It's been a very busy last 3 days...sorry for no posts, will attempt to catch up since we'll be hitting the road again Monday provided we can find a way over the Mississippi River without going to Canada!
The end of day 2 wasn't all that great. From reading reviews on the Internet (probably should have know better) we called Jay's Marina and Landing and RV Park in Decatur, AL. We're gonna be right on the Tennessee River we said, how bad can that be? Well let me tell you, it can be pretty bad. The full time residents were less than desirable, the factories across the river never stopped and then there were the train whistles at all hours. Yeah, no sleep for the deprived, so it was no surprise that
Day 3, Thursday: proved to be very trying. It started off just fine leaving Decatur and finding our way to Tennessee. The roads seem to be nice, the cats, bless their hearts have settled down, no Max crying or Charlie panting...onward we go. Stop at a convenience store for Dan's coffee fix just outside Dickson, he picks up a paper so we can see what's been going on in the world. I don't do well reading in a moving vehicle so I put it aside and look up to see all these lights and fire engines and American flags, big ones and people all along the road. Figure a fallen soldier or firefighter, then I remembered something from the paper...a State Trooper killed in the line of duty, funeral Thursday. Oh Great! looks like we're in front of the procession and we both sigh thinking we really don't want to be stuck in Dickson, TN for 3 hours, not that we don't have compassion for this Trooper who gave his life, but.... The next thing we know traffic is stopped and we have to detour, the cops won't even answer our question as to where do we go now? how do we get back on the road we need to be on? nothing, they just wanted us to turn right or left. Well, left it was to look for further detour signs to guide us. Unfortunately the sign was placed about 2 feet from the turn, know how hard it is to stop a truck and trailer on a dime...it doesn't happen believe me. By now I've figured out that my fancy new phone has a neat little Google app that will show you directions with a little blue bouncing dot, so I find out where we are and how to get back on track. We follow the road, if you want to call it that and the little blue dot says we're almost to the road out of hell, when we see more flashing lights, crap. This time they're TDOT people who are kind enough to tell us that because of this funeral procession they've had to close US 48 through the entire county...huh??, the entire county, how can you do that? Well, the guy says we can turn around and go back to where we came and take this other road and it will take us exactly where we want. I'm guessing this guy hadn't been to the eye doctor in a while. He couldn't see the 25' monster that was behind the truck he was telling us to turn around on a road that was maybe wide enough for 11/4 cars with creeks on both sides. Dan was on his best behavior, trying to reason with this man, finally he let us go telling us to follow the road straight ahead and it would bring us out on US 48 in the next county. What he didn't tell us was that the road wasn't really a road, but more like a path that some vehicles had driven on occasionally. So onward and upward, literally. As we come around the last turn, we know we're home free, then more flashing lights, I'm sure Dan's going to run the blockade because he's had enough of this. Our 2-3 hour drive has turned into 4 and we still have 80 miles to go. Fortunately the lights were detouring drivers in the other direction and we were able to get to Clarksville just in time to get set up before the rains came. Then it was on to the hotel for the B Troop reunion. More on that to come.
