We drove through Amarillo today. Last year on our way to Flagstaff, we stopped for two nights in Amarillo. That was enough for a lifetime. Amarillo is a cowtown. It stinks. It doesn’t really matter which direction the wind is blowing, it still smells like, well, cow poo. It seems to take days to get the smell out of your nose. Luckily for you, this video is not 4D–no odors included. Back up music is Frank Zappa’s “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama”. Enjoy…
Places We've Been
What The Heck Was That?
When we arrived in Shamrock, Texas on Thursday, we had already decided to stay three nights. We were ahead of schedule for our destination of Flagstaff, and we needed to buy two new tires for the trailer. The tire store here in Shamrock treated us so well last fall that we decided to give them our business again. So, when we checked in at the West 40 RV Park, we signed up for three nights.
Thursday evening, the wind got up. I mean, it REALLY got up! It was blowing 40 to 50 mph with gusts up to 65 mph. Our trailer was not only rocking, it was swaying back and forth. The windows by the dinette were being sucked open, then let go so it seemed like they were flapping wings, trying to take the trailer off into flight! It blew the tonneau cover open on the truck. I was afraid to cook for fear the pots would slide off of the stove! I was thinking that not even one of those heavy duty awning tie down straps would help in that kind of wind. These high winds went on like that until around 6:00 p.m. on Friday, when just as quickly as it started, it stopped.
While this was all going on, I thought about those windmills we passed in Oklahoma on the way here Thursday. I could just imagine them spinning like a child’s pinwheel in those high winds. I wondered if they ever broke off and took off across a field? A google search found this one, that happened in Denmark. While it didn’t actually spin off across a field, it did break and cause damage. Wow!
Oklahoma In One Day
Okay, so maybe Oklahoma in two days, if you count that we spent the night in Sallisaw at the KOA. We got on the road around9:30 a.m., and passed the time listening to some blues CD’s and talking. We do our best talking while we are riding down the road, so I guess it’s a good thing we like to do that.
There is not much to see in Oklahoma. It’s pretty flat and rural, except for Oklahoma City where there is so much traffic it makes me feel like I’m going to throw up. We arrived in Shamrock, Texas around 5:oo p.m., just in time to have the BEST ribeye steak ever at Big Vern’s Steakhouse. Here is some of the countryside in eastern Oklahoma for your viewing pleasure, accompanied by Blind Mississippi Morris on the CD player:
Gathering Up Some Southern To Take To Arizona
Today was a little more laid back than the last few days for us. We slept in, then piddled around the house for a couple of hours before setting out to look for a place to get some breakfast. We wound up back at the Cracker Barrel, where we always know we’ll get a good meal.
After breakfast we went over and picked up the new tire for the trailer, went to the post office to mail off a couple of packages, then the car wash to spray that Mississippi River mud off of the truck. The last stop was the local independent grocery store.
I picked up a 15 pound box of catfish fillets, 2 bags of frozen okra, 2 bags of frozen butter peas, 1 bag of frozen field peas, and 2 bags of a fish fry breading made of corn meal and some spices. My tiny RV freezer is crammed full of good southern food!
Because you know they don’t sell okra or catfish in Utah.
Seeing The Sights In West Memphis
So if you’ve ever been to West Memphis, Arkansas, you know there isn’t much there.
A hop over the border into Tennessee has much more to offer. Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry and Country Music Hall of Fame are well worth the trip, and the spectacular mountain coaster pigeon forge will take you on an unforgettable ride through the Great Smoky Mountains.
Today, we left home around 10:00 A.M. and were gone all day long, though. The first stop was the tire store, to order a new tire for the trailer. We have to pick it up tomorrow. Next was breakfast at Cracker Barrel. While we were eating, I got on the Map app on my Droid to find the closest Ford dealer. It just happened to be less than half a mile away.
Yesterday after we stopped for breakfast and fuel for the truck, the Check Engine light came on. Since it is a “new to us” truck, we weren’t sure what to think of that. I looked in the owners manual and found that it could be caused by poor quality fuel or by not replacing the gas cap correctly, among other things. But, to be on the safe side, we decided to have the truck looked at by the guys at the Ford service department.
Yes, it was Monday, and just like going to a doctor without an appointment on a Monday morning, going to the auto dealership for service on a Monday without an appointment meant a long wait. They did work us in, but we wound up being there until after 3:00 p.m. The service tech told us it could be that there was trash in the fuel, it could be that the gas cap was not replaced correctly, it could be ” a forced power shutdown due to a turbo malfunction. However, he could not duplicate the complaint”. We decided to continue with our trip, and if the light comes on again, to take it to the next dealer down the road. If it does turn out to be a turbo malfunction, it IS covered under the extended warranty that we purchased, but the service tech didn’t really think it was that.
By the time we got home, we were hungry again. We had already made plans to go to The Kings Palace in Memphis for dinner, so we cleaned up a bit and took off to Beale Street. Dinner was delicious. We had crab cakes and gumbo as appetizers. The crab cakes did have bread crumbs in them, but I ate them anyway. Sometimes I just take the responsibility of that choice, knowing that it is going to make me feel like crap the next day. Those crab cakes were worth it to me.
After dinner, we strolled along Beale Street, stopping in at several clubs to listen to different bands. It was fun to hear all the sounds, see all the sights, and people watch. There were people of all ages, from the elderly woman with a walker to a little boy who looked about 3 years old. Everyone was enjoying the music. I loved seeing all the neon signs. I didn’t have my camera with me, just the Droid, so the pictures here are not that good.
Tomorrow we are going to just rest and relax. Yeah, really. Right after we go get the new tire, go to the post office and the grocery store. Really.
Road Trip Time Again
As you may or may not know, Fabgrandpa and I live full time in an RV and work at the Grand Canyon during the season. It is time again for us to make our migration west for the job. We hooked up the trailer to our new truck for the first time today, and set out with a destination of Tom Sawyer RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas. It is right across the river from Memphis, Tennessee. We’ll be staying three nights here so that we can go down and do Beale Street again.
We LOVE the blues, and live blues is the best ever! Our first date way back in 1991 was at The Blues Harbor Club in Underground Atlanta. I think I fell in love that night, while having dinner and listening to the blues with my handsome guy.
FabGrandpa had a goal of leaving by 9:00 A.M, and we actually got on the road around 9:20. He is in his own little heaven driving the new truck. It has a computerized diagnostic and information system on the dashboard, that figures the MPG automatically. I know this feature has been in vehicles for a long while now, but we have been driving a 1997 truck since 2001, so this is all new to him. For a guy who loves numbers, he is, well, orgasmic!
Although we only drive about 55 mph while we are towing our trailer, we were making good time. However, the trailer seemed to be “wiggling” around back there, something it didn’t do when we towed it with the other truck. We pulled over to the side of the highway for a potty stop, and discovered that there had been a blowout on the trailer!
That tire was not only blown out, it was worn completely off the rim! So, from now on, if that trailer starts wiggling, we’re stopping to see what the problem is! We have talked about getting on of those tire pressure monitoring systems several times, but never acted on it. I think now is the time to just do it.
This is where I am so glad I have that Droid phone that I got back in November. It has the greatest Map app on it that functions as a GPS. It shows us as a little blue arrow on the road, and shows us moving along the road as we drive. When we pulled over and discovered the blowout, I had no idea where we were, except that we were on the entrance ramp to US Hwy 78 near Holly Springs, Mississippi. I looked back up the ramp, and there was an Exxon gas station over there.
Instead of walking back up there in 86 degree heat, I opened the GPS app, went to the nearby places tab, touched “gas stations” and there was the name and phone number of that gas station. I touched the phone number, and the phone dialed the number. When someone answered the phone, I told them I was in the RV on the on ramp to Hwy 78 with a flat tire and needed someone to come and change the tire. They gave me the phone number for Ricky’s Towing Service. I called Ricky, and less than 10 minutes later, someone was there changing our tire. Incredible! Even more incredible when you consider that I had no idea where I was!
James from Ricky’s Towing Service got the job done in just a little bit, charged us only $35, and had us back on the road in about forty minutes. We’re going to have to find a tire store in the morning, but I sure that Map app will find it with no trouble.
We finally got to Tom Sawyer about 4:45 P.M., and got the very last site with a concrete pad! At least that was good luck! There is only a small part of the park open right now, because the river flooded. They are working to get the sites that were flooded cleaned up and repaired.
It was still hot when we got here, so after we got set up, we went inside for some A/C and a cold beer!
And just because the rig looks so good:
We Bought A New Truck
We went on a trip to Georgia last week to visit FabGrandpa’s mother. She had fallen the week before and broke her hip. They operated on her to repair the damage, and then she was moved to a rehabilitation facility near her home. It is not what we as a family would like to hear, but with physical therapy and a lot of hard work, she’ll be able to go back home. I felt so helpless not being able to make her comfortable for more than a minute or two while I was there.
When we got back home, FabGrandpa checked the oil in the old truck, the one we always called Baby Doll. She was so low on oil that it was not registering on the dipstick. That was so unlike her–in the more than 10 years that we owned her, she had been an excellent workhorse, and served us well. But, since we are getting ready to travel almost 2000 miles pulling a 34′ travel trailer, I did not feel comfortable taking a chance with a truck that was leaking oil. He called the Ford dealership in Tuscaloosa and talked to them about making a repair, and set it up for dropping Baby Doll off yesterday.
On the way to Tuscaloosa, we decided to look to see if Townsend Ford had any used F-250’s on the lot. They did. As a matter of fact, they had at least four, and one used F-350 dually that I was in love with. Larry Price, the salesman, showed us all five of them. We drove all of them, and decided that this tan 2006 Ford F-250 Lariat 4X4 Diesel Power Stroke V8 with 89,000 miles on it was the one for us. It is loaded! It has a 6-disc CD player, heated seats, defroster on the side mirrors, all the razz matazz you can think of:
We had to go back to the dealership today for them to put on new tires and a new switch for the mirror adjuster. All of the people who work at Townsend Ford were great! They treated us like we were valued as customers, and that really makes a big difference when you are making such a big purchase. From the sales manager, (sorry, I forgot to get his name) to the service tech, they were all smiling, and I’d like to think it wasn’t just because we’d just dropped a chunk of change there.
Larry, our salesman, probably spent more time with us today than he did yesterday, helping us get things squared away. I can not stress enough how smoothly this purchase went, and how good I felt about the service we had at this dealership. I have been to car lots before to buy a car, and have salesmen treat me as if I was invisible and only discussed the vehicles with my husband. I hated that, and I can tell you, there are several dealerships in the Atlanta area who lost sales because of it. I did not feel that way at all at Townsend Ford.
Oh, and look at this:
Too bad it won’t haul the Jayco! But don’t I look mahvelous, dahling?
The only thing wrong with this truck, is that it is soooo high off the ground. I have a hard time getting in and out of it. So, tomorrow, FabGrandpa is taking back to Tuscaloosa to Truck Supply to get running boards and a tonneau cover for the bed. Can’t wait for those running boards!
I Am A Big Weather Chicken
We spent the day yesterday listening to The Weather Channel and looking at the Radar Now on the Droid, in anticipation of the severe weather that was forecast for the area. I am a Weather Chicken! I lived in Georgia for 49 years, the last 16 years or so in the same house on a hill. I had to have the roof repaired four times in 16 years due to storm damage. I kept a “Weather Basket” in the downstairs closet that was under the stairwell, just in case. It had among other things, a change of clothing for each person in the family, a flashlight with extra batteries, some matches, candles, and a weather radio. I was P.R.E.P.A.R.E.D for anything that might happen, and was just lucky that nothing ever did. I like to think it was BECAUSE I was prepared.
The wind blew yesterday all day long. All day, that is, until about a half hour before the storm hit. Then, all the wind just stopped. That was very creepy. Not a leaf on a tree was even wiggling. I can’t remember ever seeing something like that happening. The electricity went off a few minutes later. I think if the power had stayed on, I would have been less frightened. I went into my “self preservation” mode of distracting myself from the weather. I have had a stack of quilting magazines sitting on the dresser for months, waiting for me to tear out patterns I want to keep. So, I sat on the bed going through those while the storm raged outside. (we have a battery on the RV that keeps the lights on when the electricity goes out. It just doesn’t power the TV.)
It was all over in about an hour, and we survived it with no damage, but other areas of Alabama were not so lucky. While there were no tornadoes in Alabama yesterday, lots of trees and other wind damage did happen throughout the state. In Georgia, five people were killed! I hope there are no more storms here until after we leave.
