Bumps on the Road to New Orleans

Well, the day has come.  It is time to be on the road back to Texas.  I'm not sure that I am ready to go home but Harley is ready to go anywhere, any time.  Steve already has a plane ticket from San Antonio back to Panama City on Thursday morning so we need to head out if we want to stop and enjoy the trip along the way.

You can tell that we aren't rolling yet or the furkids would all be fast asleep.  They are the best travelers.  They can snooze for hours and never ask "how much longer".  Just need a potty stop every once in a while but then, who doesn't?

Mom, why does he show us Sock Monkey if we aren't allowed to play with him?  He would make a great tug-of-war teammate.  "Harley, if you put your lips on him, you will be in so much trouble!"

We were rolling along across the Florida panhandle, glad that we woke up to no rain and the sky still looked clear.  Things were going fine.  Then we stopped at a rest area for a potty break, lunch, and to switch drivers.  Steve looked back in the mirror before pulling out and thought one of the RV tires looked funny.  He hopped out and a closer look gave him an even worse feeling.  After crawling under, he could see the rubber was rippled and the belts pulled.  We drove slowly to the next exit which showed "Milton, FL" was 4 miles down the road.  Steve thought it would be better to be off the expressway.  Our first glimpse of Milton showed us that they had a nice park right near the downtown but we didn't see anything open.  This was Sunday afternoon!  We went on through town and found ourselves on a road with businesses alongside.  We spotted a Pep Boys across the road so Steve pulled into an empty lot and headed across to see if they could help us out.  They said sure, pull over here and it will be about an hour.  We turned the rig around at the back of their lot and Steve decided he would ask if he could rent tools from them since we had a spare but as he was hopping out, Dwayne (the technician told him to pull right up to near the front and he would get right on it.  Steve lowered the spare from under the RV and Dwayne had that tire changed in no time and then checked the air in all the other tires.

Steve headed in to thank the manager and get the bill while I talked to Dwayne.  Imagine our surprise when both the manager and Dwayne told us that there would be no charge--they were happy to help!  So if you are ever passing that way, be sure to go through Milton, FL and say hi to the guys at Pep Boys.  It looks like a nice little town for a visit and is located on US 90 just 4 miles off of I-10.  They sure made our day.

Dwayne advised us to go back out to I-10 the way we came in rather than following US 90 on until it connected again because they were doing repair work and had it narrowed down to one small lane each way.  Back on I-10, things were fine again until we got closer to Mobile, AL.

Traffic was backed up clear out to the long bridge area. We were crawling but not stopped completely.  It took us a while to make it to town and through the tunnel but it magically cleared up after that.

By this time it was getting near dinnertime so we decided to stop at the original The Shed barbeque.  You may remember hearing over the Internet some time ago that they burned down to the ground.  Well, they did but they were up and running out of tents within a week.

The eating area is outside under a roof and they have fans and misters so it wasn't too bad.

You order inside  at the bar and they bring the food out to you.

Steve was hungry by then.  Of course, he is nearly always hungry.  The food was just as good as before so we really enjoyed it.

Next stop....New Orleans!