Engineer’s Journal entry 2 (Tom)

July 13, Sunday evening, Euporia, Mississippi

Yesterday morning we left Asheville for Brevard, NC, in the hopes of catching up with Jonathan and Barbara, friends from my dojo, who were on a B & B tour down the Blue Ridge on their motorcycles. Turned out they were a day behind us, but Jonathan gave me directions from his father to find a famous cascade of seven waterfalls across the border in South Carolina, where you can swim, and dive under the falls and come up in a tranquil grotto behind the deluge. Unfortunately, I misread the map, and went down the wrong spur of a particular highway, and we ended up 25 miles in the wrong direction, so we gave up.

The drive through the Smokies was splendid nevertheless, taking State Road 64 west from Brevard through some countryside of beautiful vistas of mountains, canyons and what must have been a spectacular waterfall, although we never saw it. We had been driving next to a beautiful stream, with pull-offs across the road filled with cars indicating tourists and swimmers every mile or so. I finally couldn’t staunch the urge to stop, but in the time it took to find a suitable pullover, what was once a stream 20 feet or so below the road, suddenly became a distant sparkle – I SWEAR – 500 feet below us. There were no further pulloffs, and a challenging road ahead, so I had to just keep going and wish I had seen the fall.

The road leveled off shortly thereafter, and we meandered into Chatanooga, where we went to the Barnes and Noble for internet access, and found ourselves a real live downhome RV Park, called Racoon Mountain. It had a grotto, and gem mining, and a swimming pool, and glory of glories, electricity AND parkwide wi-fi.

No vehicle issues yesterday, except we topped off the coolant in the morning, since it was low, but it never overheated.

This morning we got up, and practiced emptying our sewage tank, even though it didn’t really need it, and we set off through the rolling southeast Tennessee hills.

Our first stop was Laurenceburg, home of famous native son Fred Thompson, actor and ex-republican primary candidate. We stopped to view the Davey Crockett statue in the town square (I guess he had a connection too, but he DIDN’T have a billboard). Sunday morning in Laurenceburg town square looks a lot like the first scene in The Andromeda Strain, except without the tumbleweeds, but we did get to peer into the empty windows of ThompsonTown, the best used candidate paraphernalia emporium I have ever seen. Fred Thompson t-shirts were a dollar. Plain t-shirts were two dollars. I guess they’ve already saturated the market for the printed ones. The also had Fred Thompson bumper stickers, and ice cream. I wonder what flavor? We’ll never know, since they were closed, but I definitely would have bought stuff.

We turned south on the Natchez Trace, which is a cool two lane parkway running 350 miles from Nashville to Natchez. Eat that, Garden State Parkway!! It is well paved, beautifully kept, and quiet on a Sunday. We stopped at a scenic turn-out for a nature hike, then decided to unpack the bikes for a ride down the parkway for Ann and Elinor, with Sarah on the moped and me driving the RV to an undetermined pickup point down the road. A small adventure occurs involving a moped and a black tire mark on the fender of a white passenger car, but it isn’t my story, and nobody got hurt, so I will leave it for someone else to tell.

We are now at the new town RV park at White’s Creek Lake outside Euporia, Mississippi, where the town leaders have crafted a series of hookups under the pines outside their local picnic area for use by travelers such as ourselves. For $15 dollars Tommy Lott, the Mayor of Euporia, turned on our water himself, and two police officers collected our money and personal information. We also have electricity, but unfortunately, no wi-fi. I don’t know how they expect to compete, even with the personal service.

Today’s log for the Cacafuego: another half gallon of antifreeze was added this afternoon, along with two quarts of oil. The long tube connecting the oil filler cap to the crank case came off in my hand, but we put it back on with cable ties, so, no bad. We also developed a leak in the fresh water storage tank, which dribbled out into the road all day, as well as under the cabinets. When we settled in this evening I found the leak and packed it with silicon caulk which I brought to seal leaks in the cabin from rain, and we will find out in the morning if the repair holds. For now we have city water, so we can wait.

In a few minutes we will find out if all my clothes are soaked, including my PJ’s. I’m going to bed either way.

Monday, 7/14. Bastille Day, elsewhere.
Rte 82 west of the Mississippi. South Arkansas bottomlands.

We are driving through cotton and soy farm lands now, and everything is as flat as the sea. This is helpful since we have been listening to Patrick O’Brien’s Master and Commander in audio book form from Elinor’s iPod, and I found it very disturbing to do so earlier, when we were in the mountains. Now my inner picture of the actions at sea more or less match the visual reality around me, except for the color. It is a beautiful sunny day, surprisingly cool and dry.

We stopped at the Arkansas Welcome Center, situated on a gorgeous long crescent shaped lake, which is one of the lost loops of the Mississippi River, cut off by silt and sediment until it became an independent body of water, half a mile across and about 30 miles long, and coiling like a worm from its old connection points on the river itself. The river is constantly moving, and redefining it’s path. The state lines stay the same, though, so if you look at a map, you will see odd little areas of Arkansas jurisdiction east of the river, and little pieces of Mississippi on the west. Sometimes these anachronisms are no more than a few acres. I guess that every once in a while the respective governor’s and property owners sit down and horse trade control so that it all gets redistributed again.

Across the street from the Welcome Center is the JJ’s Lakeside Cafe, so we sat down to a southern buffet lunch of fried chicken, shrimp and catfish, with hush puppies, sweet and white potatoes, iceberg salad, and banana pudding with Nilla Wafers. It was heaven. It was dinner, too, since we ate enough for two meals apiece. I think I must not be doing my duty in keeping these people fed. I also think it touched a suppressed comfort food nerve in Ann, who grew up with a mother who had deep roots in Southern cooking.

We hope to be in Shreveport this afternoon, and cross into Texas before finding a place to spend the night. That will put us ina position to make Austin by the end of Tuesday, where we plan to take a tourist day off the road, and submit the Cacafuego to a day in drydock. I would like the cooling system looked over as I think we are going through radiator fluid too fast. I topped it off before we left this morning, and added another smaller dose at lunch. We haven’t overheated, and the level roads and moderate temperatures have helped that, but I would like it all trimmed up a bit before we get to desert country.

I found another leak in the water tank when I tried to refill it this morning. There were two areas of previous epoxy repair, and last night I fixed the obvious first one, but as soon as I put any water in the tank, the second one, underneath, started leaking as well. The epoxy peeled right off of the polyethylene tank, so was clearly not doing its job, and I have slathered that crack with a great fistful of silicon caulk as well as adding a second layer to the first repair. It will get another layer when it dries, and this evening we will try the tank again. I don’t see any third epoxy patch, so I have hopes that it will work just fine.

We would like to extend special thanks to the lovely Miss Marilyn of Euporia, who stopped and took our family portrait in front of the local Sinclair station this morning. “What’re y’all doing in Euporia, anyway? You don’t have relatives here or anything? ‘Cause that would be like – SHUUT UUP!!”

About an hour west of the Mississippi we leave the farms of the river delta behind and enter what they call Timberlands. It starts out as bayou with live oak, cottonwoods and cedar growing out of the water. Suddenly the ground rises a bit, and now it is pine forest (lodgepole, maybe?), all open and airy underneath, and then just as suddenly, dense, impenetrable Eastern Pine. The soil is a different color, too. This morning it was orange, with remnants of the red clay of North Carolina and Tennessee, but now it is a pale ochre, making me think of the western deserts to come.

Sarah drove for over two hours today, her first shift on her learner’s permit. She did quite well, I am relieved to report, so well that I let her onto Interstate 20 for the trip through downtown Shrevesport. That part was a nail-biter for me, as her co-pilot, but she didn’t do anything wrong, or give me any resistance to my few and totally rational suggestions as we went. She gets credit for the entire state of Louisiana.

Evening. Rusk State Park, East Texas. Midway between Houston and Dallas.

It is humid as shit now. We are spending the evening in the RV with the AC on. We have set up the tent so that someone (me) can sleep outside, as that fourth body just doesn’t quite fit, but I don’t know if it will last.

July 12, 13, 14 – driving driving driving

July 12th
July 12th was a day about driving. We left Asheville and headed towards Brevard with the intention of meeting up with an Aikido friend of dad’s to go swimming in some waterfalls. This failed, as we could neither rendezvous nor find the waterfalls. After an approximately 50 mile detour, we returned to Brevard and had lunch.

Then we left town and headed west towards Chattanooga, TN. The drive took about five hours, following route 64, which is neither highway nor back road.

We found (pricey) wifi at a Barnes and Noble and found ourselves a campground, and then went to Fresh Market for some real, cookable, refrigeratable, food.

The Tennessee River (complete with River Boat!)

We camped at Raccoon Mountain, where we hooked up the camper and got to turn on the lights and the AC and plug in the computers. We ate dinner outside (quiche, chips, cheese, blueberries), and then retired to check our emails and catch up on our blog reader (or, I did).

July 13th

In the morning, we set out again across Tennessee, headed first for Memphis, and then later tended towards Tuplelo, Mississippi (although we diverted and never made it there).

We took route 64 across Tennessee, which was actually quite nice driving, and listened to the first Aubrey/Maturin book by Patrick O’Brien.

We stopped in Lawrenceburg (home of Fred Thompson!!!!!!!!!!!) out of sheer hilarity and got a group picture with the statue of Davy Crockett (or locally known, *David* Crockett). The town square was quite quaint and nice, as town squares go, but since it was Sunday, everything was closed.

Then we continued on 64 until we reached…

One hundred nine miles to Tupelo. The Natchez Trace is a road built on an ancient Indian road, which was also used by the settlers as the came west. Occasionally along the road we were pointed towards pieces of the ancient trace. It was pretty cool.

There were various interesting stops along the way on the Natchez Trace, and so for a few we got out and looked around. We went on a Nature Walk.

And then we found this guy:

When we got back to the camper, I decided this would be the perfect place for a bike ride, so (cutting the story short) mom and I mounted bikes and Sarah got on the moped and we rode along while dad drove the camper ahead to meet us. It was hard to take pictures of this stage, so here’s the best I can offer you.

Then Sarah got a little bit hit by a car a little and we had to stop.

We crossed two state lines: from Tennessee into Alabama, and then from Alabama into Mississippi (the time spent in Alabama was short).

Once in Mississippi, we stopped to get gas, and then found a camp ground in Eupora, MS, where we plugged in, swam in the lake, and had dinner. Hooray.

July 14th

Today was more driving and driving. We ploughed through Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and have now entered Texas on our way to Austin and San Antonio. We stopped briefly in “the oldest Dairy Queen in Texas” and I got to upload some pictures, but now we are at a lovely campground in Rusk, TX, where I am currently checking the potential internet. We shall see.

I performed surgery on the tunic I am knitting– I finished it all up several days ago in Asheville, but tried it on a decided it was too short, so I cut it in half, am knitting down the body some, and will reattach it near the hips. It looked like this:

and now looks like this:

(Thank you for indulging my knitting content.)

Anyway, we crossed the Mississippi River around 11:30 in the morning.

We stopped for lunch at the edge of Arkansas at J.J.’s Lakeside Cafe, where we ate fried catfish and fried shrimp, and enjoyed (to the fullest extent) their buffet.

Apparently, this is where all the locals go, because once we were seated people began to come in. That’s how you know it’s a good restaurant– people know each other. Also we were told by the paramedics at the door that no, in fact, they were eating and not rescuing, and that any time we saw cop cars or ambulances pulled up in front of a restaurant without the lights flashing, we were to be assured that it was a good place to eat.

Then we sat by the lake (formed originally by the Mississippi River) and Sarah drew, and mom and I knit, and dad napped.

Then we drove to Texas.

So far, it’s great.

No internet at the campground. I’ll post this tomorrow after we drive some more.