Our RV Adventures

But I didn’t.

We were up at 6am this morning, pulled out a little before 7, bound for the Marathon station about 3 miles south of our park, with Jan following in the truck.

We always fill up with diesel here on our way back to Houston, or wherever, because the price is good and it’s a easy in and out.

And we were topped off with diesel and coffee to go, hitched up, and back on the road by 7:30, heading for Meridian, MS about 240 miles away.

We really lucked out on the weather today, and it looks like it may hold all the way back to Houston. It was forecast to be overcast with a little rain, and temps in the high 80’s, and that;’s the way it worked out. With just the roof fans and a couple of windows open we were comfortable the entire trip.

Traffic coming through Birmingham was negligible, probably due to it being at Saturday, and we were heading southwest on I-20./I-59 hardly even slowing down.

What Would You Do?

Then right after we entered Mississippi I saw the sign for an upcoming weigh station. No biggie, right? But except instead of saying the usual,

like it did last year, it now said,

ALL Vehicles Over 5 Tons Must Enter Weigh Station

That’s me, right? I mean the rig weighs about 16 tons, and the trucks another 2-1/2 tons.

But as I started to exit, Jan said, “They’re gonna yell at you again, just like last time!”

So I said, “It says ALL vehicles over 5 tons and I’m way over 5 tons.: Jan just keeps saying, “You’re gonna be sorry, You’re gonna be sorry, I just know it.”

What Jan was referring to was not a weigh station, but a border crossing station coming back into the US from Canada in the Thousand Islands area near Niagara Falls in 2009.

We had entered Canada near Houlton, ME, gone all the way out to Newfoundland and then back through Houlton. Then we traveled up through Maine to Fort Kent, ME and the beginning (or end, I guess, depending on your direction) of US 1.

Of course, the other end (or beginning) is at the buoy in Key West. So we been to both the beginning and end of US 1, and a lot in the middle.

This was, I think, our 8th border crossing and we’d never had any  problems, until now. But this crossing was a little different.

Every other crossing we’d been through had a sign designating whether RV’s were supposed to go through the car lanes or the truck lanes.

But this one had none. And there was not another RV in sight to clue me in.

So knowing a lot of the car lanes were too narrow for a Class A RV, I turned to the right and headed into the truck area, thinking I couldn’t lose this way, right?

Wrong!

I got yelled at for about 5 minutes. After I tried to explain once why I did what I did, he just yelled more. So I just shut up and let him yell.

Yeah, I know. Very uncharacteristic of me.

I’m still not sure exactly what he was so upset about. There were no other trucks around, not did any try to come through while we were there. But they kept us for about 30 minutes, and then sent us out through the big X-ray machine building.

I guess they figured a little radiation would show us.

But today I didn’t get yelled at. In fact we never even saw anyone. I just followed the lights that said STOP, PULL FORWARD, STOP, EXIT.

So I stopped, pulled forward, stopped, and then exited. And we went on our way.

And no yelling.

About 20 miles outside of Meridian we hit a mileage milestone. Since we picked up our coach January 6th, 2008, we’ve put 85,000 miles on it. And t hen before we get home on Monday, we will hit a total of 150,000 miles on the coach. (We’re the 3rd owner) Neat!

We pulled into the Benchmark RV Park just a few minutes after noon and got plugged in and set up. Then it was time for a nap since we got up so early.

Then about 3pm we drove into downtown Meridian to have lunch at Weidmann’s, our favorite place here, and, opening in 1870, the oldest restaurant in Mississippi.

I guess you could call the ambiance ‘Casual Elegance’, with white tablecloths, heavy silverware, and fresh flowers on each table.

But kind of belying all this is the crock of homemade peanut butter sitting in the middle of the table waiting  for you.

This apparently dates back to WW2 when butter was rationed, so a customer suggested they put peanut butter on the table to go with the crackers, and it’s been there ever since.

We both had our usual, with Jan getting the Crab Cake Brunch. Everything is made to order here, including the crab cakes and the crispy fried green tomato’s they’re sitting on. And of course, the fruit is fresh cut to order. Of course.

I had the Ribeye Po’boy, with Flash-Fried Onion Strings, and Homemade Kettle Chips.

All made to order, of course.

And so much that I could only eat half of it.

But part of that was to leave some room for Jan and I to split a Praline Bread Pudding ala Mode.

I’m not sure I really left enough room, because I hurt when we left the restaurant.

But it was a good hurt.

Tomorrow we’ve got a 312 mile run down to Breaux Bridge, so I hope the weather stays cool like today.

Thought for the Day: 

“Such among others are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due. . . .” – Sir William Blackstone (Eminent English Jurist)

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it’s our last full day here, so I wanted to do some prep work around the rig so we can get an early start tomorrow morning.

Since I still don’t  have the generator working so no AC, we want to get an early start letting us get  to Meridian between noon and 1pm, before it starts getting too hot.

First off I buttoned up the generator since I probably won’t look at it any more until we’re back home in Santa Fe. Then I crawled under the rig and replaced the slobber can on the engine.

I figured it was gone since I was getting some oil spotting on the front of the toad on this trip. And it had fallen off, so this time I replaced it with a larger can, one that peaches come it and tried to fasten it down a little better. We’’ see how it works now.

A little before 4pm Jan and I headed back over my Aunt Virginia’s for supper.On the way I made a quick detour through the Marathon station on the corner where we plan to diesel up tomorrow morning. It’s changed hands and brands since we were here last year, so I to be sure that my entry/egress points were still OK and also wanted to be sure they would be open by 7am or earlier.

Jan will follow me down in the truck and then we’ll hook up there.

Everything looked good so we headed on over to Ninny’s for the afternoon. Our friend Terry Russell alerted me to the fact that in my blog a couple of days ago the part about why I call my Aunt Virginia ‘Ninny’ got accidently deleted.

It came about when I was real little and couldn’t say ‘Virginia’. It just came out as Ninny, so that stuck without even the ‘Aunt’ part. So she’s always just been Ninny to me.

And for some reason her husband whose name was Theo was always Buddy to me. And I’m not sure why on that one. So it was always just Buddy and Ninny.

We had decided to try a local Mexican restaurant called Las Trojas Cantina, but Ninny didn’t get finished doing her hair in time so I called ahead and picked up our order.

Turned out to be pretty good, especially considering it was ‘Ala’-Mex and not Tex-Mex. We finally left a little after 7pm, after saying our goodbyes until next year.

And as usual Ninny sent us home with a lot of fresh-baked food. And we’re already looking forward to next year seeing everyone.

Thought for the Day: 

You never appreciate what you have until it’s gone. Toilet paper is a good example.

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