October 23rd 2023, well it is official, we have packed the coach and are headed south for another winter in the sunshine and warmth. We left the Goderich Ontario area which is located on the eastern shore of Lake Huron this morning, it wasn’t a real early start but we were all hooked up and heading south on Hwy 21 before 10 am. As I settle into the pilot seat of Thunder it just feels great to be on the road again, I had programed our first destination into the GPS and our Garmin has estimated an arrival time of 2:04 pm, and unlike people that use Google maps on their phone to guide their RV travels our Garmin RV version is usually pretty close to accurate.

Of course todays route has that unknown factor “the border” which is always a crap shoot, but as we cruised through Goderich, then through Bayfield, next was Grand Bend and last but not least on Hwy 21 the town of Forrest. We were not pushing Thunder today, just driving along at or near the speed limit, next we join up with the 402 (Canada’s version of an Interstate) and we would follow it west right to the Bluewater Bridge which connects Sarnia Ontario to Port Huron in Michigan. As we rolled down the 402 there where electronic signs that were indicating the wait times at the border, that unknown factor that can destroy any estimated arrival time, but the first set of signs indicated that the wait time was minimal for both cars and trucks, and the second set of signs indicated a minimal wait for cars and just 15 minuets for trucks.

Now just because we are over sixty feet in length and weigh over 40,000 lbs. (18,000 kgs), all RV’s get to pass through the regular car lanes at the border, so we are thinking a minimal wait time sounded great, but of course all things may not always as described and as we paid our $24.00 toll to cross the Bluewater Bridge we are greeted by a line of trucks and cars that reached from the American border booths all the way back almost to the toll booths on the Canadian side. Now I guess minimal may mean different things to different people, but a line up close to a mile long is NOT minimal, at least in my way of thinking, but luckily there are three lanes, one with trucks to the left and one with cars to the right and that left the center lane, and that’s the one I aimed for, you see back many years ago when we lived near the American border we took the time to get our NEXUS cards, and that center lane was for NEXUS only so we drove up one side of the Bluewater bridge and down the other to that one booth with the “NEXUS ONLY” sign and we only two cars in front of us. The border guard asked the same regular questions “where are you going?” and “for how long?” and then “are you bringing in any fruit of vegetables?” “any meat?” and of course “do you have any chicken or eggs?”, basic regular questions for people hauling their home with them.

So as we left the border and hooked up with Interstate 94 west bound toward Chicago a quick glance at the arrival time on our GPS showed 2:10 pm, so for an international border crossing I’m thinking a six minute delay was pretty good. But with all thing travel related when things seem to be rolling along too smooth, rest reassured that something will throw a monkey wrench into the works and today was no different. We were actually just retracing our route north from May in reverse, when we had slipped through Detroit with no issue at all, we had been travelling on I-75 north then jumped on Hwy 10 to I-94 it was simple and easy, very painless and the GPS was taking back the same way I-94 to Hwy 10 then south on I-75, but today Hwy 10 was closed. It is at times like this that our Garmin RV GPS is worth its weight in gold, it knows how long our coach is, how tall, how much it weighs and in a matter of seconds it has calculated the next best route, which in this case was to catch I-96 towards the Ambassador Bridge to Canada just a couple of miles further down I-94. Not really a big deal, in fact the only real issue would be the traffic from the Ambassador Bridge, but not a lot of choice at 55 mph in the far left lane on a busy interstate, so I had just a couple of miles to hike across three lanes of Detroit traffic to an exit ramp in the far right lane, not to difficult until we see the sign that indicates the ramps to I-96 are closed today as well.

So once again “Navi” the nickname that Miss Laurie has given the voice of our GPS, has to recalculate the route, now I know it is just a machine doing what it is programmed and designed to do but I can only imagine it is thinking “what the hell people” just follow my damn instructions. Her next choice was to have us use the next exit and double back but as we passed the I-96 interchange the exit ramps were blocked in both directions so as we blew past the next suggestion as well, poor “Navi” went to work again and this time had us heading further west in I-94 to the I-275 the downtown Detroit bypass before hooking up with I-75 just north of Toledo Ohio, so by now the Arrival time is sitting at 2:20 pm. Even through Toledo we experienced a number of lane restrictions, but there were no real traffic back ups but there were more orange construction barrels than you could count. One of those barrels was partially in my travel lane, so a little nudge from Thunder sent it rolling away, with no damage other than a little scuff that will buff out, we pulled off of interstate I-75 at Bowling Green Ohio and we made our way to a familiar Walmart to restock the coach after having using up many items before the border crossing.

Our first night on the road will not be spent in this Walmart parking lot, as we are heading east on OH-6 to a driveway surfing spot. We are going to spend a couple of evenings in Pemberville Ohio, with Miss Betty and her family. Betty and Butch were a huge part of our RV family, and we have became very close to many members of their family, and this summer we lost Butch, so this stop will have some sad moments as we celebrate a very dear friend, and take time to remember his life. We made it to Betty’s driveway by four o’clock and were greeted by Betty, we sat and expressed our condolences, we cried a little and laughed a lot at many of our memories that we shared. We all gathered with some of Betty’s family at Brian & Linsi’s home (Betty’s daughter and son in law) right here in Pemberville, we eat, we drank, we laughed, and of course we cried a little as we shared more memories, as we made our way back to the coach this evening we were not long out of bed. Only day one, a hell of a start to our fall adventures.

Tuesday October 24th, and today the temperature in north west Ohio is going to be 75ºF (24ºC) and after near three weeks of cold wet weather back in Goderich this is seeming like a welcome relief. This morning started with Miss Laurie making cheese omelets for Miss Betty and her sister Miss Pat, the plan was that at nine o’clock, Miss Laurie would take over Betty’s kitchen and fry up omelets to be enjoyed with, cheese toast and ice wine jelly (smuggled into the country from the Niagara on the Lake region in Ontario), and a coffee. After breakfast I wondered around their property, the sun was out and it was feeling pretty darn nice to be out in just a tee shirt, Betty has a beautiful home that had been custom built for Butch and herself on a number of acres with a pond and a number of trees on the property. The evening before Miss Laurie had mentioned how great the pizza sauce was from the local tomato canning factory here in Pemberville. When we had stopped in May to visit, Butch who usually sent us off with a care package of products from Pemberville’s local vendors he had included some of this pizza sauce. Well Miss Pat had showed up for breakfast with a selection of pizza sauces from the local IGA, so Miss Laurie decided to make some pizza in the air fryer for lunch.

It was also decided that since Miss pat who is a hair dresser here in town, that she would give me a hair cut after lunch today, and I couldn’t even argue, because I was looking pretty shaggy at this point. So after our taste testing of pizza sauces it was confirmed that the local brand was far superior to the national brand that we had been using so as noon rolled around Miss Laurie prepared pizza in the coach air fryer using the invertor and battery power. It is a beautiful sunny day and we are pulling in solar from the roof array, but remember I also mentioned the trees so our period of direct sun was going to be quite limited, and when I got up this morning it was quite cool in the coach so I had ran our electric space heater for a while. I referred to this stop as driveway surfing, so there are no real RV hook up, just a regular 15 amp plug on the garage wall, so I adjusted our hybrid invertor to only draw 7.5 amps of power from the garage plug, to assist in recharging our battery bank. This morning after running our regular things over night plus a couple of hours of electric heater I had drawn the battery bank down to fifty percent, not a big deal in the desert with lots of direct sunshine but in north west Ohio and lots of trees a little tougher task, so it was either run our generator for an hour or so or just plug into the household outlet and let the shore power slowly charge the batteries. The second option seems like the better (quieter) option.

Just for those of you that are solar curious our battery bank has 600 amp / hours of power, so at 50% we needed to replace 300 amps of power to top the batteries off, the solar array managed to pull in 152 amps today and the rest was received from the household outlet that took most of the day to achieve or the equivalent to about an hour and a half of generator run time. Our 3000 watt invertor also acts as our battery charger and it will charge the battery bank at nearly 100 amps per hour, and because our battery bank is lithium they can be charged that rapidly, but the invertor is smart enough to know that if we are demanding power like to run an air fryer that it needs to supply power to the fryer instead of charging the batteries, and as soon as the demand for power is gone it pushes all available power back to the battery bank. Our invertor which I refer to as the brains of our electrical system reacts so fast to a power fluctuation such as a failure of shore power that we often never realize that the power has blinked off at all, so plugging into or unhooking from shore power never even requires resetting of the clock on our microwave.

I know I know enough of my rambling about amps, watts and solar. So after my hair cut at Miss Pat’s I went to the local IGA to pick up some more wine for dinner this evening. We are going for Bratt’s & Burgers at Miss Pat’s home this evening so the least I can do is bring the wine. Last evening Brian (Linsi’s Brian) had prepared a spaghetti dinner for everyone and this evening Miss McKenzie (Miss Pat’s daughter) is preparing Bratt’s and smash burgers for everyone. The balance of the afternoon was spent with Miss Laurie having a little nap with Mister Sam in the coach, me I’m typing away on the laptop keyboard, and Miss Betty (the rebel that she is) getting her first tattoo a simple little tattoo of “Butch ♥” on her left arm, Brian & Linsi have already gotten tattoos of “Best Day Ever” which was a favorite saying of Butch’s.

We gathered at Pat’s home and sat on the patio enjoying the warm fall day, but a glance at the weather app shows that this warm spell may be short lived, so it only seems proper to enjoy it while we can. McKenzie prepared the burgers and Bratt’s, Miss Laurie had made a bean dip as an appetizer, and we enjoyed another round of stories and tales from times at the campground as well as family stories. It has been a wonderful couple of evenings, enjoying the love of the family and the smiles that can not be helped when ever Butch’s name was mentioned, oh there were also some tears as events were relived, a bit earlier night tonight as some of these folks, still have to work for a living.

Wednesday October 25th, it’s 7:33 and dawn is breaking, there is a bit of a breeze today and it looks like the sunshine of yesterday has passed and we are back to the cloudy days of fall. It will be tough to get back on the road after being treated like family by Betty & Butch’s family, they are still struggling with their loss and will have a tough year of first’s since Butch’s passing and I’m sure our visit was one of those firsts. But they are a tight knit family and are there to support each other, not that that makes the loss any less, but as they share memories it will bring laughs as well as tears, so it will be a bag of mixed emotions as we head out today. But before we leave Miss Laurie is preparing breakfast for Miss Betty again this morning, and I’m adding a little water to our fresh water tank in preparation for a week of boondocking on the road as we head further south to see what adventures unfold.

Obviously we did not get on the road by ten o’clock this morning after getting our “see you down the road” hugs from Miss Betty, by eleven o’clock we were headed toward I-75 at Bowling Green and a few moments later I had aimed Thunder south bound. Our first stop was for diesel fuel just a few miles down I-75, this was our first fuel purchase since a May fill up in Michigan before crossing the border into Canada, so after topping off the tank we eased back onto southbound I-75 we are now heading to Kentucky via I-75 which will take us through downtown Cincinnati to I-71 and across the double deck bridge over the Ohio river, then the five hundred foot climb up into the state of Kentucky. I had a major debate with myself whether to take I-75 through Cincinnati because our last trip through Cincinnati it was anything but smooth, but to our delight this trip we found light traffic and a smooth newly repaved highway through the city right to the bridge. We normally would have taken a break or two on a day where we are covering 260 miles (440 kms) but because of a late start and we wanted to get through Cincinnati before the afternoon rush hour we just pushed on and by the time that I-71 split and headed west from I-75 we were less than an hour to our days destination.

Now while Miss Laurie and I seemed to be okay with todays travel, Mister Sam was voicing his displeasure before we finally got tucked into the Cracker Barrel parking lot in La Grange Kentucky, and while we were not off the road by two o’clock as we often say, we were there by three-thirty and by four o’clock I have the laptop fired up and was working away on this blog, we have decided to have breakfast in the restaurant in the morning, a chance for me to have some biscuits and gravy and Miss Laurie to have her Pecan pancakes before we head west to Louisville and then swing south again onto I-65 as we head to the great state of Tennessee. I have always said that Cracker Barrel is a great spot to spend a night, but because of our length we need to unhook the toad to fit into the RV/BUS spots but they are normally a quiet evening as the restaurants close at ten o’clock, although it also always amazes me how often we are woken by a garbage truck dumping the containers at five o’clock in the morning. As we sat and watched a little television (streaming just fine on our Maple Wi-Fi) we talked about how great the visit in Pemberville had been, and how much we missed Butch.

Thursday October 26th, and believe it or not we woke to garbage trucks dumping the dumpster bins, I kid you not. The weather is staying warm, although there is a cold front making its way from the west coast, bringing cold temperatures along with some heavy rain, and as I try to map out our route it appears it may catch up with us by the weekend. But now it is time for breakfast, and of course Miss Laurie needs to explore a little in the “Country Store” which every Cracker Barrel has, and designed in a way that you must pass through it to get to the restaurant. A table for two but then we are hit with a new menu, for years Cracker Barrel has had a one page breakfast menu, simple easy, but now it is a three page fold plasticized menu with six panels of choices. Many new choices and with options galore, while most restaurants discourage substitutions it seems that Cracker Barrel is embracing options. Needless to say we had to try something new for breakfast this morning, eggs benedict with biscuits instead of an English muffin, so we both tried that with a hashbrown casserole and fried apples a Cracker Barrel staple.

After breakfast we hooked up and slipped back on to I-71 westbound toward Louisville before catching I-65 and turning south toward Nashville but before Nashville we need another fuel stop. This fuel EFS discount card allows us a greater choice of fuel stations and while it is a little busy and noisy at the truck pumps out back of the fuel station the ease of getting in and out without some idiot parking their car in the middle of a driveway makes it worth the noise. The average refueling stop eats up twenty to thirty minutes of time but usually we neverhave to wait for more than a one truck, with the biggest annoyance being that we have to fill from the satellite pump, while many motor homes can refuel from either side ours can only be fueled on the passenger side. And truck stops are designed to have the main pump on the driver side and then have a satellite pump on the passenger side to fill the trucks with tanks on both sides, so I have to remove the nozzle on the drivers side to start the pump than just lay that nozzle down while I go to the passenger side to fill the coach tank, then comeback to hang up the driver side nozzle to stop the pump, not the end of the world and by now just seems almost normal.

When we reach Nashville we hook up with I-40 and head west toward Memphis, it is about here that I realize that we have not had any mountains to transverse like you have when taking I-75 south to Knoxville, all we have had is gentle rolling hills and so far have only had a couple of truck passing lanes, todays route is taking us to Jackson Tennessee and another Cracker Barrel, this will be a bit longer day covering 320 miles (515 kilometers) but the views of the fall colours have be great and Thunder is preforming well. Mister Sam was happier today as we stopped at in a rest area for lunch and a break, which is our normal daily routine giving everyone a chance to stretch and have a break from driving, navigating or being restrained. So another night at a Cracker Barrel, a little traffic noise from the interstate but hopefully no garbage trucks tonight.

Friday October 27th, and after catching up with some news on the television we headed into the restaurant for breakfast and having conquered the new menu yesterday Miss Laurie ordered her pancakes with pecans and I had my biscuits and gravy just like we were going to do yesterday. We have another average day for us planned as we continue west on I-40 as we head to Memphis and the “Mighty Mississippi River” which will take us from Tennessee to Arkansas, now we have not been in Arkansas since fall of 2019 when that fall we took I-40 all the way to Arizona so we could visit the petrified forest, the painted desert, the grand canyon and Sedona on the way to Quartzsite. So we have seen very little of the State and on this trip we are headed to Texarkana on our way toward Galveston Texas.

We hit the road by ten o’clock and were westward bound on I-40, our destination tonight will be a Walmart parking lot along I-30 in Benson Arkansas, it appears to be a little tricky to get to but it appears on Google maps to have a huge parking lot and according to our “AllStays” app is RV friendly. But until then we have some miles to cover, as we get closer to Memphis the land is leveling out and farms are becoming very prevalent as we are entering the Mississippi valley. This is our last chance to dive south into Mississippi to try to avoid the oncoming cold front, but our chosen route is the shortest and quickest so we decide to stay on course, and enjoy all the farmland as we drive through soybean, corn and cotton fields as we close in on Little Rock we are again on a huge bridge crossing the Arkansas River that meanders its way north and west of the Mississippi river but appears to be nearly as wide, again dotted with river barges.

We stopped for a lunch break just east of Little Rock, where Mister Sam and I enjoyed a quick nap after lunch, the weather still seems warm but we can see the clouds are building to the west as we pull back onto I-40 near Little rock I-40 veers northward and I-30 continues to head southwest towards Dallas Texas. But tonight we are stopping only about an hour west of Little Rock. The exit for the Walmart is just before some major construction on the Interstate, so we will have that to look forward to in the morning, the skies have dumped a few sprinkles on us already, but it appears that tomorrow will be the real ugly day, so rain and construction to start the morning travel …YUCK.

Saturday October 28th, and I was up before the rain started but it was only a few moments before, yes the skies opened and dumped a deluge on us, so we decided to wait for the rain to lighten up a bit before heading out to the highway. The bonus to the Walmart parking lot is that the toad is still attached, so one less task on a wet morning. It was after ten thirty before we ventured out to play on the rain soaked road, the heavy rain is suppose to be going past just north of our route, but we are still getting enough rain to be annoying and to make the drive a wee bit miserable. It is Saturday and there seem to be a lot of cars spinning around in the grass median chewing up the sod and making muddy ruts everywhere, there was not any freezing, it was just rain water on the highway. Again we stopped for a lunch break and a quick lay down before pushing on to Texarkana before turning south again on US-59 which would take us toward Houston, but todays destination is in Marshall Texas, and again a Walmart parking lot is the choice.

It has been the most difficult day so far as we delt with heavy rain at times, some less than stellar drivers playing in the medians, but we are heading to another large parking lot with lots of space to turn around and park without unhooking the toad. We got there shortly after four o’clock and were the only RV on the lot, there was a truck on the other side of the lot and another class A towing a trailer pulled in before dark, and of course it is a Saturday night in a Walmart in a southern State so anything is possible. So just at dusk we were not surprised to have preacher with a mega-phone who was trying to save all the souls in the Walmart parking lot, and of course there has to be a sinner or two that tried to disrupt the preacher’s message, which just caused him to speak louder and of course there is a parade of noisy pick-up trucks roaring around the parking lot, a big night in town for the ranch boys.

It was a warm night but we just closed the windows until the the make-shift church service was over, and shortly after that the truck noise seemed to subside which made it seem to just be a regular Saturday night in Marshall Texas. I never said that a night in a Walmart parking lot was not going to be entertaining and the further south we travel the entertainment factor usually increases drastically. After the entertainment moved on we opened the windows as the temperature is still in the eighty degree area, we seem to be just below the cold front and the rain seems to be saying just north of us but the cold front is still coming our way.

Sunday October 29th, and we left the Marshall Walmart at ten thirty this morning, I have a fuel stop planned around an hour and a half down US-59, as we make our way toward Houston. Since all the Walmart’s in the Houston area are not RV friendly, we have chosen a Cracker Barrel in the Legion City area just on the southside of Houston, now all we have to do is get there. Today will be another 250 mile (400 kilometer) day but being a Sunday it may have a little less traffic, but it could have a lot of “Sunday drivers” time will tell. So we found the fuel stop a nice new truck stop and we pulled right up to a empty pump and topped off Thunder’s fuel tank as we continue to head south.

Laurie located a rest area about fifty miles down the highway that should be a great spot for a lunch break and give us time to plan our arrival time at the cracker Barrel for just after four o’clock this afternoon. The parking lot appears to a lot of parking space unusual for most Cracker Barrels. There is lots of Sunshine today and we are pulling in lots of power from the solar array, so we stopped for lunch and a quick nap before making our way into the network of highways that we call Houston with I-10, I-69, I-45 and a couple of bypasses I-610 and the Sam Houston Tollway. We are heading in to Houston on I-69 and after crossing I-10 we will hook up with I-45 to head toward the Galveston Island area.

We landed at the Cracker Barrel shortly after four, it was stated to have six RV/BUS spots but when we got there three storage containers were in those spaces so we decided to just pulled into a parking area at the back of the property, while not one of the quieter stops it was at least long enough that I did not have to unhook the toad. We settled in and streamed some videos as we caught up with some of our YouTube peeps, it was 85ºF (30ºC) when we first got there so we had most of the coach windows open, but overnight that cold front has finally caught up with us and I was up closing windows at two o’clock in the morning.

Well that has been a wrap up of our first week and we have travelled just over 1500 miles (2400 kilometers) since last Monday morning, we have spent time with very dear friends, and have spent almost a thousand Canadian dollars on diesel fuel, we averaged 52 mph and Thunder has covered 7.9 miles per gallon of diesel fuel, not to bad for interstate travel which usually is a little higher driving speeds.

Next week will be a new adventure for both Miss Laurie and myself, but more on that next blog.

Stay safe, buy a poppy to honour our Veterans!

Blog 490

Day 2217