Arkadelphia and Graceland

We started out Wednesday morning (July 30) by getting gas and were thrilled to find that we had gotten 9.7 mpg. Even though that might not sound like great gas mileage, it is really good for an RV as big as ours and that is loaded with a whole apartment full of stuff!

As we drove off, I was in the bathroom blowdrying my hair. It is the only way to travel! Except for one thing--Roger said I couldn't plug my curling iron in while I was blow drying my hair since I might blow a fuse. So, it is a great way to travel, but there are limitations!

We left Arkadelphia, AR, drove to Little Rock (and, Fran, somehow we missed the Bill Clinton library. Darn!), and went on to Memphis, TN, where we spent a couple hours visiting Elvis. It was nice to see that he was able to spend some of his millions before he died. What an estate! And, what lavish tastes he had in home furnishings and decorations. I tried to imagine actually living there, but it was hard to get a feeling of hominess. However, it was great having Elvis music playing in every room!

We were quite pleased that Graceland is equipped to park RVs, so that it was easy for us to stop for our visit. As we were pulling into the parking lot, Roger noticed that "oversized vehicles" were $2.00 extra ($10.00) for parking. As he looked down four feet to the face of the woman taking the money, he asked her, "Are considered an oversized vehicle?" She laughed and said that she would say so! The picture on the top shows Roger getting out of the RV in the Graceland parking lot. The picture on the bottom is Graceland. (Now that I have pictures flowing, I'm going to try to add pictures to the previous posts, also.)

After we left Graceland, we headed to Nashville, TN. We were planning to stop and visit the Parthenon in Nashville, but decided we didn't have time since we need to be in New York City on Saturday morning. So, we went on by.

As Roger was driving along, he came upon a half of a house going down the four-lane road with a "large load" sign vehicle behind it. The half of a house was hanging about a foot over the center of the lane it wasn't in. If I had been driving (which, of course, will never happen!), we would have followed that half of a house until one of us turned off the road.....miles and miles if needed and at 20 miles an hour if needed! But, not Roger, he just pulled over into the sort-of-empty lane and passed the half of a house. Scared the heebiejeebies out of me! Then, not more than 15 minutes later, half of the top of a windmill came along on the back of a semitrailer. It proceeded to pass us, and the huge circular bottom was about a foot from our windows. Again terrifying. I think that one even threw Roger when it first came alongside us. It was just so huge and close and going so fast. But, this traumatic experience didn't bother Roger for long. Ten minutes later, he caught up to the windmill truck and chose to pass it. Go figure!

Roger checked our odometer against the mile markers and discovered that our odometer is off by about 5%. So, even though the calculation said that we got 9.7 mpg. we really did a little better than that. Yea!

I continue to be absolutely amazed at how well the tethering is working. I can stay online for hours at a time. And, as a rule, I don't even get knocked off when my phone rings. I can actually be online and talking on the phone at the same time. Powerful little PDA I have!

North of Nashville, we ran into a heavy thunder and lightning torrential downpour. We drove on in it for quite a while, but finally decided enough was enough. So, about 9:30, we pulled into a Wal-mart parking lot in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and called it a day. Since we were stopping in an area surrounded with retail and restaurant options, we were looking forward to our first meal outside of the camper since we left. Unfortuneately, most of the restaurants were closed. So, we ate at Sonic. It was OK, but not the quality of restaurant we had in mind!

Flashback/Background & July 29th

We started this blog at the end of a very long, weary day and did not provide any background regarding our trip. Here is how it came about:

When Rebecca decided to move to New York to teach in an underprivileged school through Teach for America, we had to figure out a way to move her things into her apartment. We have always wanted a larger RV with a slideout, so we decided that this must be the time to buy it! The time frame for the trip and length of the trip came about based on all of these items:  

• Rebecca's move into her New York apartment

• a week of vacation in the New Jersey mountains with Rebecca

• Ellen's doctoral graduation ceremony in Lincoln, Nebraska

• a University of Iowa football game with Roger's college friends

• a memorial golf outing in honor of an old friend

• a tour of the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, and other areas of South Dakota

• a visit with Roger's mother

• transportation of a family heirloom (antique cabinet) from Iowa to Texas

• Ellen's high school Alumni Breakfast

We figured that it made sense to apply the costs for all the above activities to an RV trip. So, here we are!

Tonight, we decided on an impromptu stop at a campground for four reasons: 1--We wanted to make an extra long stop today since we were up so late last night. 2--We ended up packing some things in the shower, so instead of taking the items out, we are just going to shower at the campground. (Once we unload Rebecca's things in New York, we won't have this crowded problem.) 3--We can top our propane tank off at this campground. 4--This campground has free wireless Internet. Even though our tethering is working well, we can only tether one computer online at a time (and Ellen's computer isn't being agreeable).

Our campground is in Arkadelphia, AR. We are about 70 miles from Little Rock.

Good night!

11:30 a.m.?? 11:30 p.m.?? What's the Difference?

We woke up Monday morning eager to head out on our excellent adventure. Roger opened the garage door and found a heart-warming surprise on the driveway between the RV and the garage. Our friends, David and Elizabeth, had left us a three-foot tall wooden Christmas reindeer (a revolving joke between us), and the reindeer was holding some wonderful adventure send-off gifts.

We planned to leave before noon, however, "we" refers to Roger and me, not to the RV. The RV apparently didn't want to leave that soon. At 11:00 a.m., we were running just a little behind our plan, but we thought we would leave within an hour. Roger turned the refrigerator on so it would be cold when we were ready to move food into it. But, the refrigerator did not get cold. After working with it for a while and talking to two different RV mechanics about it, Roger took the RV to the repair shop (where he had to go at some point anyhow to fill the propane tank). It turns out that this make of RV refrigerator takes about 24 hours to cool down and will not cool down on a slant (like our driveway). So, Roger and the RV were back in the driveway an hour later, ready to move forward.

I continued to load, load, load......what a lot of stuff we loaded even after we finished loading all Rebecca's stuff! Roger began filling the water tank. That's where the problems continued. He discovered we had no water pressure. He worked with the system for about an hour and then took the RV to the repair shop, again. Luckily, the water system was fine, it just works differently than our old RV. He was almost back to our house when a loud non-stop alarm starting screaming at him indicating that one of the leveling jacks was down. So, he turned the RV around (no small feat!) and headed back to the repair shop. This time, there was a problem, but just a small one and he now knows how to handle it if it should happen again.

Another two hours, and Roger was back home with the RV again. By now, it was about 5:00 p.m. and everything was working. Since we had thought we were only an hour from leaving when the issues started, it seemed logical that we were only an hour from leaving at this point. But, as we started into the last minute things, like loading the motorcycle onto the end of the RV, we discovered that we had quite a list of last-minute things to accomplish since we will be gone over two months. Thus, it was 11:30 when we finally pulled out.

As soon as we got on the road, I turned on my laptop and tried to tether with my phone for Internet service so I could update the blog. But, I couldn't get connected. At that point, it was too dark, and I was too tired to go forward. So, I just put my computer away and opened that little bag of goodies from David and Elizabeth and did a bit of initial practice playing our new harmonica! I have to say that a harmonica is a charming instrument. Even though I have no general musical skill and no harmonica experience at all, I was able to generate some sweet sounds and some simple songs. My best creation were melancholy sounds that Roger says would go well with a cowboy movie or a war-time movie.

Since we got such a late start, we planned to drive to the reststop just north of Austin and stop for the night. We figured that we would much appreciate being past Austin traffic when we woke up. Well, as luck would have it, the reststop was closed due to construction. So, we drove on looking for a Wal-mart (since Wal-marts invite RVers to spend the night) so we would not have to drive clear to the next reststop. We didn't find a Wal-mart before the next reststop......and, unfortuneately, we didn't find the next reststop either. Finally, we found a Sam's Club in Waco at about 3:00 a.m. and spent what was left of the night there.

It was cool enough that we did not need to run the air conditioner (which is good since it prolongs the need to refill the propane tank). Since we have Rebecca's mattress strapped to one bedroom wall and her mattress box strapped to the other bedroom wall, we couldn't get a great breeze through our open windows, but it was still pleasant enough to sleep comfortably.

We got up this morning and walked around Sam's Club, HEB, and Wal-mart to get some wine, breakfast, and ice packs. Since our freezer seems to work fairly well, but our refrigerator isn't as cold as we would like it, we are going to freeze some ice packs and then use them to help the refrigerator stay cold.

We left Waco about 10:00 this morning, and I again tried to tether to my phone to get Internet service. I was unable to do so on my computer (again), but this time I tried Roger's computer and got right on. So, since then, Roger has been driving down the Interstate and I checked our e-mails and am now typing in the blog. When I finish here, I will then grade some papers from our online college classes and send feedback to our students and then I will work on aligning science test questions to state standards. This drive and work plan is going well....as long as I have work I can do in Roger's computer. Hopefully, I will eventually figure out how to get my computer on.

We were a little concerned that the police would not like the fact that our scooter covers up our license plate. But a policeman passed us a while ago and didn't seem to mine.

Right now, Roger is manipulating his way through some very tight lanes of construction in Dallas. He says that our mirrors almost touch the mirrors of the semi trucks in the next lane. Nasty!

Even though we got a late start, we are rolling along nicely now! We are going to head out of Dallas on Highway 30 and towards Arkansas.

Internet tethering permitting, we will be blogging again tonight or tomorrow morning. Until then....Adios!

Anticipation Is NOT Always Half the Fun!

We are on our first-ever lengthy RV trip. Since it is both an RV trip and a way to move Rebecca's belongings to New York, we knew that packing was going to be an ordeal and we were not looking forward to getting started.

But, we did finally start putting Rebecca's items in the RV at 7:00 on Sunday night, July 27th. Two hours later, we were done and quite pleased that we have ample space to move around in the RV. We really expected to have so much stuff in the house part of the RV that it would be rather unpleasant until we got to New York. But, as it turns out, almost everything fit in the basement of the RV and we are going to have a pleasant trip from the very beginning!!!