sandcastle – Page 153 – The Sandcastle

Entering Louisiana

It’s a windy day on the road today. I am quite certain it is nothing like riding a bucking bronco; nevertheless, that’s the image that came to mind as Dave tried to keep our RV between the lines on the road.

We passed a farm/ranch/whatever-it-was with a very long fence needing the attentions of a Tom Sawyer.

The vet had an amusing sign:

Sit. Stay. Spay.

Good Owner.

In Jasper, Texas, at a Conoco station we bought diesel for $1.79/gallon! It was cheaper than regular gasoline.

Street signs here are red. The first one I saw said “Bevil Loop” so I thought red might mean it was a dead end road. But the next sign was also red. Maybe they just want travelers to be able to actually see them?

The next sign I noted said “Entering Beauregard Parish”. We are definitely in Louisiana now where they have parishes instead of counties.

In Merryville, Louisiana, we stopped at a visitor center to pick up a new highway map and to pack away the Texas one that is getting pretty battered.

The next sign I noted said, “No Driving on Shoulder.” Texans have to be told that. According to my observations, it’s standard procedure in Texas to drive on the shoulder if there’s someone behind you that would probably like to pass you. Dave doesn’t do that. At first, I felt like we should but then realized if we pulled over for someone to pass and it turned out not to be safe for them to do so we could be held liable. No, thanks. Let them take their own risks and hope they don’t injure us doing so.

It appears the last weekend in March is festival time in the small towns along U.S. 190 both sides of the Texas/Louisiana border. Azalea Festival. Crawfish Etoufee Cook-off. Dave doesn’t like festivals so we are trying to visit these places during the week so as to leave them to their crowds on the weekends.

We passed a field full of row after row after row of parked small house trailers. Dave thinks they are FEMA trailers. I wonder what they will do with them? Are these the ones that made people sick? If so, are they planning to reuse them? If not, why store them?

We planned to stop in DeRidder for lunch. Neither of us wanted to stop at the Cajun restaurant. The DQ was on the wrong side of the road. Dave kept driving expecting there to be more. There wasn’t. I raided my emergency stash of food and we kept on going down the road.

Now we are seeing tree trucks that remind me of Oregon except these trees aren’t nearly as fat. We passed a paper mill, too.

As is usually the case with U.S. highways, we have railroad tracks running along side us. Suddenly Dave said, “Truck on the tracks.” It might have been a signal maintainer. He sure was being careful about stepping out of the truck there where the shoulder was steep and the ballast loose under foot.

We passed a pizza place and a Subway that both had signs only along the front of the building. Without having a sign out on the road we don’t know they are there until it is too late to stop. Dave never saw either of them. Finally, in Kinder, Louisiana, we found a McDonalds with signage that warned us to prepare to turn. I feel much better with some Chicken Selects in my stomach.

South of Kinder I saw a place called the “Cobwebs and Dust Flea Market”. Truth in advertising?

Now we are parked for the night at the Quiet Oaks RV park. More truth in advertising–except for the occasional train whistle, of course.

TTYL,

Linda

Big Thicket

Leaving some parks takes a long time. Not just the fact that we spent several days at Rainbow’s end but the leaving process itself. To start with, I did lots of research while we were there so I needed to print new lists of possible places to go and things to do. (There’s new stuff on my public park camping list if you’re interested.) Then we had to read the electric meter and pay for the camping and electricity we used. Then we stopped at the book exchange for me to trade five paperback books. Then we stopped at the air hose to fill the left rear inner tire that was low–that was a challenge! In addition to the unusual things like dumping the trash. But, we did, finally, get back on the road.

At one point we came to a three prong fork in the road. The one to the left led to a cemetery. The one to the right led to a different cemetery. We took the middle one. Hopefully, it won’t lead us to a cemetery.

That made me think about headlights. It used to be if a whole string of cars coming towards you had their headlights on, you were witnessing a funeral procession. Now it just means they have their daytime running lights on. I wonder if it’s harder to keep other vehicles from cutting into a procession now?

We visited the Big Thicket National Preserve.

This was the first one established in the U.S. back in the 1970s. Apparently the difference between a national preserve and a national park or national forest is the preserve prevents harvesting native trees.

This is one of those places where different ecological systems come together in unusual ways. How many places have you been where you can see pine trees and prickly pear cactus in one park?

Plus, this park has four of the five insect eating plants found in the U.S.

When we left the visitor center, we passed through the town of Woodville–evidence of the lumbering industry in this area that prompted the establishment of the preserve.

As we drove up the road we saw hurricane symbols painted on the shoulders. Signs say those are Evaculanes–to be used for driving only during an official hurricane evacuation.

I also saw a road that made me think of double vision–County Road 4040.

They’ve been repaving this road and they stuck down those reflectors where the center lines will eventually be painted. Every so often one is not quite in line with the others; it looks like the guy installing them had the hiccups.

Then we crossed Steinhagen Lake to camp in Martin Dies, Jr. State Park, a bird watchers paradise. We got here at 4:45 pm but the clerks had already closed their registers for the day so they gave us a map and said to come pay in the morning. I refused to ask them what time they meant so this morning there was a form on our windshield saying we are supposed to pay by 9 a.m. That didn’t happen. But we will stop and pay on our way out as soon as I post this and finish packing up.

TTYL,

Linda

Sitting Still

When we left Houston, we planned on going east towards Louisiana. We didn’t. We went mostly north to Livingston, Texas, to the Escapee’s Rainbow’s End RV Park. One of our SKP classmates is here and he’s on a medical merry-go-round. We came to see how he’s doing. He’s frustrated at the lack of forward progress but otherwise is doing OK. The doctor has put him on medicine that makes him senstitive to the sun. I take one of those so I know how it is. He stays inside all day except for doctor appointments. When the sun goes down enough, he goes for his daily walk then stops by to visit with us.

Last night we talked about what route we might take when we leave here. He’s headed in the same general direction we are but he’s planning a different route. Since he’s been this way before we picked his brain for ideas and got some good ones. He also brought over his guidebook to the Corps of Engineer campgrounds and I made some new entries to our lists of where to go.

We could go on now but it’s both Friday and Spring Break time in Texas. With absolutely no confidence that we can check into any of the state parks or Corps of Engineer parks around here, it seems wiser to sit still and wait for the party to break up. So we’re here for at least a couple more days. Then we’ll see. The value of writing our plans in chalk expresses itself once again.

TTYL,

Linda

Sofa

This is the sofa that came with our Winnebago View:

When the slide is in the aisle with my shoes in it looks like this:

When the slide is opened out it looks like this:

And when the sofa is opened in the process of turning it into a bed it looks like this:

I have now “slept” on that bed for six months. But it has never been comfortable. We added a memory foam pad to it–nope, still not comfortable. We added a bed bridge down the center to help fill in the crack–nope, still not comfortable.

Finally, we decided it need to be replaced. After much discussion we decided to replace it with a plywood platform to hold a Tempurpedic mattress. That’s the brand of mattress we had in our house and I slept better on it than I had on anything else in years.

Yesterday PPL Motor Homes in Houston, Texas, built me a new bed using as their model a daybed style where you just throw lots of cushions on it when you want to use it as a sofa. Using all the pillows we already had, it now looks like this:

When the slide is closed the aisle is two inches narrower.

But when the slide is open, the aisle stays wide all the time because this bed doesn’t open and close. So, when I get out of bed my feet land on the carpet instead of the cold tile.

Plus, now it takes much less effort to be ready to go to bed at night or hit the road in the morning. And during the night last night the sofa mechanism did not poke me. And this morning my hips did not hurt. I am, once again, a happy camper.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. If you know anyone in the market for a new sofa, PPL has ours for sale. It is UltraLeather which is very soft to the touch. We really liked it as a sofa; just not as a bed for someone with a body like mine.

Ordinary Days

Somehow when we moved into an RV and hit the road, I think we thought every day would be extraordinary. Not true. There are many mundane days. We’ve been having a string of them. So here’s a list of ordinary.

Thursday we went to the UPS Store to pay for the boxes they packed and shipped for us. They put our five boxes of things into four boxes so we’ll have more sorting to do in our storeroom some day. It cost a lot to ship and insure all those things but the truck scale said the result is being 30 pounds under our maximum weight which is very good news. And the rain held off until we were leaving there which was also good news.

We drove to Houston in the rain and went to PPL Motor Homes to see if they could do the modifications we want anytime soon. They said, “Yes, we can start tomorrow morning.” But we have the hitch work scheduled for tomorrow to which they replied, “Good. Monday is better.” More good news.

Then we went to Gallery Furniture to buy a new Tempurpedic mattress. PPL is going to take out our sofa bed and install a platform for the Termpurpedic which we will then use as a day bed. The hope is I will begin sleeping well again which will increase our happiness since I get grumpy when I don’t sleep well. I’m also hoping it will decrease my backaches so I can do more things again. The mattress I want is on sale. It’s less than half the price of my second choice. How much good news can we get?

Then we went to the WalMart where Smitty’s said many of there customers overnight. Nope, not allowed there. So we went to the next closest WalMart. Nope, not allowed there either. So we went back to PPL where they have electrical hookups available for their customers and spent the night. That started out as bad news but turned good since the electical hookup is free.

Friday we spent all day at Smitty’s getting the hitch work done. Well, almost done. They didn’t have the right wheel for the upright post. The one they need will be in about 3:30 Tuesday afternoon. It’s a good thing we don’t have anyplace we need to be right now.

When we got back to PPL someone had moved into the space we’d used the night before. We forgot to leave our orange cone that says this space is taken. We were given our choice of three less official spaces. The first one was on wet grass that wasn’t close to level so we passed on it. The second one had too much voltage coming from the electrical hookup so our Electrical Management System disconnected us to protect our electronics. So we took the third one. It’s outside the range of their security cameras but the electrical hookup worked.

Saturday we went back to the scale to see how much weight Smitty’s hitch fix had added. We are now 140 pounds overweight. Let’s hope the replacement bed weighs less than the sofa bed.

Then we went to Target to get new sheets for the new bed since we don’t have any that will fit it. We also bought a bed skirt because skirting the new bed will weigh less than building cupboards under it. We bought a tailored skirt which made Dave happy since he thought we’d have to get ruffled.

Then we went to the new KFC/Taco Bell for lunch. They let us pay today.

Then we went to WalMart to get lightweight storage drawers to put under the new bed. We need these because PPL is going to remove some drawers from our kitchen to add a supplemental fresh water tank so we don’t have to go fill so often when we are parking long term. OK, long term for us is more than four days; wanna make something of it?

Then we went back to PPL. While we were out someone left one of the regular spots so we took it. We are now back under the eye of the guy monitoring the security cameras and we have an electrical hookup of the proper voltage.

Today, Sunday, we went to the 59 Diner for lunch. Cool place. But so many hard surfaces echoing the noise that we could barely hear the 50s music. Good burgers and malt, though.

Then we picked up our new mattress. Tonight we’ll put it on top of the sofa bed which will make for a very tall bed but we decided it was important to have it on hand when they start the remodel tomorrow. Besides, it was a lot more sane to dive up there in today’s light traffic than in tomorrow evening’s rush hour traffic.

We also went to Flying J up there to get propane. We didn’t get it, though. They are out until tomorrow morning’s delivery. Dave “thinks” we have enough for tonight. Hopefully the furnace won’t give up before morning. Our comforters will keep us warm overnight but we don’t get to stay in bed until the outside temperatures warm up the inside–we have work to be done. Exciting work.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. For those who care, Florida has been added to the public park camping spreadsheets.