Good BBQ

Well yesterday since it was cold and rainy we decided to go to Harrah's Casino in downtown New Orleans. You get free parking with 30 minutes of play which in itself is worth $18.00. We had a good time but didn't win our fortune. We stayed around three hours, got free parking and three free rounds of drinks for about a $40 investment. The had some neat new slots that were one cent but required a 30 cent minimum play and made you feel like you were winning even though you were winning less than you played most times. There were lots of 10, 15, 20 wins for a net loss each spin but lots of noise and graphics. Once and a while we would hit enough to make up for the losses and we finally quit with a $45 hit. I guess you couldn't call us big gamblers.

After leaving the Casino we drove to "The Joint" a BBQ restaurant that had been featured on Diners Drive-in's and Dives. All I can say is WOW! We have had BBQ in many places as we traveled MS, LA and TX  but this was the best ever. I had a half rack of ribs with potato salad and Joanne had a brisket sandwich with a house salad. My ribs look just like the above picture. Moist, tasty and falling off the bone. The potato salad was home made and as good as it gets. This place goes on the must visit every time in town list. 

Moving today to site 30 across the street for an extra five days.

Quiet Day

Well yesterday was a pretty quiet day. Spent partly at the Campground. It was cold and rainy and not a day for walking around anywhere. We did go out to Harbor Freight and Tools to buy magnetic LED lights to use on the Jeep. The internal wiring/bulbs are not working and I just don't want the hassle of trying to fix it here. I had a backup set of mag lights that I used up to this point but the LED are so much brighter that I decided to buy a set to use for the rest of the trip. We also went to Tuesday Morning one of Joanne's favorite stores. She picked up some neat presents. While we were at Harbor Tool we decided to try a Chinese Buffet that we had noticed in past trips. We noticed it because there was always police officers eating there.

It turned out to be neat, clean and very good. There was a good selection of food from a salad bar thru desert with cakes and ice cream. At about $7.50 per person it was quite a deal and since we ate a late lunch supper was just cheese and crackers. 

We signed up for another five days here taking us through Monday because we found that there were parades both Saturday and Sunday kicking off Mardi Grais. Have to get some new beads!

Catching Up

Well I'm guilty or putting off writing my blog. Yesterday was just to busy and by the time we got home I didn't feel like it and then today we did laundry went to dump the holding tanks, made repairs to the generator tail pipe that had come loose then into the French Market for the afternoon.
Then it was game time....
Here are some pictures from the last two days.

And today

Dodging the rain drops

I'll have to say we have seen better weather down here than what we are getting. It's been warm in the 70's but on and off rain. We went exploring yesterday around the area and did some food shopping to make up for the wasted trip to Winn Dixie.

This is in the park at the location on the canal where once stood cabins that the State Park rented. Katrina wiped them all out and we too a ride to see if any had been rebuilt.

We see this guy every day looking for food. How they stay so white in such mucky water is beyond me.

Last night we went into New Orleans to eat at Mother's Resturant on a recommendation of a Park Ranger here.   This wasn't my picture but it gives you an idea of the no frills interior of the resturant. People wait in long lines to get in but to tell you the truth we didn't think it was anything special. We both had shrimp mine fired and Jo's grilled. They were good sized portions but they were just average in taste. Oh well many more places to try. 

Today if the weather is decent (forecast of 75 and sun later) we are planning to go walk around the French Quarter.

After the storm

What a day. We had torrential rain, thunder and lightning along with a tornado watch. There wasn't much choice but to stay in the RV and watch TV. All the news reports were saying if you didn't need to be out stay off the roads due to flooding. The rain has finally ended all but a mist at this time. We were treated to this sunset.

After The Storm

The Big Easy

Made it to LA after a rainy drive down Interstate 55. We went through periods of light rain and then downpours. Our destination is Bayou Segnette State Park on the west bank in Westwego LA.

Site 29

We have stayed here many times before and find it a nice quiet park about a half hour drive out of the city.
Upon arrival around 2pm we set up and got ready to go grocery shopping but first since we had no lunch yet decided to stop for some real fried chicken at Popeye's. What a mistake that was! They were slow, one Po'Boy came out right away and the other took 10 minutes. The first one a shrimp was tasteless and the second a chicken was good but by then we were put off by the wait. The manager/waitress/cook was on her cellphone the whole time fighting about some purchase while other employees just kind of wandered around. I think Kathy is right Church's must be better.
After lunch we went to a local Winn Dixie and only got the basics because the selection was so poor and the price so high. We know of much better stores not to far from here.
Home to unpack, a hoodsie and then off to Perinos Boilingpot a local jewel in Harvey LA. This is where I learned to love fried oysters. It is the must visit place while in this area and we weren't disappointed. I had the oyster basket for $12.95 which came with twenty three fried oysters and curly fries and Joanne had the fried shrimp basket. The only shrimp I have ever had that compared to these was at the old White Cap back in the early 60's. I don't know what it is but it struck me the same again.
Home for TV and bed. They are forecasting some nasty weather for the next couple of days with up to 6 inches of rain in heavy thunder storms. We made sure we had a site that sat high above the wetlands here.
Woke up to 70 degree temperature and no rain, yet. The weather forecast this morning has not improved. Joanne is still sleeping so I don't have any idea what we are going to do.

Overnight in Jackson MS

What happened to Tuesday you may be thinking.
Well it went like this:
We go a phone call a little before nine asking us to bring the Motorhome around to one of the indoor bays to continue working on our heater problem. So we picked up our feet, pulled in the slides and motored over to the bay. They put us inside and then disappeared. The shop foreman came by shortly looked around and got on his phone never saying a word to me. Soon one of the guys that had been to our site yesterday arrived however all he seemed to be was a second set of hands for the one we had yesterday. His partner finally showed up and I got him to look at the schematic and explained to him how it had to be the loss of power along this one wire. He said someone else with more experience was coming shortly.
Well Steve (older/wiser) came and checked all the usual fuses and poked at the same places others had gone. I showed him the wiring diagram and again explained how if you put power to the main relay the system would work so therefor there was a problem in the wire not the controller that he now was blaming. Off they went to get another controller to plug in.
To make a long story short that made no difference and once again I pointed out that nothing would matter until power got to that relay and there was nothing but two connectors and wire between where there was power and where the was not.
Another tech showed up and started poking around in the wiring harnesses. After checking outside he got himself into the dash which had been taken off exposing a jungle of wires. (they had had it off before) After a bit he called over another guy and asked for a splice and pliers. Shortly after he turned the ignition on and bravo the fan ran. I asked what he found and he showed me this.....

A splice in the wire that I said had to be bad. It had overheated to the point where it no longer was making a connection.

Time to leave. I was really concerned at this point at what the bill was going to be since we had had many people for a long period of time over two days, at $100 an hour labor rate I had visions of big bucks.

Packed up and hooked up the car then went to the office to pay up.
Parts including the new Interstate starting battery 110.44
Labor 76.00
Tax 9.39
Total 195.83

I'm a happy camper. So we hit the road..............

We headed to a State Park in Jackson MS and arrived just after dusk.  Drove in and were looking for a spot when a Ranger showed up to talk to us. She said they were in a flood plane and overnight we could get up to 6 inches of rain. After all was said and done she said if we went back out the main gate and turned sharp right we would be in the parking lot for their baseball field. She said we would be fine there for the night. So here we are ready to head so for New Orleans in  the rain.

Later.................

Red Bay Service

Day one in Red Bay. Tech came to the coach at 9am to start on our two problems. Went to work on the dash heater not working but ended up having to do the battery first since he had no power to check the fuses.
We go a new Interstate battery installed without any problems and the tech went to work on the heat.
Well after checking fuses (which I already had) and pulling the dash off to check connections behind it he called in help. Two more guys showed up and checked a lot of the same again and finally found the main relay that I suspected might be bad. They went to parts and got a new one but when they came back and put the new one in nada! The first tech admitted he didn't know enough to go any further and said he would go talk to another old timer who might know where the 30amp fuse was that feeds the whole system power.
While he was gone now that I knew where the main relay was located I began to troubleshoot it. I found power to one contact of the relay that came from the ignition switch but no power from the mystery 30amp fuse. I put a jumper from a 12 volt source and vola the fan came on. Now all we need to find is the fuse.
I went in the office and found an old-timer who has been with Tiffin for 30 years and he pulled out the same schematic that I had. I showed him what I had found and he showed me a picture of a sub panel in one of my compartments where the power is fed from. He showed me the fuse we were looking for but unfortunately it was one we already checked and was fine. Somewhere between outside and inside we are loosing the power. He thinks its in the connector that supplies the HVAC system. He showed me where he thought it should be but we hadn't seen it today as far as I knew. He sent me to the shop foreman and told me to tell him that he would be available for help. I passed this on to the foreman and he said he would try to get me inside tomorrow so they can work on it. Time will tell but we are here for at least one more day. 
On the bright side it was a nice sunny day getting up into the 50's.

Up at the crack of 8 and on the road by 9:30 after doing a load of laundry and filling up the water and dumping the sewage. Only 100 miles plus to Red Bay so not in a big rush. The Tiffin campgrounds water is turned off for the winter so that's why we filled up and did the laundry before we left. They do have water available but it's a pain to pull up stakes just to get more.
The ride went well with good roads most of the way. Gas for the last couple of days has been $3.15. The best price so far was $3.05 in TN. I hope it stays at these levels from here south. I use an app called Gas Buddy that shows the prices around you or a map view
.

We arrived and checked into the service center a little after lunch and joined the ranks of folks waiting their turn. I would love to know what the combined value of all the rigs parked here would add up to be. There are 92 sites with hookups and then an overflow area. If you took an average value of $225,000 that would be twenty two and a half million.

They start at 7am so there will be no sleeping in. I just hope to get an appointment right away and not have to spend days here.

Sweet Home Alabama

We made it. Spending the night at Parnell Creek RV park in Woodville, AL. about 100 miles left to Red Bay our destination at the Tiffin RV service center. We should be there early tomorrow but there is no rush since nothing can get done until Monday. I decided not to buy a battery and put it in myself after looking where it was and talking to fellow Tiffin owners who told me the price at the service center for a battery was comparable to Costco or Sams. Yesterday we crossed into TN and stopped at the welcome center for 

camping info this was across the street. They gave us information for a campground about 40 miles away and we headed out for that. When we took the exit there was another campground right there with a sign $25 full hookups and it looked good. The other one was another mile down the road and would have required us to double back in the morning. There was only one other person staying there so we had our choice of sites. This was the first stop with sewage so I was glad to be able to dump. My joy didn't last long when I pulled out the hose and tried to stretch it to reach. Snap! Dry rot got the best of it. I was able to piece together some other hoses but it was a pain in the ass. As it was it leaked but I got the tanks dumped and all the antifreeze out of the system. Hot showers for all. Saturday we stopped at Walmart and go a new hose and tonight we have sewage and can run a load of laundry. Was 52 degrees when we stopped but they warned us at the campground that it might go below freezing tonight. I told them it was 8 when I left home and the last two nights were in the teens so I thought we would survive. 

Later...........  

Day Two - PA, MD, WVA, VA

Who would have thought that we would see a red tailed fox at Walmart. He ran across the lot and past the McDonald's next door. Didn't stop for fries. After a night spent in the Parking lot we hit the road by 9am. The first order of business was to fill the gas tank as we were down some 52 gallons. It was a short 4 mile ride to the gas station I had located on Gas Buddy and after checking it out decided I could get in and out ok. The price for regular was $3.529 but the pump was sloooow. It was in the teens and I thought I was going to freeze waiting for it to fill. Of course they had a $100.00 limit after which you have to hang up the pump and start all over. What a pain but they all do this sometimes it's only $75.00 so sometimes it takes three shots.

After the slow start we headed down RT209 through the Delaware Water Shed a state park for about 40 miles. It's a two lane well maintained road following the river through some awesome scenery. Only problem was about 5 miles in we came upon a road block. A crew was clearing some downed trees on the road and we had to sit for close to a half hour waiting on them. Well at least the sun was shining. 

The rest of the day went better but it seemed that we just couldn't make up any time. Our goal for the night was Lee Hi campground where we had stayed on a previous trip and we knew they had pull thru sites with 50A hookups plus water and sewer. By mid afternoon I knew we would not be able to get there before dark but we decided to push on for a quiet place to sleep and electricity without having to run the generator. 

We would be the last RV on the left in this picture if I had taken it. 

Tomorrow we have to find a Walmart and buy a new battery for the RV. The one that starts the engine has died and will not hold a charge. Thank God we have a emergency switch that allows you to start the engine from the house batteries which are brand new. I should have known to change them all while I was at it.

First night.

Made it to our first overnight just over the PA boarder on RT84. Cold here in the high 20's at 5pm.
Staying at camp Walmart....

Getting ready to leave

Well Christmas has come and gone and New Years is tomorrow. It's time to pack the RV and head to warmer weather. As long as it doesn't snow any more we will hit the road on Wednesday.

Come on beach!