Friday, May 31, 2024

Trip Begins Tomorrow

Location: Heart of Haynesville RV Park; Mansfield, Louisiana

I shove off tomorrow with storms predicted for tomorrow and the next couple of days. I've done this several times over the years and most of the times it worked out just fine. It takes me about 15 minutes to gets things ready to travel inside of Liberty and then another 15 to 20 minutes of outside work. Since the weather forecast predicts storms at random times, I will have to find about 20 minutes of no rain, or at least light rain to hitch up and hit the road. I did it once in a heavy rain while wearing a rain poncho and that wasn't fun. I won't have to do that tomorrow since I will be able to leave anytime between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm with plenty of time to spare. The storms are predicted at the campground as well, so I may be setting up camp in the rain. I hope not. 

Storms hit this campground yesterday evening with a tornado passing within 1/2 mile. There were some straight line winds and heavy rain hitting Liberty broadside. It was bad enough that rain was being forced through the vent stack of my refrigerator. I had to sop up about a gallon of water. It was in the top 3 of the worse storm I've ridden out in my RV. Not as exciting as "rocking and rolling" during a storm at sea in the Navy, but close. 

I have reservations made all the way to the Rally in Goshen, Indiana. I had to modify one due to tornadoes/storms taking out 3 COE campgrounds near Rogers, Arkansas. I had reservations at one of those so I had to change to another one. Everything happens for a reason so we will see. 

I'm looking forward to the trip since I've been stationary for two months. Strangely, my excitement level is only about 80% of what it has been in the past. (geez,,, calling out a percentage of excitement. Is my engineer mentality showing????). I don't have any planned exploration for the three days at the first campground and plan to just ease into traveling again. Like a shakedown cruise but without the hand grenades being tossed over the side. Some X-sailors will know what I'm talking about. 

This is a boring post, but I wanted to make it to document the start of the trip. Hopefully, they will improve once I get on the road and get in a traveling frame of mind.

I can't do a post without a picture. The one I've chosen for this post is from the California coast probably back in the early spring/late winter of 2015. I liked it a lot so I added some words to it. 

A solitary walker on a deserted California beach early in the season with still a nip in the air. I wished I knew what she was thinking when I took the picture. I added the words because that phrase is what I was thinking about at the time. 

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe, I'll Cya down the road.   

 

4 comments:

  1. I, once again, plan to learn a lot from your reports. Thank you for doing them so well.

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    1. I'll try to do my best. There are a surprising amount of people I know who are currently unable to travel. Be safe over there.

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  2. Whenever I hear of someone hitting the road I get a bad case of the hitch itch which at this point in my life I'm unable to scratch.

    As an amateur photographer, and the fact that you took that picture in California I have a pretty good idea of what that lady was thinking, and was probably something like this; "Why is that MAN taking my picture, I should call the police on that pervert.''

    Have a safe trip Darrell.

    Tom

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    1. I would say you're more than an amateur photographer,,,, Your picture are routinely great. But now you've burst my bubble. All these years I thought she was thinking, "wow, I sure hope that guy waits for me to get up there to him so I can introduce myself. Maybe we could have dinner tonight,,,,,etc,,,,,etc". Oh well, reality is always needed in small doses.

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