Mother's Day

Sunday, May 8 - Happy Mother's Day to all mothers reading my blog.  I miss my mother every day. 

After our day off yesterday, we got on the road at 9:00 this morning.  We got to see our 6 baby geese as we drove out of the park.  As we drove through Arkansas, we drove through the town of Johnny Cash's birthplace, Kingsland -- there was a small sign, and an even smaller town.  We crossed into Louisiana about 2:00 p.m., 86 degrees and probably humidity about equal to that.  We saw some beautiful flowering trees that we assumed to be magnolias, which is the Louisiana state flower.

We drove through a town named "Dixie Inn," so we are still keeping our travels in the family.  Then we crossed the Red River, another flooded river. 

We chose our route today to avoid Shreveport, but it turned out that we just made it a longer drive.  Then, coming through Mansfield, we got caught in a speed trap, right where the speed limit changed from 45 to 35 (Joe was going 49, and he said he never in his life got a speeding ticket for going 49 mph!!).  Anyhow, we'll find out tomorrow what the cost of that will be, or maybe he has to hang around Louisiana and go to driving school. 

This just made our long day longer, and we finally worked our way over to 191, the "scenic byway" along the Louisiana side of Toledo Bend.  This also was a waste of time, with only a couple glimpses of the lake, and the drive wasn't even particularly pretty.  We chose the Louisiana side because there seemed to be more camping on this side, but it turned out to be a little more ambitious travel day than we expected -- 303 miles; we got to our campsite about 6:00 p.m., and it was 91 degrees.  The campground is very nice, but they are amazingly dry here.  There is a "burn ban" in effect, they haven't had any rain here for a long time, and the lake is 8 feet below normal.  Which is really too bad, since there is so much flooding not very far from here. 

Joe had put in a long day, so he relaxed for a little bit and sulked about his ticket.  He's accepting donations, so anyone wanting to contribute, just call and we'll give you an address where we can get mail.

After a quick dinner, we drove down to the lake, but it was not very impressive.  We will head south along it tomorrow, and hopefully it will be a little grander.  We have always heard about bass fishing tournaments on Toledo Bend, so it was some place we thought we should see. 

The boat docks here are out of the water just like we are used to in Arizona.

Today wasn't a great day, so hopefully tomorrow will be a better one. 

Pine Bluff Still

Saturday, May 7 - Our plan this morning was to tour that, then head toward Toledo Bend, either in Texas or Louisiana.  We took another little drive first, just outside of town, and saw the Port of Pine Bluff, some of the old industrial section which now houses mostly closed businesses, and some kind of lumber or pulp plant.  We passed this lumber company on our way into town yesterday and saw what we thought was smoke coming from the stacks.  Today we got closer and saw that it was actually water being sprayed onto the stacks of lumber.

Pine Bluff is a huge rail center, and next door to the Arkansas Railroad Museum was a plant that had a huge inventory of train wheels, different sizes and different levels of rust.

This museum houses the last 4-8-4 Northern-type locomotive built in Pine Bluff, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

They also have a number of rare diesel locomotives, a complete steam wrecker train, cabooses, and a snow plow, along with a wide variety of artifacts including tools, paper goods, maps and pictures.

By the time we got back to camp, it was noon.  It was another beautiful day, and we loved this campsite, so we just decided to stay another day.

So we had a day of rest -- something we are not very good at when we are traveling.  We both got naps in, spent a little time in our lawn chairs, and took a walk around this beautiful campground.  But Joe's allergies do not like all this greenness, his nose plugged up and his eyes started itching, so he had to go inside.  Nevertheless, it was a very good day for us.   I walked back down and where the fishermen were fishing, but I did not buy a fishing license, so all I could do was watch.

I did make a new friend, though.

And we got to watch the NASCAR race tonight, a rare treat.  Tomorrow we will head to Louisiana and see if we can camp at Toledo Bend -- another spot I will probably wish I had fishing license.  John and Bridgette promise to take us fishing in Florida, though, so I will try to wait for that.  Bridgette thinks the closer we get to Texas, the sooner she graduates, so she keeps checking on our progress.  A week from now it will be over, and she will officially be Dr. Bridgette Froeschke.

Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Friday, May 6 - We listened to the morning news to check on flooding conditions.  I-40 is closed both eastbound and westbound in central Arkansas, so we are going to cross here on I-55 and then take 79 south.  We did not do any sightseeing here because of the flooding -- they are expecting to start evacuating people this morning.  Beale Street and Riverside Drive, both Memphis icons, are closed.  It was nice to see billboards of Elvis, though, as we drove past the Graceland exit.  They are calling this the Flood of the Century, and I'm not sure why we are here, but Joe, of course, wouldn't want to miss anything, so I guess that's reason enough. 

 

We left about 9:30, but took the wrong turn out of the campground (based on my advice, contrary to Joe's instincts) and ended up with a 6-mile scenic tour of Memphis' millionaire row (at least it seemed like it to us, beautiful estates, huge houses, acres of lawns to mow).  We finally made it back to the highway, fueled at the first Circle K we've seen in a long time ($3.739), and were on our way across the Mississippi River bridge, which we crossed without incident.  The traffic wasn't even heavy, but the river was full and overflowing.

The floodwater was really bad on the west side of the river, and there were even electric lines lying in the water, causing a splash.

An interesting item on the news - the casinos across the state line in Tunica, Mississippi are closed due to flooding (darn!), but they have a dilemma because they don't have locks on their doors; they are open 24/7.  I did not hear what their solution was, but I thought that was noteworthy.  I wondered if they emptied out all the slot machines -- I assume they did.  They hope to be open by Memorial Day, so this flood will affect them for a few weeks.

We got off I-55 at US 79, and traffic was relatively light most of the way, even though this was part of the detour route off I-40.  We stopped at the Arkansas Visitor Center and asked about Hwy. 79, and she had heard they were not allowing crossing the bridge at Clarendon on the White River, so I called the Arkansas Dept. of Transportation (again) and he told me they were letting cars cross, but not 18-wheelers, and he was not sure which category we would fall in.  He said there would be a cop at the last intersection and he would tell us if they would allow us to cross, but by the time we got there (about 1:00 p.m.), we were meeting 18-wheelers and there was no cop, so we went ahead.  And crossed without incident.  This White River has really flooded the fields west of it.

The road across this bridge was not in very good shape, and they are building a new bridge beside this one, so they probably are not going to do much repair work on this old road.  But the new bridge does not seem to have much clearance -- I'm thinking they should have built it up higher!

Every river, stream and ditch is full to overflowing through this part of the country -- the 20 inches of rain they received in the last 2 weeks (while I was getting stormed on in Indiana) has just ruined these fields for the spring season.  We even saw a set of 6-8 grain elevators standing in 2-3 feet of water.  Several places we saw pumps in the fields, draining the water into ditches, but the ditches were already full too, so I don't know how well that will go.




Our last big river to cross today was the Arkansas River; it didn't seem as flooded as the rest, maybe it has receded a little.

After much debate about how far we wanted to go today, we finally decided to stop at Pine Bluff, and found Lake Saracen Regional Park right at the edge of town, just past the golf course.  This is a beautiful park, and we found a campsite near the lake, so we got set up, walked down and watched some fishermen/fisherwomen (the woman caught 1 catfish and 1 brim [bluegill] while we stood there), and got the lawn chairs out again -- a nice, relaxing spot.

Of course, we couldn't stand to rest too long, so we headed into town for dinner.  Joe has had a hankering for barbeque ever since we hit Texas last month, so we put that in the GPS and drove around until we found one; then we explored the town a little.  On our way back into our park, we came upon a family of geese out for their evening exercise.

The babies were so cute -- still fuzzy.  Then we saw a deer just at the campground gate.  We saw 4 live turtles on the highways today (and a few dead ones), along with roadkill of 3 armadillos and a deer.  I'm sure the flooded fields have driven some of the wildlife out of their normal haunts, but I have been surprised at the number of turtles who have decided they have to cross the road -- it really is not a good idea for them!

We found a railroad museum in town so we plan to visit that in the morning, and then head on southwest, although this would be a nice place to spend an extra day -- we would just have to buy an Arkansas fishing license.  Today was a beautiful day -- sunny, high 70s.  I would like to bottle up some days like today for the upcoming weeks in Texas and Florida, followed by Arizona.

Back to Memphis

Thursday, May 5 - Happy Cinco De Mayo Day.  We had tacos for dinner in honor of the occasion. 

We got up to another sunny day, yeah!   It was a beautiful morning, and we spent a couple hours with the map and computer this morning trying to figure out how to get across the flooded areas and the Mississippi River; I-40 in Arkansas was closed between Memphis and Little Rock, with a 100+ mile detour, and the Caruthersville, Missouri bridge crossing would put us right in the flooded area in north Arkansas.  I figure our Mobile Hot Spot for MiFi probably paid for itself this morning, since I was able to get on web sites about the Arkansas road closure, which a trucker had posted.  We finally decided on a route through central Tennessee and Mississippi, maybe crossing the river at Vicksburg, but Joe changed his mind mid-stream, and we ended up on the southeast edge of Memphis tonight (I practically wore out the Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi pages on the atlas).  So we'll check again in the morning and decide whether we move on, or sit in Memphis for another day or so.

We drove through beautiful country coming down through Kentucky and central Tennessee.  Our route took us past Murray State University, and the town and university both were very pretty.  A classmate of Joe's, Johnny Buchhorn, attended Murray State, so it was interesting to see the school, although we only saw what we could see from the highway.

We pulled off the road in McKenzie, Tennessee for lunch, and Joe walked across the road to a grocery store for a tomato.  A Dairy Queen happened to be next to the grocery store, so he bought a treat for me.  While he was doing his errands, I heard a clip-clopping outside, and an Amish horse and buggy was going by on the road, and then it pulled into the grocery store.  He tied up the horse to the hitching post, then went inside for his groceries.

Driving on southwest on US 79 through Tennessee, we saw a lot of  damage from the terrible storms that came through Alabama, Tennessee and the whole south a couple of weeks ago.  We saw lots of limbs piled up, big old trees uprooted, and some houses that roofs were being replaced on.  This went on for several miles, especially around Milan.

The price of gas is also of great interest to us.  We paid $3.869 yesterday in Kentucky; today we saw gas as low as $3.689 (of course we didn't need any gas today, so we'll wait for the $4.00 stuff tomorrow).  Although tonight's news reported that the price of gas should be coming down, maybe as low as $3.50 -  our new bargain price, I guess. 

Our next excitement was driving through Humboldt, which acclaims itself as the strawberry capital of Tennessee.   And lo and behold, the festival is May 1-7.  We drove straight through town, looking for strawberries.  Joe said he would stay here overnight, he would even bring money for berries, but we never did see any for sale.  We suddenly found ourselves on main street, and the streets were lined with lawn chairs for a parade.  I noticed that we were the only ones on the street, so Joe started giving the parade wave just in case we were leading it.  But we never saw the parade either, so I guess we missed it.

We ended our day on the northeast edge of Memphis about 4:30, having driven 168 miles today (we made 174 miles yesterday).  We really lucked into a neat little campground, right behind a mobile home park, with a little fishing pond with a dock.  We sat down there in the sunshine for a little while and spotted 3 turtles, one not much bigger than 1 inch.  When I lived at Claypool, there were always lots of baby turtles around in the spring, so it's fun to see them again.

We also were visited by 2 geese, so we are back into wildlife!

Our campsite was shaded, and pretty roomy, and we sat out in lawn chairs for a little while, which we don't do often enough.  Today was a good day -- we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Exit Day

Wednesday, May 4 - Halleluiah, the sunshine has returned!  Pretty chilly morning (41 degrees overnight), but the sun is shining!  We finished gathering up our stuff (hopefully we got everything) and made a trip into town for groceries.  The Fire Dept. had 2 ladder trucks parked on the overpass with a huge American flag flying between them.  We were told it was in honor of the troops, and it was an awesome sight.

 We made a quick stop at Mike and Rachelle's to see her daycare operation, then drove past the Indian Hills Produce Inc. watermelon distribution center, which is between Mike and Lucille's houses.  They truck watermelons into this center, then repack them and truck them all over the country.  There are semi trucks passing by Lucille's house all day long, going to this distribution center.

 About 12:30, we were ready to hit the road.  Joe drove to the station just up the road to fill up our propane tank, so I took a couple of last pictures, then drove up to meet him and hook up the car.  Lucille walked outside to see us off.
 
We had a really good visit, but it was time to move on.  After much debate last night, Joe picked out a route that took us through Evansville (another White Castle hamburger lunch), then into Kentucky.  We saw terrible flooding throughout this drive, fields and even houses and barns with water in and all around them.

 

It's going to take a long time to recover from the damage this flooding is causing.  We crossed the Ohio River at Evansville, which had flooded all the surrounding area too.

We drove through Kentucky to the Kentucky Lake area, crossing the Tennessee River.

 We used to come to Kentucky Lake to fish for crappie in the spring, so this area was familiar to us, although it had changed dramatically in the 25+ years since we had been here.  We had intended to camp at the Kentucky Dam Village and Campground, but it was all under water.

They recommended a campground just a mile down the road, so we got set up then drove around the area.  The water was rushing through the spillways at the dam, going into the Tennessee River which certainly did not need any more water.

We drove through some of the camping resorts we had been to back in the 80's, then ended up at Jonathan Creek where we camped many times.  This inlet was huge, due to the high water of the lake, and our old campground, Lakeside, was mostly underwater.  We were glad we had not planned on staying here tonight.  We did see two red foxes on this drive, along with a turtle and numerous squirrels.

We headed back to the camper then, and I fixed dinner.  It was an interesting day, and we were glad to be on the road again, seeing the sights.  We are hoping for another sunny day tomorrow.

Getting Ready to Leave

Tuesday, May 3 - We are planning on leaving tomorrow, so today was the day to get chores done.  I started my morning by doing laundry, then vacuuming, while Joe checked tires and oil on the RV.  My dear friend Barbara stopped by on her way home from work (she had to change her route due to flooding and levees that broke) and we had a good visit.  Joe and Lucille both got short naps in so they would be ready for our final euchre game.  We celebrated our last night with Bobe's Pizza with Lucille, Fred and Judy, then cards until 11:00 -- an early night since Mike had to work.  It was partly sunny today, and chilly, but no rain.