Home Sweet Home

The blog this trip seems to always be a few days behind, and this entry is no different.  We got home late Thursday afternoon and today is Sunday and I'm finally wrapping things up.  The thing is, once we get home, all the usual home stuff like grocery shopping, returning calls and paying bills starts up and the trip fades a bit.  Then there was that whole sump pump issue....but more about that later.

We left Texas and broke up the trip with a stop at a truly amazing state park in Louisiana called Poverty Point Reservoir.  The park was created when a waterway was dammed (damned?) in 2001 so it's pretty new with big, wide roads and lots of amenities.  We had a huge pull-thru site in a meadow with only 5 other sites and all of them were empty.  It was like we had a park to ourselves.  We happily could have stayed longer, but we were on our way home and people were expecting us.

Big cabins available for rent at Poverty Point - sort of like Tahiti in Louisiana

We crossed from Louisiana into Mississippi and picked up the Natchez Trace for the ride north to Tupelo.  It's the same route we took south a month earlier, but going the other direction.  It's a great ride, little trafficked and very scenic.  The roadsides were full of red and yellow flowers and the trees were almost totally leafed out.

Crossing the river on a nice, wide bridge

Driving the Natchez Trace

We spent the night in Tupelo at the great campground that welcomed us on the way down.  There's some comfort in repeating a route and knowing where to stop and where to eat.  There's less adventure that way, but when we're focused on getting home, it is nice.

Speaking of eating...back at the Neon Pig in Tupelo for great food and atmosphere

We got to Red Bay and checked in with Tiffin and started the packing process for coming home in the car.  We take all the food items out of Chuck and bring them home to discourage vermin from taking up residence while he's parked.  We also have a fair amount of dirty laundry, the computers, iPads, bikes and of course Beanie and his litter box and supplies.  Somehow we manage to completely fill the car every time.

Chuck and his brethren lined up at Tiffin

We got a late start out of Red Bay on Wednesday, and hadn't been able to find a room anywhere near Paducah or even Marion, IL.  There was a big quilt and fiber show and every room for 100 miles was booked so we reserved a room  for the night in Effingham, IL, about 7 hours away,.  We were about an hour out of Red Bay, near Corinth, MS when Beanie started to pitch a fit, yowling and meowing and generally acting out of character.  He rides in his big carrier, usually quietly, but something was bothering him.  Thinking he had failed to "go potty" when we told him to as we were packing up, we pulled over off the highway and unearthed his litter box from the back of the car, rearranged the back seat so it could sit next to him and let him out of his carrier.  He ignored it so we stuffed him back into his carrier, repacked the car and then realized that the hatch on the back wasn't latching.  Somehow the alignment was off and and the back of the car would not close and hold.  Crap.  We started digging around for rope or anything to secure it, coming up with a cat leash as our best alternative, but it wasn't a good alternative with the back full to the brim and bikes on the carrier on the back.  It was more like.potential disaster. 

Then we saw it....just 100 feet away.....an auto body shop.  They couldn't have been nicer.  Two guys, half an hour, some serious tools, raw muscle, ingenuity and couple of shims and the hatch latched.  They didn't want to take any money, claiming it was just "southern hospitality" but Robin slipped them a bill and we headed out,  Beanie was suddenly completely quiet.  Now, I'm not claiming that Beanie was doing his Lassie impression ("Timmy is in the well!"), but I'm pretty happy he made us stop and find the latch.  Even if it hadn't failed along the road, it would have really sucked to discover the problem at 9pm when we pulled into Effingham and unloaded at the hotel.

Prairie clover turning the roadsides pink in MS and AL

Thursday morning we were on our way for a quick 4 hour drive home.  The car was barely unpacked  when Robin heard a loud noise from the basement.  The sump pump had blown a hose clamp, luckily one in the sump so the water didn't go too far and it was an easy fix, but it was a reminder of the hazards of being gone for long periods of time.

Beanie and the the bags waiting outside the hotel in Effingham

So we're back into our routine now and planning the next trip.  Stay tuned.