In Pursuit of Spring ( and Sanity)

Monday, April 08th. Horse Cave, Kentucky.  We finished off last night near Birmingham by hooking the trailer up to make a quick get away this morning. The weather showed that a line of severe thunderstorms was due to hit right about 8am and then rain continuously all morning. So, I put the hitch on the truck and attached the trailer, attached sway bars and the chains and break-away brake connector. I emptied the tanks and put away the lawn chairs — we were ready to go.  The nice lady from Sarnia in the site next door asked if we were planning a quick get-away out from under the weather;  they were playing it by ear. They’d left Sarnia on December 15th and spent the winter near Punta Gorda in their fifth wheel — just north of J.C.’s place in Naples. They used to travel around and camp in different locations like we have on our two trips but they found it too tiring, used too much gas, and wanted to settle down in a location Where they could make some good friends. We ...

Sunday April 07th, Birmingham, Alabama. Morning came with clearing skies and a realization that we hadn’t been blown to Oz during the evening.  The line of storms went by last night without incident ( Ok, the cable TV went out for a little while after a spectacular lightening strike).  Even the dogs did pretty well — after freaking out at first the two girls just settled down and Swiffer just lay there and panted and shook.  The wind rocked the trailer mightily for an hour or so but we didn’t get the hail that was threatened in the weather alerts on TV and the Weather Network App.  So all-in-all I chose well — the trailer park in Natchez I’d considered had flooding problems and the area had an extended tornado warning; east was better than west in this case. Clearing skies hadn’t been in the forecast but I thought (hoped)  this was possible just looking at the patterns in the weather map. There were a few odd sun-showers through the morning but it was still ...

Saturday, April 6th. Birmingham South RV Park, Pelham, Alabama. The weather was continuing crap in New Orleans this morning and there was no clear indication that it would be better anytime before Monday at the earliest. I looked again at the weather for a radius of about 500km and we decided that the best course would be to swing east again and further North to continue our exploration of the South as we slowly head home.  Maybe we’ll be another 10 days or 2 weeks on the road; we may even string it to 20 days but not more than that. I’d intended to do my income tax on the road but the tax software for IOS and the wi-if connections we’ve had just make it impossible. I’m ending up doing most of this blog posting with LTE on my phone as the wi-if in the campgrounds is almost non-existent.  I could buy a proper lap-top and find a place with good wi-if to work for the day it will take me to do the taxes but at this point it just seems easier to get home a little earlier than p...

Friday April 5th, New Orleans, LA.   The weather continues to be crap — and the forecast says it will remain so until Monday at least anywhere within 500km of this place. This morning it was pouring rain and thunderstorms rolled in the distance waking me up at 5:30, but not bothering the dogs or Lorraine much. Swiffer was happy to replace me in bed and I got up to work on the Blog and read the paper while Lorraine and the dogs slept in a little.  Even given my early start we didn’t get out of the trailer in pursuit of Antebellum mansions until after 10:00 under low clouds and frequently heavy rain. We headed west through downtown and across the river and west toward Baton Rouge but only after I snapped at Lorraine in heavy traffic as I tried to navigate and drive at the same time and then handed off the navigation to Lorraine when she wasn’t prepared. In retrospect, it’s better to prepare — especially in a city with stupid roads, a major river and pouring rain. We’re sti...

Thursday April 4th, New Orleans, Louisiana Our luck with the weather has ended for now. Dawn came with a line of thunderstorms; Swiffer is very anxious with the sound of thunder and little we can do consoles him. I decided to wait until the rain broke to walk them but an especially vicious cell of the storm got all three dogs going — all of them barking and running back and forth, Baby nipping at my heels, and Swiffer then decided he couldn’t wait and peed all over the trailer floor — the full length of the place. In fairness to the dogs, thunderstorms are very loud in a trailer and more vicious in the south than we usually get at home. Even heavy rain coming down can be quite deafening in the trailer. Fortunately the cell broke past and a gap opened up in the in the storm and I was able to get the dogs out into the park and almost all the way back before the rain started again with drops the size of large grapes. I was only 40 yards from the trailer when the rain started and w...

Wednesday, April 3rd. 3 Oaks and a Pine RV Park, New Orleans.   This is our remaining day of nice-weather in New Orleans so we headed back east on highway 90 to the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area for an eco-tour. Tomorrow and Friday the weather will be crap; tomorrow in particular we’re expecting heavy rain so we’ll go indoors to the WW II museum that we couldn’t see last year because I had a bad cold. Friday is still to be determined — hopefully the weather improves.  Lorraine asked that on the tour we avoid airboats;  We have travelled on those once in the Everglades and I’m happy to agree; Airboats are very noisy and a little unnerving as they move over land and shimmy sideways. We leafed through the ubiquitous pamphlets from the office to find one with a small boat and motor and found one that runs for two hours around through the Honey Bayou area of the Pearl River. I called to reserve even though it was already well after hours and had a very nice, long ...

Tuesday, April 2. Three Oaks and Pine RV Park, New Orleans, Louisiana Our shortest trailer trip of the journey so far; It’s only 120 km further west on Highway 90 from the Cajun RV Park to the 3 Oaks and Pine RV park in New Orleans — more or less across the street!   We could have walked in honour of Fats Domino but pulling the trailer would have been too much. We continue to have beautiful but cool sunny weather — high of 19C today in New Orleans; Lorraine had me put the heat on again when we woke up this morning. We dawdled and read a little at the park in Biloxi as, again, we didn’t want to leave too early — the RV park in NOLA wasn’t allowing check-ins until 12:30.  Although if we’d been in a hurry they would have found a temporary place to park us so we could head out and do some site-seeing. When we did pack up it was quick and easy with no apparent mishaps. Although, I’ve not quite done it perfectly yet. This time, I discovered when we got to New Orle...