Traveling with the Longdogs: On the Road with Serendipity

Thursday morning we had breakfast with Gary. Joan was already at work. Then we said our goodbyes and headed off down the road. Working the Rand McNally Navigation system was the first challenge. I've been a long time Garmin user. Fortunately, I had my phone with Google maps as a backup. You will never guess who jumped in the driver's seat? And guess who hogged the driver's seat the whole trip home? Right, it wasn't me.

After driving for several hours, we stopped at a Walmart where I bought enough clothes to get home and we picked up a few other supplies. Let's just say that DH doesn't travel like an RVer. He wants to get in and just keep going. Need to go to the bathroom.....there is one in the back. About 6:30PM somewhere around Effingham, I saw a sign for a Cracker Barrel. "Look, we can have dinner and we can even spend the night." You can do that? says my non-RVing DH. Yes, most of them have RV parking places in back and they don't mind if you spend the night. We parked and headed in where we had a great dinner. Back in the RV, I fired up the generator to warm up the RV....we were still north and there was no one else around us. We were all set to watch a little TV. I programmed it and tried everything I could think of but got no channels. I stated to worry that when the satellite receiver was taken out, some moving around of connections might be necessary. We finally gave up and went to bed. I woke up during the night and ran the genny again for a while to heat the RV up.....still no one around us.

Next morning, we were up fairly early and went in for breakfast. DH was thrilled because the "Uncle Hershal" breakfast comes with an 8 ounce hamburger steak as well as hashbrowns, eggs, biscuits, and grits. He walked out with two hamburger biscuit sandwiches for a snack. On the road all day again. DH's idea of a stop is a gas fill up where you can also grab lunch if you don't have his hamburger biscuits, lol.

My plan was to spend the second night at an RV park on the river in North Little Rock. It is Passport America and I have stayed there before. You have a great view of the river traffic, the bridge that lights up at night, and the Clinton Library. I called and had to leave a message at 3:30PM, I got a call back by 4:00PM but the news wasn't good. They were completely full. DH was okay with that as he really wanted to drive further anyway. So we drove several more hours and guess what? We found another Cracker Barrel.

This time it was a bit warmer and we had parking lot entertainment. A huge truck with outriggers was in the field next to Cracker Barrel to replace the lights on a really, really tall billboard sign. He had the lights replaced but he was really stuck. A big tow truck was trying to pull him out but it was a huge job. They finally managed it but I imagine someone will have a bill for the damage to the ground around the sign and the big divots in the parking lot where the outriggers on the tow truck sunk in. It was still not back outside so we played checkers on the porch after dinner. we even took a walk around the immediate area. Back at the TV I finally managed to get one channel.....not something we would watch. I talked to Gary and he called Phoenix Cruiser to ask about the wiring. I was supposed to call them but the guy I needed to talk to comes in at 5:30AM and leaves at 1:30PM eastern time so that wasn't working. The second night, I realized that I could turn the inverter on and run the furnace. It worked great.

Next morning, another Cracker Barrel breakfast and back on the road. A few more pictures of Serenity....

Solar