a few days ago. We did not notice them leaking during an all afternoon rain while in Corinth, MS, but the heavy rain and 20-25 mph winds caused them to leak. 

We decided that I would go back to Lakeshore and Kathy would ride back to Centertown with Kelsey and the kids. They left this morning and made it back home okay, after some traffic delays. My solo 140 mile trip back to Iuka went fine. It may be the furthest I've driven this coach in one day. It's tough being old and thinking a 140 mile solo trip is an achievement 😀 In the fall of 2012 I drove our Dutch Star over 700 miles to near Hearne, TX (Messiah's Ranch - I spent 6 weeks there volunteering) in two days. I did almost 500 miles the first day, pushing to make my way into Texas on the first day.

Parked near Lakeshore Custom RV

My appointment is scheduled for Tuesday, April 2nd. 

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Day 114 - Tuesday, March 26 - Boat Ride on Mississippi

 We hung around the campground in the morning. We did walk down to the other end of the campground so that the kids could climb up to the treehouse again. This unit was down by the tree house.

There were some vehicles parked on the cobblestone "beach", but we couldn't find a way to get down to it. We ended up parking at Bass Pro and taking a side by side shuttle to the dock. It's to bad I didn't get a photo of us piled on the side by side. Another couple was already on it when the 5 of us piled on. Eight of us with the driver.

This must be a retired WWII ship. It passed the campground yesterday and tied up just upstream of the campground overnight. As we were going downstream it passed us on its way upstream. There were several people on the deck, all of whom looked like they were in civilian clothes.

I can't help but write something about this trio of bridges we crossed under. The center one is the Frisco Bridge. The 770' clear navigation span was the longest of any bridge in the US when it opened to rail traffic in 1892. One of the requirements before the city OK'd a permit was that it also be able to accommodate horse and buggy traffic. Trains took priority but if there were no trains in the area two way horse and buggy traffic was allowed. As you can see it is still in service. A train was crossing the river as we passed under it. The furthest away bridge is the Hanrahan Bridge, it is also a railroad bridge. It was completed in 1916. The bridge we were under when I took the photo is the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge which carries I55 across the river, as well as US61, US64, US 70, US78, & US 79. It was opened in 1949.

Returning to the dock after our 90 minute cruise.

After the cruise we went to Central BBQ for an early supper.

We did drive around Memphis a little after supper but not much. Memphis crime is almost as bad as St. Louis crime.

It rained last night and the wind blew hard. The seals around our kitchen slide leaked again, after having them replaced last week. Our travel plans have changed. Kathy is going back to Missouri with Kelsey, Lydia & Nolan when they leave Thursday morning. I have an April 2nd appointment back at Lakeshore Custom RV to have them work on the seals again. I trust the guys at Lakeshore. They will get the pesky leak fixed.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.