May 10 - 13 , 2012

We live in a community in which you can only bring your motorhome into it for 2 nights, so Thursday May 10 was our day to bring it home to load. Of course that doesn't mean we hadn't been getting things ready to load for about two weeks time. Our "staging area" was really full. After all when you plan on being gone for three months or longer you feel like you must take everything along. After two days of loading Saturday morning we were ready to roll! We left home about 8:30 driving north on I 75 until we finally made it to I 10. Florida is a long state....you just drive and drive and drive and your still in the state. We spent Saturday night west of Tallahassee in a dump of a campground. But it served it's purpose. We were just off the interstate so it was convenient. We had driven thru the infamous "Florida love bugs". They make a mess of your car or whatever transporation you use. So the front of the motorhome was a mess. If you don't get the love bugs off they can damage your paint. Ugh! Another couple in the RV park told us what to do. You must get the front of your motorhome wet....then the next step is a "Johnson's baby shampoo" wash...and then use a sheet of "Bounce" fabric softner, rub that on the soapy front and viola.....off come the bugs! Then a final rinse with a hose and your done. It takes a long time to wash the front of our motorhome. But we got 'er done! Since we were right off the road it was an easy on for Sunday's drive. The day was mostly rainy. At one time the raindrops were so big it reminded me of a large wet sloppy snowflake.

Tiffins, all in a row, waiting for service

Small part of Tiffin's repair bays

 Shortly before we were to leave the interstate an Allegro Bus passed us. Nancy was at the wheel and did not want that motorhome getting to Red Bay before she did so it was like the two Tiffin motorhomes were drag racing. Nancy won the race and made it into Red Bay, Alabama just before the Allegro Bus. Since the campgrounds is on a first come first served basis....we got a campsite. The Allegro Bus got one also. In fact they parked right next to us.

The Parkway runs from Nashville, Tennessee to Natches, Mississippi

We started our wait for repairs. Last time we were here for a few repairs we waited a week then headed for Estero in our towed vehicle. This morning, however, about 10:30, two guys showed up with our list of items to be fixed. They worked right down the list …..hey, now there are four guys here working.....in a little less than an hour all was taken care of! Wait, Nancy got an email from next door neighbor Doug telling us of a big spot of oil on our driveway. Oh, no....well I guess we should see if they can look at it. Yup.....a little later we are called. Bring the RV in to service bay #39! They put it up on a hoist and a lot of fluid came out of the pan on the jack. Well there is a problem there....what, another jack problem? Well lets go for lunch and come back. When we returned...up came the service bay door and out comes our motorhome. All done and guess what....when North Trail replaced that jack last fall, they did not tighten a fitting. So we have been leaking ATF all over....but now its fixed! Yup it took another 3 quarts of ATF and tightening the nut and all is well. What a great stop this has turned out to be.

Tiny Presley family home,  Our garage is bigger!!

We will stay an extra day so that we can take a day trip tomorrow....then its outta here and on to points west. We drove the Natches Trace Parkway from north of Red Bay, Alabama to Tupelo, Mississippi, Visited Elvis Presleys birthplace, had lunch in town and back to the RV. Tupelo is really trying to cash in on Elvis!!