A tin cup or a gilded goblet, a hut or a castle, wobbly bicycles or a Bentley -- to wherever and by whatever means, my love, our journey is splendid, our cup is full.
Our new granddaughter, Chloe Abigail Faure, came into our life on Wednesday, October 29th, at 12:43 PM. She was delivered at Austin North Medical Center, and mother Stephanie and dad Kevin are doing fine, as is she!
She weighed 6 pounds, 15 ounces at birth and was 18 3/4 inches long. She slept for about 6 hours her first night, allowing Kevin and Stephanie to get some needed rest. Mom, Dad, and baby come home tomorrow (Saturday).
Here are a few of the many pictures we took -- more to come later as we'll be close by until Thanksgiving here in Liberty Hill.
Its been quite a while since we made an update to our blog, and it will probably take more than one entry to bring things up to date.
We spent a good three weeks in Red Bay, Alabama at the Tiffin factory getting all of our warranty issues taken care of. Duane and Nick and all of the techs at the service center did a good job for us (although there are several outstanding issues for next time). When we talked to them about our time constraint in needing to get back to Texas for the baby, they did everything they could to get things done so we could get going.
We will do a separate blog post to go over more detail of the repair and addition items to the motorhome (suffice it to say that we got our key items taken care of - replacements for the day/night shades for the whole coach, additional cabinetry from Chris Berry, a new Maytag washer, and virtually all of our warranty punch list addressed). We'll use this post to just cover our travel chronology since our last entry.
Over our last week in RB, we continued our evening cocktail tradition with our new friends Wayne and Kathy, and also went with them to visit the TMH Belmont Paint facility -- as well as finding the BBQ restaurant in Belmont (which is excellent!). We managed to get all our Red Bay items done by Friday, the 24th, and we hit the road on Saturday morning.
The first leg of our trip to Texas took us down the Natches Trace to Jackson, Mississippi. This is a very interesting parkway, which was originally a trade route (both for Native Americans and white settlers) stretching from Nashville, TN to Natches, MS -- over 400 miles. It is now a National Scenic Byway, and is administered by the National Park Service. It is two lane, has a 50 mph limit, and commercial traffic is prohibited.
We drove the parkway for about 170 miles from Tupelo to Jackson -- it was a very interesting drive, and was the most direct route for us, but I wouldn't want to do much more than 200 miles on it in a motorhome. We were in a bit of a hurry so we didn't get a chance to take too many pictures.
When we hit Jackson we filled up with diesel at the Flying J ($2.939 per gallon!!) and then headed west on Interstate 20 for Vicksburg. We spent Saturday night at the very friendly Vicksburg Elks Lodge, and were going to play tourist at the Vicksburg Civil War battlefield on Sunday -- but we thought we'd better get to Texas sooner than later, so we hit the road again.
Sunday night found us in Tyler, Texas, and after a quick night there at a Passport park, we made the final leg to our kid's place in Liberty Hill, Texas, just northwest of Austin, by Monday evening. We'll be here for the next month or so, through Thanksgiving, and then we'll head west for our winter stay in Yuma.
We took some time today to do some exploring around the area, and went about 60 miles north of Red Bay to visit Shiloh National Military Park, just over the border near Savannah, TN. At this location, along the beautiful Tennessee River, one of the most decisive battles in the Western Campaign of the Civil War was fought in only two days: April 6 and 7, 1862.
The Confederate soldiers, under Generals Johnston and Beauregard, were near to victory over the Union force under General Grant on the first day of the battle -- but a fateful military decision was made to wait until the following morning to completely wrap things up. Military historians generally agree that part of that decision resulted from the disorganization caused by Johnston's death during the battle, and Beauregard's assumption of Confederate command. Grant's troops were bolstered during the night by reinforcements under General Buell, who arrived after a forced march from Nashville and were ferried across the river to the battlefield in the early morning hours of the second day. The Confederates were overwhelmed when they attacked the next morning and had to retreat south over the next week to Corinth, Mississippi (where a further decisive battle was fought in October of 1862).
It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war, with a combined total of almost 24,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in only two days of fighting. Historians have soberly noted that this was more than the combined total of United States casualties of the American Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, and The Mexican-American War. It was the beginning of the end for the Confederate cause in the west, with the final defeat in that theatre occurring with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863. Additional detail of the battle itself can be found in the Wikipedia entry for Shiloh.
It was our first experience at a Civil War site, and it was very interesting. The whole battlefield is very well preserved and is marked by monuments to the various companies and battalions from the various forces. There is also a sizeable National Veterans Cemetery within the battlefield, with soldiers from several wars buried there.
We took the driving tour around the battlefield, and followed the chronology of the battle at the places where it took place. After we were finished there, we drove south to Corinth, MS where we spent time at the Corinth Civil War Interpretative Center, finding out about Corinth's place in Civil War history.
After the battle at Shiloh, the Union's next strategic target was Corinth, since it was one of the most critical railroad junctions in the South. Significant battles were fought there for the 6 months following Shiloh, with the Union finally gaining control and moving further south to Vicksburg.
As a final note and deviating from the Civil War history . . . . . after we finished at the museum, we stopped by the local Wal Mart to stock up on a few things, and found unleaded gas there at 2.839 per gallon!!! I'm not sure how long its been since we bought gas that inexpensively (it seems like years), but it was a welcome sight. The unfortunate thing is that we had to give up a chunk of our investment portfolio to get it back to that level.
We've been here at the Tiffin RV Service Center for a week now, so its probably time that we provided an update.
We arrived last Thursday at Tiffin's Allegro Campground after a short drive from Tom Sawyer RV Park in Memphis. Since they were pretty busy, we only got a spot on the "runway" -- which really is an old airport runway, and is used for campground overflow, i.e boondocking -- camping with no electricity, sewer, or water hook-ups.
Fortunately for us, things moved quickly and late in the day we were assigned a site with power and water, while awaiting a full hookup site. Friday, with many folks leaving after their service was complete, saw us move into full service site 39 (which will be our site until we leave), and the wait started for us to get in for service -- our appointment wasn't until Wednesday, the 8th, but we thought there might be a chance of getting in early.
While we were waiting, we had Chris Berry, a TRV furniture maker, over to look at the several additions that we wanted done this trip. He took some measurements and will be putting some cabinets and furniture enhancements in the coach before we leave (we'll post pictures and detail of that in a later blog). We also purchased an external antenna for our Verizon wireless broadband access card, and had it installed on the roof on Friday night by Joel, one of the TRV service employees, who moonlights by doing those type of additions.
On Saturday we took a short tour of Northeast Alabama, and stopped at the Coon Dog Cemetery about 20 miles outside of Red Bay. It is the only pet cemetery in the world for registered Coon Dogs, who are bred and trained specifically to hunt raccoons.
We also went by the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, but only stopped and looked at the fountain at the entrance. We were particularly encouraged by the brick for the Blind Boys of Alabama, since we'd seen them before . . . . . .
One of our pictures of the Blind Boys at Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle in 2004 . . . . . we had very good seats in about the 6th row -- it was a wonderful concert.
On Sunday, Manuel and Connie had Mark, Sue, Mandy and me over for a wonderful breakfast of migas, a traditional Tex-Mex breakfast of eggs, sausage, peppers, onions, and cheese -- all served with salsa and tortillas. They were wonderful, and started our day out right!
On Sunday, one of the couples in the campground organized a Hobo Stew get-together. Everyone that was planning on attending provided some meat and/or vegetables by noon, and he put it all together in a huge stew pot over a propane burner. After about 3 hours we had some wonderful stew, which was served with lots of bread and some good desserts. About 50 people from the Allegro campground attended, and it was good to meet with and speak with other Tiffin owners.
Things cranked up here on Monday morning, but there were no early spots to be had in the service bays, so we didn't get in until bright and early 7 AM Wednesday morning. We were assigned to Nick and Duane, and you would not be able to find a greater pair of service techs -- they patiently went through our list of 60+ items with us, and promptly began on a number of them -- picking the easier ones first.
Its now Friday and we've had a number of repairs and adjustments made, but it looks like we'll probably be here for at least another week to 10 days -- just guessing at this point, but after they complete the "normal repair bay" warranty items we have some minor shower fiberglass repair as well as external paint issues -- both of which have to be scheduled separately from the normal service. We also just found out that we need to spend some time in the welding bay, since our propane tank needs to be replaced -- the interior float mechanism which measures how much propane is in the tank is broken. There also is a bit of re-welding that needs to be done for one of our basement doors which does not seal properly -- no problems, as its better to catch it now while TMH fixes it for free.
In addition . . . . . . the news that we'll be here for a while will probably be in our favor, since we have also made arrangements to have all of our day/night shades in the living area and bedroom replaced by a new type of roller shade, which combines a sun shade (to use for privacy during the day) with a blackout shade (used at night). It will probably take at least another couple of days to get the window valences modified and then get the new shades installed, but we're sure it will be worth it after seeing these new window shades on several 09 Phaetons, and also seeing the results of these being retrofitted to earlier coaches such as ours.
A late Friday update: we got our bedroom valences back with the new shades, and we re-installed them this afternoon, and are very pleased with them. We can't wait until early next week when we get the rest of them. We'll post pictures of them on our next entry.
With apologies to Willie, we're out on the road again and feeling much better to have gotten the wheels turning and the road in front of us.
We left Adventureland (Altoona, IA) early Monday morning, after being rained upon all Sunday night. Mandy and I, and Mark and Sue got moving at about 6:20 AM (!!!) and headed south toward St. Louis. The rain had stopped, but the roads were still pretty wet, and combined with the several detours we had to take through southern Iowa, our white Odyssey toad looked like a chocolate hearse by the time we hit I-70 and headed east.
Due to our early start, we reached the outskirts of St. Louis by about noon, so we continued on down I-55 toward Memphis. We finally decided to stop for dinner at Lambert's in Sikeston, MO about 5 PM (see them at www.throwedrolls.com). Mandy and I had mountainous salads, and Mark had a chicken fried steak (with trimmings) that came in its own frying pan/plate -- needless to say, we had enough to eat!! After a 500 mile day, we crashed at the nearest Wal Mart, knowing we had only 130 miles to go to get to Memphis.
We had reservations at our favorite park in the Memphis area -- Tom Sawyer's RV Park -- and pulled in there about noon. Its right along the Mississippi, and you can watch the huge towboats going upstream and downstream day and night. After we said hi to our friends Richard and Patsy, the first order of business was to wash the 10 pounds of dirt and debris off the car. The Phaeton didn't look too bad (although its probably dirtier than its ever been), and we figured it can wait until we get to Red Bay for its wash job.
That night we all had a great meal of fajitas, thanks to Richard and Patsy, who brought some excellent fajita meat with them from Texas. We also met their friends (and Phaeton owners) Manuel and Connie, who are also heading to Red Bay for a service appointment.
On Wednesday, we headed into Memphis to say hi to our friend Brian Gipson, at Davis Motorhome Mart, who sold us our Phaeton just about a year ago. Even with the slow market, Brian is doing well -- and we'd highly recommend him to anyone who is in the market for a Tiffin Motorhome.
We also spent a number of hours at Mud Island River Park in Memphis, touring their excellent museum, and exploring their 5 block model of the lower 1000 miles of the Mississippi River. As the name implies, the park is on an island adjacent to downtown Memphis, and is reached by a walkway over part of the river -- or by a 90 second cable tram which runs on rails under the walkway (we walked and took the tram, just to try it all!) For us west-coasters, it was a really interesting display, and we enjoyed Mud Island immensely -- we'd encourage anyone who is visiting this area to see it.
This is the Hernando deSoto Bridge over the Mississippi -- also called the Bridge of Lights, as the span and girders are lit up each night. It carries I-40 across the river, and is named for the explorer who was the first European to see the Mississippi in 1541.
This is the I-40 interchange in Memphis just before it goes over the Mississippi north of Mud Island. Behind it is The Pyramid, built by Memphis for their basketball team, but which is now abandoned, since it was poorly designed -- it looks impressive from the outside though.
After our time at Mud Island, we met up with Mark and Sue, and Richard and Patsy, and did a walking tour of Beale Street, and the blues clubs there. We ended up having dinner at King's Palace Cafe, since it had a "Cajun Feast" on the menu -- the atmosphere was great, the music was very good, but the food and service were only so-so, so we'd not recommend it or go back to try again.
We'll drive a leisurely 150 miles tomorrow to get to Red Bay, AL and the Tiffin Motorhome Service facility, and get set up for our service appointment to take care of our one year "punch list. We'll probably be there about two weeks, and we expect to be able to explore the area more completely than we did last year. Stay tuned as we'll be adding those adventures to the blog next.
