A Different Life II

[Lily&Me]

Thank you, and again for you and your husband helping me get into this Interstate.

Maggie

[Hittenstiehl]

You are so welcome and it is fun to watch your adventures continue. It will be nice to see it all decked out in your fashion when you come back Westward someday, or when we can venture Eastward.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by Lily&Me

. . .
So, we are on the road, and delighted to be so.
. . .

So cool . . .



Happy Trails!

Peter

[Lily&Me]

Thank you, Peter.

I’m glad to have 2018 in the rear view mirror, as it was rather eventful in not always a good way.

This time last year, I was spending my second day in the ICU, to mention just one untoward event.


This will be a “being still” day today, as Doug and I would call it when we spent a couple of nights anywhere, when I might clean and tidy, also put something beef-y in the crock pot for carnivore hubby.

My day has already started in a very unusual way for me...not getting up until 6:45 am.

Lily is still sleeping, catching up on her beauty rest, naps being in short supply for her on travel days...preferring to stay close to me, but finding the passenger seat rather inhospitable.

Booger dog.

Maggie

[Photobum]

Maggie. Please come west. So many things to share with you...

And I really want another cap....

[Lily&Me]

Hi Vince!

Thought you were coming to Texas this winter.

I was looking forward to seeing you and meeting the new pups.

That’s as far west as I will get in the next few months, tho am really hoping an HistoriCorps project at Bodie is on the schedule for 2019, and at a time when I can be there.

The 2018 project was in June, which could be pushing it, but possibly doable.

We’ll see...and, in the meantime, you could meet me in the middle.

Maggie

[Goal15]

Maggie

We just missed you. We were at that same Arkansas SP on Friday on our way back from a Kentucky Christmas. Are you headed for Texas?

Dana and Olga

[Goal15]

Maggie

You might PM Protagonist for repair possibilities in Louisiana.

It sounds like flush valve may have frozen. I've had to replace two in our Safari before I learned to make sure I blew that out as well as part of winterizing.




Dana

[Lily&Me]

Hi Dana, and pm’ng Protag is a good idea, tho I hope to find someone before I get that far south.

Going to get on it first thing in the am. I don’t have the equipment to blow things out, just try to drain, but that may need to be on my “acquire” list as the configuration on the back of this toilet looks different from my other one.

Hadn’t planned on NOLA just yet, but we are indeed headed toward Texas.

Going to poke around some favorite areas of Louisiana, first.

I have just sat on the ground and put my rose plate borders on, and they are lovely.

Maggie

[mimiandrews]

When you get to this area, let me show you the air compressor I bought for around $40 at Walmart last year. It's light and small enough to carry along on the road, and powerful enough to blow out all the water lines when I winterize my Safari. I needed to winterize at a campsite a couple of times last winter, when the house was nearing completion and I was staying at the RV park here. This little compressor was just the ticket.

[Lily&Me]

I will do that, Mimi, and really looking forward to seeing you.

I expect whoever fixes this will have to drain my system of the winterization fluid in it to do so, so I will then just need to get some water in it and sanitize.

I guess that’s an upside.

Two others were here overnight, one of them an old schoolie, all painted up.

I can’t imagine dealing with the mileage those buses get, as it would seriously curtail my travels.

The campground is now empty, but for us, I have had a very productive morning and Lily two wild romps around here.

Maggie

[mimiandrews]

I can’t imagine dealing with the mileage those buses get, as it would seriously curtail my travels.

I think the theory is that one saves enough on the cost of the vehicle to pay for more gas. It works for those who saved the money in the first place, but I don't know how the "hand to mouth" crowd gets by.

[Lily&Me]

I am getting about 20 mpg, with mostly highway miles this trip, and that suits me just fine.

Wound our way thru the piney woods of Arkansas and northern Louisiana to Clay’s RV in West Monroe, LA, where with only a modicum of begging they took a few minutes to replace the water line to the toilet for me.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Service Manager Julie Brecheen.

The first suggestion was that they could sell me the part, and tell me how to replace it myself, my response of course being .

It was a small job, they fixed it, and I am grateful.


I can now get the winterization fluid flushed through, sanitize, etc., etc., hopefully beginning tomorrow as it has rained all day and continues.


We are in a campground, in the pouring rain, and will stay here til tomorrow, when I will partake of their laundry facilities and wash my winterization-fluid-soaked-towels.

This afternoon, I will clean up the bathroom, have a civilized mug of tea in a lovely, rose covered one that was gifted to me, and be glad this small event is over.

All part of the privilege of travel, tho a tad bit stressful, nonetheless.

Maggie

[Lily&Me]

Winterization fluid and bleach water have been run through my plumbing system, tanks have been emptied and fresh water tank is full.

It is probably safe to make coffee with, not smelling at all bleach-ey, but I’m going to wait til the next tank, just to be sure.

Yesterday the rain stopped, finally, and the sun came out.

It has been beautiful, sunny and 69 degrees in Louisiana today, and we made a stop in Natchitoches for a little shopping and walk by the river...and ice cream, consumed on a bench outside. On January 5th.

The Main Street in this town is on the river, which once hosted steamboats, and was filled today with people walking and shopping and enjoying this “day stolen from winter”, Doug would call it.

They had six inches of rain here Monday and Tuesday of this week.


I had planned on trying out my furnace tonight, dry camping in a lovely, special spot Doug and I discovered years ago...but, when I stopped in Natchitoches I had no coach battery, frig had gone out, no lights, burners wouldn’t light, NOTHING.

“Use” light would not come on, tho I have a brand new battery.

So, on we went on to a campground where, before I could get paid and plugged in to electricity, the Use light was red and everything in the back was up and running.

Something must be loose, somewhere. I will look at the coach battery in the morning, and see if it is anything obvious, as I remember this happening this past summer...but the new battery and fixin’s should have taken care of that.


We spent the last two nights in beautiful Kisatchie NF, completing the first-week-out choring, where the electricity is on at campsites, water is running at the sites and in the bathhouse, but there are no fee envelopes and no one collecting nor patrolling. Three fifth wheels there, in addition to me.

Place was neat and tidy, no one has apparently been running amok there during the shutdown, as reported at Joshua Tree.


This cardinal spent an hour or so yesterday afternoon, seemingly trying to get inside the Interstate.

He seemed enamored with his reflection in this mirror, and would alternately sit on the passenger window and bat himself on it, or on one of the windows in the rear.

Cardinals were Doug’s favorite bird.

Maggie

[OTRA15]

A great photo, and thanks for the inspiring journal of this trip.

Can Spring come soon enough in the NE?



Peter

[mimiandrews]

Cardinals are one of my favorite birds also. When I was young--11 or 12 I think--a friend and I rescued a male cardinal who'd somehow had his flight feathers damaged on one wing. He was OK, but he couldn't fly. We caught him and took him to my friend's mom. She kept him in a cage until his feathers had re-grown and then released him. Good memories.

[Lily&Me]

Stopped for a coffee as we left our campground this morning, and was greeted with a hot food case full of an assortment of freshly prepared and mostly unidentifiable foods, including fried whole boudin and “boudin balls”, which I had never seen before.

Yum! About the size of a small peach, boudin balls are simply boudin without the casing.

Spicy and delicious.

We are traveling, and enjoying local specialties is part of the fun.


I removed my stitches a few days ago, a bit tricky getting them out of there with my left hand, but done and now almost completely healed up.


I solved the coach battery issue, moving the spare tire and looking at it...when the new battery was installed, they didn’t secure the metal cover over it in any way, causing the cover to move and detach one of the cables.

One of my Dutch Ovens had also been placed in this compartment.

I really should look at everything, every time I have a repair done.

So this morning I pulled into a small trailer sales place in rural Louisiana, a one man shop that could not do repairs, but who sent me to a tire and all purpose service/repair place a few miles up the road.

They were waiting for me when I got there, took about 10 minutes to re-attach the cable and bolt the cover in place.

Back on the road, now fully and independently functioning.


We are in Texas, and will be visiting Mimi a bit later in the week.

Temps are mild, and it is not raining.

[Lily&Me]

Spent the last two nights in a nice COE campground, and today beelined thru Texas to Mimi’s new place....one knows they are in Texas by the armadillos by the side of the road, and the big, strapping fellows in white cowboy hats, who ride in pickup trucks marked “Constable”.

We have no Constables at home. I love it.

Mimi is great, in her cute new house with a hangar for her airplanes, in a little subdivision which caters to pilots of small planes.

What a woman.

My lab mix and hers had just a bit of jockeying for position, Lily quite jealously guarding her mama, but then settled down companionably and did very well.

Weather is comfortably cool, and there is no rain.

Maggie

[rosewoodtx]

Welcome to Texas. Hoping to see you and Mimi in a few weeks.

[Lily&Me]

Thank you, and we’re planning on being there, coming by early afternoon on Saturday, if that will work.


We took both the dogs in Mimi’s pickup truck today, and had a great day.

We are all tired.

Maggie