What do they have in common? Hopefully by the time you finish reading this we will all know.
We started off little after 8 AM this morning. We drove smack through the middle of Branson with the Beast and the car in tow. Normally we didn’t even drive the main drag because it was so clogged up for the shows and tourists. We traveled the “other” routes to get around Branson and not the main drag. But early in the morning it’s dead. Highway 65 south for ever. It started off real nice then changed to a two land highway with a lot of turns. The road itself was pretty good. We got around Little Rock and the I-30 was worse than up in Alaska. Then it happened. I hit a friggin big alligator while changing lanes. This was another one down the road. Tire pieces are called alligators because they will bite you like the one I hit did.
It was nosey. The trouble with hitting these things that they flip and turn like an alligator hitting the underneath of your RV. There is all sorts of “things” under there. I watched my gauges for any immediate damage. We stopped as soon as we can to inspect. Nothing I could see under the RV but when it came out the rear it became more noticeable. This is where it hit under the frame of the mud flap and bent the lettering Newmar on the other side.
Then it came up and hit the car. Just some hard rub marks with no physical damage. I would say no real damage over all. When we get to Livingston I will crawl underneath and check out the “Beast” better.
When we got ready to leave the rest area I saw this sign. Never ever saw a rest area that had designated sites for OVERNIGHT campers. This was just south of Little Rock on I-30.
We had decided to spend the night near Texarkana, AR at a city campground(Hope is the city). We got to the Flying J at exit 7 to go over our options. We got a call from Wayne who wanted to buy our Kayaks. He was another 200 miles. It turned out he had to work the next day and we couldn’t meet up with him. He’s one of those people who still work but plays on weekends sometimes. We told him we would try to make it today but no promises. It was 3 PM and we had already gone 300 miles. I was fine but Carol was getting in one of “those” moods from traveling so long. We headed for Jasper, Texas.
Here’s an interesting picture. The school bus is actually a converted cut down school bus made into a tow truck. Hey, these southern boys “get er done”.
Need I say more…..
We hung a left on to highway 59 south. We got to Jasper a little after 6 PM. Wayne met us at the Walmart near his house. I followed him in our car to his nearby place. He has a lot toys to include a Wanderlodge motorhome under a carport next to his Snap On tool truck. He’s a Snap On guy. He gave me a tour of his RV and truck. Both are in great shape. The RV is in outstanding condition and has 90K on it but you would never guess. I forgot the year – maybe a 1998. It’s For Sale for the right price. If he sold it he would get another one. Him and his wife hope to full time in the future. Needless to say I told him everything I knew about kayaks – get in and paddle. He got a great deal on our kayaks and will even use them more than we did.
I forgot to mention that we had some earlier engine problems. I lost power twice and regained it about 20 MPH later. Then as we were making a turn in Jasper we lost all power and I had to make an emergency pull over downtown. The engine lost all power and we were slowing down quickly. It died when I stopped and on the dash console display appeared ABS DEFAULT. Now’s that strange. Maybe that alligator bit into a wire underneath near the ABS brake wiring. I turned off the ignition and waited about two minutes. When I checked the display for fault codes it now showed no defaults. I turned the Beast on and it came back on and we drove on to Walmart to meet Wayne.
OK, it’s now 8 PM, dark, and we are into this adventure 500 miles and 75 miles from Livingston with this new problem of the engine dying. I don’t think or at least remember driving the Beast at night either. Oh what the hell, life is an adventure and we went for it. It was a nice quiet drive with no further problems. We arrived at the Barn about 9 PM. We had this barn built two years ago for our storage. We out grew the one next to it. We can drive the car into this one and have a lot room left over. Carol uses the second floor for her line dancing room.
I drove the Beast straight in rather than backing in. We can turn around tomorrow.
This is the mobile with a big covered porch on it. We call it the laundry room. We stay in the rig. This lot belongs to my Mom but we take care of all of it. She’s in a nearby assisted living home.
The lot is a 1/2 acre with trees and has two 50 AMP full hook ups and one W/E (30 AMP). The driveway wraps around. Sometimes I drive in from the other side behind the mobile. Carol’s brother rewired the RV sites when he wired the barn. Outstanding job.
We plan (jello) to be here until after Christmas. We will probably take some little trips from here. The blog might get a little boring at times so……
See ya……….
No comments:
Post a Comment