Altoona, IA - They Call Me The Breeze

JJ Cale said it best:

I got that green light, baby


I got to be movin' out of here


I got that green light, baby

 
I got to be movin' out of here


I might go out to California


I might go down to Georgia, might stay here

Well, they call me the breeze


I keep rollin' down the road


Yeah, they call me the breeze


I keep rollin' down the road


I ain't got me nobody


I ain't carry no heavy load

If there ain't no change in the weather


Lord, there ain't no change in me


If there ain't no change in the weather


Lord, there ain't no change in me


I ain't hidin' from nobody


Ain't nobody hidin' from me

Well, they call me the breeze


I keep rollin' down the road


Yeah, they call me the breeze


I keep rollin' down the road


I ain't got me nobody


I ain't carry no heavy load

And, we’re off for our winter trip down to New Orleans, across the Gulf coast, south along the Western side of Florida to the Keys, north up the Eastern side and then on up the Eastern coast to Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine where we lived for 17 years. Whew, I’m worn out just mentioning all the places we’ll go. But, it’s finally time to be off and we are.

Here’s what we found in the parking space we wanted when we stopped at a truck stop for coffee. All in the 6-pack, with lids on - and all empty. How did they do that? Even I can look like a two-fisted drinker.

We saw this sign on the trip. What kind of pig is this.

Our first stop was at Craig and LaVonne’s. Craig was a good friend of Gary’s in high school and they actually roomed together for a year at Iowa. He and LaVonne live in Columbia but have a condo on the Lake of the Ozarks and invited us down there. He didn’t have to ask twice. When Craig asked if we’d like to stay at the condo or stay in our RV, I immediately said: the condo.What a treat, to stay in a real house with space and long showers. (We have lived in chaos as we have been working on the floors for 4 weeks and the thought of a real house that is all put together is delightful.)

This couple must really like their bar-be-que. Silly us, we just tow a Jeep.

An easy trip with mostly 4 lane roads. A stop for coffee and donuts (oops, all they had was Cinnabons - not easy to eat in a moving RV - maybe we’ll eat the pumpkin muffins I made the other day) and the trip ran smoothly. Until we needed to stop for gas. Now, Gary and I get along very well, thank you, in this small tin box but, if there is ever a time when we are apt to spit a bit at each other, it is when we try to find gas. Huh? Isn’t finding gas easy? Check Gas Buddy for the cheapest price, find the station on a map and drive to it. Easy - right? Not in an RV which is rolling down the road. By the time I find it on the map, we’ve passed it. Or - we find it and it’s not a gas station designed for an RV with a towed. Today we found one and it was big enough for us. But, as we pulled into it, we noted that there was a serious dip between the road and the station and we scraped - just part of the frame that was put there to scrape. Oh, yeah, as we pulled next to the diesel pump, we met the young woman coming out of the convenience store with a sign for the pump which read ‘ gas pumps not working now. come back later.’ Oh, shucks.

So, as Gary pulled back onto the road, I found another station that we could fit into and which was still ahead of us. This time it really was easy. On one side was a convenience store and gas station, on the other was the Welcome Center for Arkansas with nice but very tight bathrooms. And, between them was a huge parking lot, big enough for several RV’s.

We found a neat roadside stop along the way. There were some old pictures of people traveling down the road a long time ago.

Finally we got to Osage Beach where Craig and Lavonne lived. We had made arrangements to store our RV in the storage lot of a local RV park for - $2.00 a night. What a deal!! We pulled in, Craig and Lavonne pulled in after us, we parked, turned on the propane, the refrigerator and heat in case it got cold at night and left for dinner. Delightful dinner with a view of the lake from the balcony. Since we had never met LaVonne, we enjoyed meeting her and finding out how she and Craig met and she got to meet these two strange people who Craig had invited to stay for 2 nights. After dinner, we got back to the RV, packed and drove over to their condo. What a view over the lake and seeing the twinkling lights of the homes on the other side. And, the conversation was fun too. Finally, we all realized that we were tired and headed to bed.

Gary and I took our showers. Whoo-eee in a real shower with no cut-off switch. No Navy showers tonight. And, the towels were big and fluffy, not like our smaller thinner pack towels (you know, the ones back-packers tack on their treks.)

Finally, time for sleep.