On The Road Again

Jackson, MS -  Haughton, LA
10/Apr/24

Miles Traveled       216
Trip Total              1112
Travel Time           4:05

States visited: FL, GA, AL,MS, Louisiana

After last nights excitement, we checked the weather and decided today is a go.  There was a clearweather window around 8am, giving us time to break camp and head out.  The only problem, like the "Hotel California" you can check out, but never leave.   We pulled out of the camp site around 7:45 only to come upon a down tree across the roadway out of the campground.  Both Mark & Karen and Angel & I sat there about 25 minutes while the campground staff cut up and removed the tree.  We did not have a long wait, but the couple in the front of the line tried to leave at 6:30am.  Sometimes things do not go as planned!

The trip to Haughton went pretty well.  The first half of the trip we had heavy rain.  We stopped for fuel about halfway through out trip.  Of course the rain got even worse as we were fueling up, and stopped 10 minutes after we were finished!  That's the way life goes.

After fueling up we continued on to Gibsland, LA.  While there is not much to see or do at Gibsland, their claim to fame is the Bonnie & Clyde Museum.   The museum is located on Main St in Gibsland and is located at the cafe were they got their last meal (Fried Bologna Sandwich and BLT).  After getting their sandwiches to go, Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by law enforcement 7.1 miles down the road.   Because of their history of killing anyone they got into a gun fight with, there was a shoot first warrant out for them.    The police fired over 130 rounds into the car killing both of them before they could fire one shot.  I would have liked to have gone to the monument where the ambush took place, but it did not look RV friendly.

One of the other things that Gibsland is know for is the trains that run through town.  The sign says that there are 23 trains a day that go through town.  While we did not stick around to count them, from the time we got out of the museum, got everything set in the RV, and went up and around the bloc to turn around, three trains went though.  There are five tracks that cross the road in the photo.  While I enjoyed watching them I imagine it gets old pretty  quickly for people that live here and have to wait multiple times a day for the train.

Leaving Gibsland we had a quick 30 minute drive to our stop for the night.  All three of us have Harvest Host reservations at Mahaffey Farms.   Mahaffey Farms is an organic farm on what was once a golf course. They raise cattle, pigs, chickens as well as organic produce.  The farm is not set up as a tourist spot, It is spread out over the entire area that was the golf course.  They have a nice size parking lot that is level and blacktop, which makes it easy to setup for the night.  The pro shop has also been turned into a store where they sell there meat and produce.   We had heard that the storms last night knock down a tree which brought down their power lines. They had closed the store but assured us they would still welcome us, and we could still buy dry goods but until power was restored they would not open the freezer doors.   We got lucky and when we arrived the power had just been restored.

We spent the evening having appetizers, cocktails and playing cornhole.  Tomorrow we add another state to our trip when we head to Dallas Texas. 

Eclipse Party & Tornados!!!!

Toomsuba, MS - Jackson, MS
8/Apr/24 - 9/Apr/24

Miles Traveled     109
Trip Total              896
Travel Time         2:00

States visited: FL, GA, AL, Mississippi

Early Monday morning Mark & Karen, Ken & Cheryl and Angel & I headed out for a short drive to Lafleur's State Park to watch the eclipse.  We would have prefered to have gotten closer to the path of totality, but we could not find any available campgrounds.  Also none of us really wanted to deal with the crowds. 

Lefleur' is a small (28 sites) state campground right outside of Jackson Mississippi.  The sites themselves are large and spaced apart.  The only problem is the RV pads are fairly small, and not very level.  Even putting blocks under the rear tires I could not get the RV level.  Once again we had waterfront sites.  

We did arrive early enough to get setup and settled before the eclipse started. The view from our campsite turned out to be perfect.  There was only 90 percent blockage of the sun, but it we still had fun.  The down side was the weather was not not cooperating at all.  It did not rain but there were heavy clouds, with brief breaks were we could see it.  It some ways having the clouds made it more interesting to watch.  Partially because most of the time we could look directly at it, then when the clouds would open up it looked very cool.  Mark & Karen's house is in the path of totality for the 2045 eclipse.  We have already made reservation!!

Up to now the weather on this trip has been good. It was nice to head into warm weather as we traveled to Florida, then temperatures dropped as we headed into Alabama.  Now as we head back to warmer weather we are also running into thunder storms.  Last night it sounded like someone was spraying the top of the RV with a firehose, and Wednesday when we leave they are calling for more.

Tuesday we spent the afternoon exploring the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Museum.  The museum has exhibits on the history of cotton farming and aviation in agricultural, multiple model train displays, a working cotton gin as well as a replica 1800's village and many other exhibits. I did not expect to spend as much time as we did there.

If you look back two paragraphs, I was saying the weather has been good on this trip.  Well while I was typing this post that went to hell really quickly.  Both Angel and my phone started blaring a National Weather Alert, and in the distance we could hear sirens blaring.  Looking at my phone we were in the middle of a tornado warning.   While trying to figure out the best thing to do, I started by googling "Tornado Shelters Near Me",  The results were great if I was looking to have one built, there are at least three companies within five miles of us that will come build one, Great can they do it in the next 10 minutes!!!!  After conferring with the rest of our group we decided to head to the bath house and wait it out.  We watched as a few campers left in cars. The couple across the road from us moved their RV 20 feet, saying they did not want it hit by trees  WTF?   When we got to the bath house there were a few other campers there with the same idea.  We are located where the blue circle is in the radar map.  It made for a very exciting 90 minutes.  We did not get any tornados but the rain was unbelievable, and the thunder and lighting made a great show.

Once we settled in for the night we still had to decide if we were heading out in the morning.  It is much easier to travel in the RV during bad weather than the boat but if it is to windy we prefer not to go.  But RV or boat you still get wet putting everything away.  The advantages to the RV over the boat there is no need for both of us to get wet, and I get warm and dry once we start moving.

Welcome To Mississippi

Dutton, AL - Toomsuba, MS
7/Apr/24

Miles Traveled     245
Trip Total              787
Travel Time         4:25

States visited:FL, GA, AL Mississippi

Today we left Wellness Ways and headed to Toomsuba Mississippi where we stayed at a Harvest Host, Simmons-Wright Company.  While Toomsuba is not a "destination" it is directly on our route and it puts us less than two hours from our next stop.  

On our way we stopped at a Petro Travel Center.  We chose Petro because we all needed a dump station to empty our holding tanks.  I had checked the Pilot Travel Centers on our route and none of them had a dump station.  While the Petro was not advertised as being RV Friendly, it was very easy to get  get to both the fuel pumps and the dump station.  The only problem was the dump station did not work very well.  Normally once we hook up the hoses, it takes two to three minutes to dump each tank.  Here it took about 20 minutes.  It kept backing up, and I could only open the valve a little bit.  What really sucked about the dump station not working, was 3 miles down the road, the rest stop had a free dump station.

While Harvest Host are great, they do not offer any hookups (Water, Sewer or Electric).  We can normally go between three and four days without hookups, and while we had electric and water at Wellness Ways, we really needed to dump our holding tanks.Other than the Interstate 20/59 being like a washboard overall the trip was very easy.  When we arrived at our Harvest Host, we were the only one there.  We knew that they were closed, and had instructions for parking.  We had two options for parking, the first in a very unlevel grass lot right next to the building and the second was a paved road adjacent to a cemetery.  We decided on the road.

Simmons-Wright is a general store that was established in 1884.  The property consist of the General Store, a warehouse, cotton gin, seed house, outhouses and several other buildings as well as the cemetery.  The cemetery has graves from the late 1800's to now.   The general store looks like some of the merchandise is from when they opened.  While they have a small section of modern stuff most of it is not.  They also have a "country restaurant" that receives great reviews from other travelers but looking around  none of us were brave enough to eat there.

Monday when we head out we will be heading to Jackson MS to watch the eclipse.

Looper Reunion

Acworth, GA - Dutton, AL
4/Apr/24 - 6/Apr/24

Miles Traveled     103
Trip Total              542
Travel Time         2:25

States visited: FL, GA,  Alabama

Dutton Alabama is the first destination stop on our trip.  The first two nights were just stops to break up a long drive.  Dutton is the located at the top of Sand Mountain that overlooks the Tennessee River, and is the home of Nick & Ginger (Ginger Gale) who we meet on the Great Loop.  Their house is on a bluff with the most incredible view overlooking the river.  As incredible as the view is during the day, the sunset is more spectacular.

Traveling from Acworth to Dutton we had a neat surprise, As we were coming down a mountain road, I saw a woman in a bright yellow jacket franticly waving her arms in the air from a parking lot  My first thoughts were either someone was in trouble or there was a problem on the road ahead of us.  As I slowed down looking for somewhere to pull over, Angel shouted that's Steve and Jane (Sabbatical).  They had been tracking us on NEBO and saw that we would be crossing their path so they wanted to wave to us as we passed!!!!

Overlooking the Tennessee River

Nick & Ginger were kind enough to open their house, driveway and yard to us and several other loopers for the weekend.  Three of us came by RV; Mark & Karen, Angel & I, and Ken & Cheryl (Turn The Paige) we stayed around the yard.  Steve & Jane (Sabbatical), Dan & Cherri (Cherri Baby II) and Teresa (Part time crew on Ginger Gale) filled all the spare bedrooms in the house.  

Nick and Ginger planned a fun and busy weekend for us that started with a wedding renewing ceremony for Angel & I.  When Angel & I, decided to get married we wanted to have Ginger marry us overlooking the bluff. (Ginger has been trying to convince us to have her marry us on the bluff since our first visit to her house in 2022!)  We would have waited and got married but getting all of the paperwork (drivers license, social security, healthcare etc.) done while traveling over they next four months would have been very difficult.

After we all arrived at Wellness Ways (Nick & Ginger's house) they put out an incredible spread featuring Ginger's brother Jimmy's famous BBQ pork.  Dinner was followed by our quick sunset vows ceremony and some wedding cake.  In addition to the great food and company Nick & Ginger had their friends Dean & Mary over.  Dean, Mary and Nick entertained us all night playing guitars and singing.  Occasionally Steve and Dan joined in playing and singing. 

Friday started out with some of us going to the Unclaimed Baggage Center.  It is a very interesting store where if you have the patience you can get some great deals.  They have everything you can imagine.  It is all stuff that comes from unclaimed airline luggage.  After that we headed to Desoto State Park, where we spent the afternoon enjoying the waterfalls and surrounding area. When we got back to Wellness Ways we finished the day off playing Mexican Train.

Saturday's highlight was cruising the Tennessee River on Fourth Quarter, Nick and Ginger's new boat.  The cruise was followed up with an enjoyable dinner at "The Dock" overlooking the river.  The Dock is a local restaurant at the marina where they keep their boat.

With everything we did, the best part of our time at Wellness Ways, was the time we spent with our friends.  Hours of reminiscing about the past and planning future trips.  

Sunday morning everyone  packed up and headed out.  We all have plans for watching the eclipse and need to travel to get where were watching from. 

Acworth, GA

Wow what a drive today was!

Ashburn, GA  - Acworth, GA
3/Apr/24

Miles Traveled      198
Trip Total               439
Travel Time          4:15

Fl, Georgia

Today's trip is why we plan to keep our travel days around 4 hours.  What should have been a 3 hour trip turned into almost a 6 hour trip. 

To start with Interstate 75, north of Macon GA is in horrible condition.  I am surprised nothing came apart in the RV.   Between the road conditions and the wind blowing us around, you spend the entire time fighting the steering wheel.  If the road conditions were not bad enough once we reached Macon the traffic was even worse than the roads.  The further north we got the more traffic there was, by the time we got to Atlanta we spent as much time standing still as we did moving forward.

The one highlight of the trip was our first ever stop at Buc ee's.  I could not believe the number of gas pumps there, and there was enough room around the pumps that we had no problems pulling up to or leaving the them.   Pilot/Flying J use to be our favorite place to get fuel in the RV, if all Buc ee's are as good as this one that will quickly change.    Then going into the store was just crazy.  From food to clothing it seems like they have a little bit of everything.  The one thing they are lacking is RV parking, we ended up taking up about 10 parking spots.

After getting through Atlanta we arrived at Clark Creek South campground, a county campground on Altoona Lake.  The roads in the campground are narrow and winding, the sites are not very level but the view is spectacular.  Our site is directly on the lake and the site are very spread out.  I would recommend this campground to anyone in the area.

 

Tomorrow we head off to Dutton Al to meet up with several friends we met on our Great Loop trip.

And we're off!!!

 And We're Off!

Inverness Fl, - Ashburn, GA
2/Apr/24

Miles Traveled     241
Trip Total              241
Travel Time         4:20 

Florida, GA

Today was the big day, we pulled the power cord, lifted the jacks and headed out to start our adventure.   We planned to pull out of Mark & Karen's around 9AM, and  and we pulled it off. We had to do a little a jiggling to get both RV's out of the driveway, and the cars hooked up, but it went very smoothly.  

They live on a fairly busy street and there was no way to put both RV's on the street and hook up the cars. Fortunately there is a technical college across the street with a few large parking lots.  Mark and I drove the RV's there and Karen and Angel followed in the cars.  We quickly hooked our toads and headed out.    

Our first stop is Carrol's Sausage and Country Store 240 miles from Inverness.  

We try to keep our travel days around 250 to 300 miles or 4 to 5 hours of travel time. We also try to arrive at our destination by 3pm. While none of these are hard fast rules it makes our travel days much nicer.

The trip from Inverness to Carrol's was pretty straight forward and easy. Shortly after leaving we go on I75, and stayed on it till we reached Ashburn GA.  While it was a easy ride, drivers never cease to amaze me, some off the crazy thing drivers do, On ramps are the worst, cars will stay right along side us all the way until the end of the acceleration lane, then expect us to yield to them. 

What made todays trip fun, was all the people honking at us.  Before we left we took the just married sticker off the side of the RV and put them on the back of the car. Anything to make the ride more fun.  

We arrived at Carrol's (A Harvest Host site) around 2:30.  Harvest Host are small businesses that allow campers to spend the night, all they asked is that we spend a little money while were are there.  They are businesses like wineries, breweries, country stores and the like.  

Other than the store there is not much to do at this stop.  We did walk around Georgia Peanut RV Park right next door to Carrol's.  It is not much more the an overnight stop, really not much different than Carrol's other than they have water and electric.  We did not see the need to pay to stay there, when our site was free.  They do claim to have the world's largest peanut.  

It was a very relaxing evening and a good way to start our trip.

Inverness Fl

Inverness FL
1/Apr/24

Getting back into the car to finish the 270 miles was not fun.  We were both glad that we only had a few hours in the car. It was well worth driving 12 hours on the first leg, leaving us a little over 4 hours to get to Inverness.  

Mark and Karen greeted us at the driveway, and after chit chatting for a bit it was time to open up the motorhome and unload the car.  Walking up to the motorhome, we found a surprise that they left for us.

Mark & Karen decorated the RV while we were gone.  They managed to find the only metal surface and covered it with magnetic stickers.  There actually a lot more stickers but they had to put them on the carport walls.  

While making our plans for this trip, a day and a half seemed like plenty of time to get the RV ready to head out.  After all we just spent 10 weeks in it, and we only went back to New Jersey for a month.  While it was enough time we did need all of it.  We  spent the rest of the afternoon unloading the car, and putting everything in the car away.  

I started Monday at the local Chevrolet dealer, getting the car serviced.  We tried to get it done in New Jersey but the first available appointment was at the end of this week well after we left.   Next on the agenda was washing both the car and the motorhome.  The motorhome was extremely dirty and most campgrounds do not allow you to wash vehicles. 

The next piece of the puzzle was grocery shopping, and picking up some last minutes stuff we needed in the RV.  Most of the shopping consisted of  fresh food and perishables.  One of the advantages of travel in an RV instead of a boat, is we have our cars with us, so shopping will never be a problem.  We still like to stock up before we leave.

Once both RV's were packed and ready Mark & I sat down and went over tomorrows route.  We set up our navigation app so the parameters and our routes were the same.

Tomorrow we start making our way to Dutton Alabama.