On the Road Again....to TEXAS!

Breaux Bridge, LA., Cajun Palms RV Resort.  Site: 416

We left Elkhart this week on Thursday...We left this (on the left) and temperatures in the twenties....We have a four season rig, they say. It's a Jayco Pinnacle. It's suppose to withstand temperatures in the twenties down into the teens. It has insulated windows. It has heated underneath bays.  However, the water hoses can still freeze unless you have a heat tape hose leading into the rig. those are very expensive. We don't have one so we unhooked our water hose several nights in a row and used water from our onboard water tank. We sure tested all that out while we waited for Eldy's glasses to come in and Sparky's last eye appointments. Temperatures dropped nightly into the twenties and rarely got up past the freezing mark for a few days straight. Sparky enjoyed the snow thoroughly!

Here's what the slide outs looked like partially cleared, from a view on a ladder.

We thought we'd have problems with slide outs not wanting to come in and jacks not wanting to go up, but nope. We had a problem with the hitch mechanism in the truck. It froze partially and we could not get it to connect properly even after three tries, and trying to wiggle the ice out of it. 

To the rescue, Eldy's son, Brian. He got out his mini blowtorch and warmed up the metal hitch levers and then the rig popped right into place onto the hitch! Off we went.....Eldy hopes he doesn't see this again for a VERY long time.

Thursday night we landed in Diamond Caverns RV park in the dark, after over 350 miles of driving. It gets dark EARLY in Kentucky, around 4:30 their time, so we had to unhitch in the dark. Luckily, a nice park employee was on duty till fairly late in the evening, and he guided us into our spot. It's very disconcerting at night driving the RV into a park with trees and picnic tables every which way. We were very glad to have his help. And fortunately, our unhooking went uneventfully well.

Off we went the next morning and drove over 360 miles (Eldy reminds me HE drove, haha--he always does), to one of our favorite corps of engineer parks in Alabama, along the I-65 corridor, Gunter Hill. It's a beautiful campground with huge, spacious long concrete cement pads, nice fire pits and a large picnic area for each site. We scored a site backing up to the river leading to the Alabama Lakes corridor. Once again, we arrived after sunset and rapidly approaching dark. We really need to get better flashlights or one of those headlamp headbands, lol! Here's our view out our living room window the next morning, through the screen.

Those river back in sites are really difficult to get! After seeing how beautiful it was, we decided, hey, let's let Eldy take a break from driving and we will stay two nights. Nope--holiday week...the park was almost completely full so we couldn't nab another night without hooking up and moving to another spot. But isn't this a beautiful site? Such a contrast from Indiana, which by the way, is under a snowstorm advisory once again, and was in the TEENS for the Notre Dame football game today. Yikes!

Site 13 Catoma Loop

So regretfully, off we went again this morning.....Our goal was to drive 425 miles, a long haul for Eldy, but he can do it! to get to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, where we have stayed at the Cajun Palms RV resort before. It's a very nice park but the concrete sites have poor drainage in many sections of the park. The rains drain off the grass edges and run onto the concrete pad. It rained most of the way there on our drive and was coming down hard when we arrived. Ugh. Hooking up in the rain is not fun. The first site we were given was flooded so we had to pick another site. All sites are concrete, they have a large pool/entertainment area, and in the summer time, it's super enjoyable and a very nice park. Staff is friendly and helpful, and since it's a newer park, all sites are 50 amp full hookup, as far as we know. The sites are not all that long however, and our 41 foot rig took up the whole concrete pad with no room to park the truck so we had to park in the spot next to us for one night. Time for Saturday night football and popcorn for a very tired driver!

Tomorrow is Sunday. We have a shorter drive of 261 miles to go to get to Lake Conroe, TX, where Sparky's daughter and grandson live in the area. We will rest our rig and ourselves for the next 2.5 weeks and spend some time visiting with family before heading out farther into Texas with our goal of eventually wintering in Arizona.

We wish you a very happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.....

Some of Eldy's family and his grandchildren

 

A Long Journey to Kentucky

Diamond Caverns, Park City, KY....Site: A-11, back in. AT&T terrible, T-Mobile Mi-fi good. 

Rvers like to know how other RVers travel from destination to destination. So here we go....from Lake Conroe, TX to Mammoth Cave, KY, our distance covered this week was about 1,037 miles. We did it in three days to avoid getting caught in severe weather storms this down south. Here's how we went:  From Lake Conroe to FM830, then Texas 75,  to FM3083, then 336 Loop, to Texas 105, then 69 south,  then I-10 East. We spent the night at Cajun Palms, (site 37) in Louisiana. We drove through Baton Rouge, crossed the bridge over the mighty Mississippi, picked up I-12 East, then I-65 north. Our second night we stayed at Gunter Hill, COE park (site 68 back in) near Montgomery, AL. Back on I-65 the next morning. Traffic was totally shut down on I-65 due to bridge work so we were rerouted to 31 for awhile until we could pick up I-65 again in Decatur, AL. Then on to Park City, home of Mammoth Cave National Park.

We traveled over the amazing Atchafalaya River Basin Bridge, with which is over 18 miles long, and the third longest bridge in the US. Pretty amazing architectural feat building this bridge over swampland, with the river basin in-between the bridge sections, isn't it? Wonder if the bridge ever floods?

Cajun Palms

We liked this particular route because there are more decently rated parks traveling this route. We really like Cajun Palms RV resort. It's our second time passing through at this park but we could easily stay for more time. Not cheap, about 66.00 a night, but what a nice park! Wide spacious sites, beautiful pool area which wasn't opening for a few days yet. 

Our second night was at Gunter Hill, a Corps of Engineer Park, near Montgomery, AL, a park we have stayed at many times. The sites are HUGE...Sparky found a new trail she had not seen before that was in a different section of the park. 

As it is late March and the weather has been very abnormally chilly here in Alabama, the spring flowers are not up yet. But Sparky did find beautiful, wild Atamasco lilies blooming.

This is the park where a rogue limb took out BOTH our awnings out last year. So when we heard there was a big storm brewing and going to hit the area with high winds, we decided to leave the next day and put in a big driving day of over 400 miles to get further away from the bad winds and possibilities of tornadoes. But we managed to get a dinner at Jim 'n' Nick's...a really great BBQ place with the most amazing sweet little dinner biscuits in Prattsville, AL, a nearby town, before we left the next morning. Sparky bought some extra biscuits to freeze, they are THAT good!

And we made it to Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV and Golf Resort. It's really not as swanky as it sounds. The RV park is quite small, showing its age, and there are quite a few annuals/seasonals in many of the sites, so it's not easy to get a site without planning way ahead of time. Sites are not very level, but we found one that an annual person had just left their site which was decent, and moved back home. So we snagged it! Sparky is excited about hiking inside Mammoth Cave National Park, and biking the very strenuous rocky gravel bike/hike trail, which is 7 miles one way from the RV campground to the park office. We have done cave tours in the past, so we will skip those this time. Hope the weather improves. It's going to be quite chilly this week with lots of clouds. See you soon on a few of those biking/hiking excursions!

Bye for now.....