Eldo has the Hitch Itch, Travelin' Time!

After spending many weeks in Texas, Eldo was ready to move! (and so was Sparky.) In the full time RVing scheme of things, RVers refer to "hitch itch" as the urge to get going and see some new areas and experience new things. We were blown out of Harlingen finally, (after going thru the Texas freeze and almost daily winds of 20-30 mph, and a slide out problem) then we headed to Spring to see Sparky's daughter and grandson and got some great quality time in there, so no surprise that all good things come to an end, and it was time to move on, and move we did!

Eldo used to not mind driving at all. He LOVED our Tiffin Phaeton motorhome that we used to have ten years ago, and for him a 400 mile day was a piece of cake.  Now that ten years have gone by, a 300 mile day with the fifth wheel would be about tops. Yet, he had the hitch itch pretty bad, so he drove 430 miles the first day out from our park in Spring, TX to Carriere, MS. Whew! Especially since there was construction after construction project on I-10 headed east. (And construction cement barrier after cement barriers on the sides only inches from the rig. THAT is an RVer's worst nightmare...Concrete barriers on the right and semis passing you on the left with concrete barriers on THEIR side.)

Clearwater Park in MS

We spent the night at Clearwater RV Park in Carriere MS. What a delightful park! Not the most big rig friendly, but we were guided into our spot which helped, because there was one tight turn in the mix. Ducks greeted us as we were setting up. Sparky thought that was delightful, Eldo not so much.

Beautiful park with azaleas blooming all over the place, and a paddlewheel mill turning creating a peaceful babbling brook sound. Many long term residents stay here, but there are also quite a few open spots for people passing through. Unfortunately, there are only two pull thru spots. Fortunately, we got one of them for the night and it was right by the pond. It's about 5 miles from I-59, so NO ROAD NOISE. What a peaceful place and we loved spending the night here. Note that the internet signal is terrible here.

The next morning, off we headed for Alabama, and our favorite Corps of Engineer park, Gunter Hill, a distance of about 289 miles. You'd think we would think twice about coming back here, because of the humongous tree limb that fell on our awnings and took both of them out back in August, but nope, here we are...We love this place. Sites are AMAZINGLY spacious in the Catoma loop, and tight and narrow in the Antioch loop. Here's a site bordering on the lake in the Catoma loop.

Campground is in the Alabama Lakes system, and part of the lake system is right in your backyard, practically. Beaucoup room between sites...Price is 15.00 a night with senior pass for FULL HOOKUPS. We had a campfire and although it was a cold spring night, Sparky just HAD to have a campfire!

An added bonus to this area is the excellent shopping and restaurants in a nearby town, but it's about 8-10 miles from Gunter Hill campground to the restaurant mecca of Prattsville. We LOVE Jim 'n' Nicks, a fantastic brisket/BBQ restaurant with the best little mini cheddar biscuits and sweet butter along with the brisket and pulled pork and potato salad with a little kick! 

Site 26 at Texas T Campground

And, back out on the road again...this time a drive of about 270 miles to TN, to a great overnight park stop, Texas T Campground, right off of I-65 in Cornersville, TN. And when Sparky says "right off I-65," it's RIGHT OFF I-65. The highway is right next to us at our site on 26. All pull thrus, which is nice, but the highway noise is not. Sites are gravel and level. ATT speeds for internet service are great. We stayed for two days and got a visit in with Eldy's daughter and grandson. Sparky likes to walk the county roads next to the park, and there is a beautiful little farm right next to the park. Sparky would have loved to have grown up on this farm as a child. It's got woods, rolling hills, this cool barn, and looks like a wonderful place to grow up or even be a grown up living there.

This is just the barn!

The countryside in Tennessee sure is pretty...Here's another farm Sparky walks by on her daily walks while staying at the Texas T park.

And, off we go again...this time we are heading for Cave City, KY, and much to Eldo's relief, we will be staying for three weeks at a Thousand Trails park called Diamond Caverns. We hope we like it well enough to stay three weeks. It's free with our membership, so we like that part for sure! We'll let you know what we think of the area and the park once we get there. Sparky is excited to be back in the Mammoth Cave area, and the temperatures are going to be perfect--highs in the 60's and 70's, and lows in the 40's and 50's.

We'll see you soon again.....Safe travels to our RVing friends who are following along with us, and blessings to our readers who are following us from home and near and far. We love sharing our experiences with you and thank you for reading!

Arkabutla, Mississippi

South Abutment Campground typical site

Arka who? We are at the Arkabutla Dam area, in one of three corps of engineer campgrounds here. It only took us 30 min. to get here from Tunica, Mississippi. We are staying at the South Abutment Campground, $9.00 a night with Eldy's senior pass. It would normally be $18.00 a night if you didn't have the pass. It's been recently renovated from old 20 amp electric to 50 in the last two years and everything about the sites at the campground looks really new--the picnic tables, the little white grilling tables, the cement or asphalt pads. The sites down by Arkabutla Lake are wide, roomy, beautiful, and they have grills with small white grilling tables right next to the picnic table. As a matter of fact, all the campground sites have these little white grill tables next to the BBQ grills. Isn't that a nice touch?! If you didn't want to be down at the lake where there are few trees, there are wonderful sites in the pine forest area. We are by ourselves at this end of the campground, overlooking the lake. It's a gray and dreary day so photos will have to wait till tomorrow when it's supposed to get sunny. Are you ready for this? There's a disc golf course here! Whoopee! That's on the agenda in a day or two after  the grounds dry out from today's steady rain.....There are some trails for walking here, and it's a nice area to ride around the grounds by bike...

These vines are covering up trees!

While driving here, we noticed an overabundance of a creeping style vine/bush type of plant. It's climbing everything and appears to be covering everything in its path...it looks very invasive and is an ugly brown in most places. I'm thinking the common name might be "creeping Charlie", (or is there such a thing as creeping Jenny?) I need to be politically correct here--but at any rate, not sure what the real name of the plant is...it's all over the place in Mississippi--climbing up telephone poles, trees, and fences and it is a VERY dense heavy cover.  Does anybody know the name of the plant? I'm very curious as to what it is....some of it is still very green but most of it looks ashy brown right now.
 

While we are on the subject of flora and fauna, here's a photo of a tree back in Tunica with interesting bark and berries. The leaves kind of look like elm leaves. Don't know the name of this tree, I'll have to get a tree I.D. book and start learning about that! Guess I should have been a geologist or an arborist--a tree specialist in my "other" career, as much as these things interest me now.....I never did that "find a million leaves and identify them" for a science class assignment when I was in grade school, so see what I missed out? I'll bet any 5th grader is smarter than me on this one! I doubt this tree on the left is in Indiana, but I could be wrong....well, see you tomorrow...it's going to be a great day, sunny and in the 60's...or so they say......

Riding the Bull

He lasted 5 seconds

Eldo didn't! I didn't!....after doing the bobsledding thing this summer in Lake Placid and both of us getting neck pain from being whipped around the track, we weren't going to do anything crazy like that, but some guy did last night...I remember this type of activity as being very popular when I was a student in college. I had thought nobody had this mechanical bull thing around any more after a probable slew of injuries and lawsuits...But, darned if there wasn't one sitting outside Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill and they were actually using it last  night. There's a second one at another casino. Doesn't seeing that guy flip over his head just make you wince? They had a giant bean bag under the bull to catch the rider when he fell. Not sure that would keep somebody's neck or back from getting messed up, but he was a young kid and so much more flexible. Right guys? I just shook my head watching the kids get whipped around.....The band was fantastic at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar and Grill. They were called "Nervous Presley" and they were from Nashville. The female lead singer had a knock-you-out, belt -em out country voice, she was excellent. All the band members could sing, and one of the guitar players sounded just like Vince Gill. We really enjoyed their music and even danced a little. It's a beautiful, relatively new bar inside Harrah's Casino.

Yesterday it rained the entire day. We drove around and looked at all the different decors of the casinos, and we signed up for rewards cards in hopes of earning some kind of prize, and Eldy did. He won $100.00 of slot play so later today, we are going to go have fun on someone else's dime! We are really not into gambling, so this was a nice bonus for us. Later we explored a little bit of the Riverwalk area...a nice park with a walking trail, and the Tunica Museum on the grounds. The walking trail sign cautioned in very large print--"WATCH FOR POISONOUS SNAKES AND BITING INSECTS." Uh, we passed on the short walking trail today. The snakes were probably out sunning themselves on the trail or hanging in the trees. That's also what the sign said! The Tunica Museum was REALLY interesting and very impressive! It sits on a bluff above the Mississippi river. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Mississippi River, the delta, the floods, the blues, the habitats of the river creatures, the fish, the cotton workers, the leavees..they've got a fantastic set of four aquariums, and that very cool, awesome lighting where you walk in and go..."O--o-o-o-h...this is so cool!" It's low level light so all the exhibits are well lit and draw your attention; it's colorful, and you learn all kinds of things just by going thru it. As an almost senior citizen, (sometimes I qualify, sometimes I don't) I'm excited about this stage in my life where I can choose to learn what I want. So much of our learning these days is dictated by tests, by limited funds for school curriculum enrichment, but now I can learn whatever and whenever I want to! It's fun!  What did I learn today? Here are just a few bits and pieces, but still thought they were interesting nuggets of info:

Tunica Museum

1) Dogs were used in European warfare and against and the Indians.... The explorer DeSoto used trained mastiffs and greyhounds to attack uncooperative Indians (as if there weren't enough insults and injuries committed against them already!) and to track down escapees. Very few ever successfully escaped. Mastiffs would bite and tear any enemy who got in their way. Greyhounds reportedly could chew the face off of a man.....(my 7th grade boys would be paying rapt attention right now...)

2) The Mississippi Delta has at least 28 ft. of rich, fertile topsoil covering the flatlands compared to say, Texas, which only has 4 feet. There were cool columns set side by side and in scale to visually demonstrate the difference....wow!

3) I saw an arrow extractor from early medicine days...the center part slides along the shaft into the wound, then the sides spread apart the flesh so they can pull out the arrow--e-e-w-w-w-w! (I think those 7th grade boys would still be listening!)

4) There was a set of visuals using marked cement columns on the grounds of the museum showing how high the floods can be and what percent the chances are of having more devastating floods. It truly gave you a reality check on how high the Mississippi floods when it does. And finally, here I am standing in front of the aquariums, and I just thought this was kinda cool, being able to see myself in the reflection. I wonder, who is watching whom?!