For RV Travel
-me
On the Friday after Thanksgiving we undertook a journey that Google estimated at two hours fifteen minutes. On the last trip I had a gut feeling that this wasn't going to be accurate, but since I didn't measure, I didn't know. Now I do know:
not accurate.
But by how much?
In future, I will know. Every trip will be recorded with these statistics:
1. Planned miles
2. Estimated time (google)
3. Adjusted estimate (mine) based on experience
4. Actual miles
5. Actual time
6. How come?
For tracking purpose, this trip was a washout. But here's a crack at the stats:
McKinney, Texas to Maudlin Lake Park on Wright-Patman Lake near Texarkana. Route: US 380 to I-30 to US 67 to SH 8.
1. Planned distance: 145 miles
2. Map time estimate: 2:15
3. Adjusted estimate: unknown
4. Actual distance: probably pretty close
5. Actual time: don't know
6. Stupid Iphone mapping app took us on a scenic route through Greenville. It might have been shorter, and maybe even faster, if we'd been in a car--but not in an RV. Stop at light, stop at sign, turn left, turn right, turn it all around....
We made three stops total--a bathroom break on the shoulder, a stop in Mt. Pleasant to get gas, and one at a Brookshire's Spring Market in Naples to pick up sour cream and bacon bits. Plus when we got off in Mt. Pleasant on 271, instead of getting back on the interstate, we continued along 67 to hit the park from the north side. The planned route had us staying on the interstate until 259 and then taking 77 east, which would have been straighter and taken us in from the south.
Now to the important stats, from my journal: East Texas is gorgeous this time of year. The trees are still hanging onto golden and orange leaves against a backdrop of huge green pines, jeweled in understory with the crimson of sumac. I waxed poetic,
Why are the leaves still hanging in colors?
Shouldn't they be brown, carpeting ground
And the trees all bare?
No matter--they are not. They were awesome.
We were heading east, and as the sun dropped down behind us, the autumn colors intensified. For a while we traveled through a swamp with that gaseous smell I always associated with the swamps on the west of Texarkana. From the map they might be part of the Red River...I'll need to research that. Or maybe it's sulfur, since it's called the Sulfur River. That's the river that makes up Wright-Patman Lake.
The lake is huge on the map, but we didn't see it. We arrived sometime around four-thirty only to find our campsite was still occupied. The people who reserved it had accidentally left off a Friday right in the middle of a two-week reservation. Not knowing if we were going to show up or not, they simply left their trailer parked and headed off shopping in the nearest town.
The campground host called them and they agreed to return immediately, but that left us sitting in a parking lot at the gate for an hour. It may have been more than an hour--I didn't time it. We took a walk and ate some snacks; killed time. There was nothing to see and no birds to watch. I wish now we'd spent more time chatting with the lady in the office--she traveled fearlessly inside and out in a motorized wheelchair. An interesting job for a disabled person; I'd have liked to know her story.
So by the time we were parked and starting to hook up, it was dark enough to need a flashlight. And a flashlight holder--me. But hookups were accomplished without problem and soon we were fully functional. The furnace, of course, didn't work but a space heater kept Mammoth's inside warm and toasty.
We chose to cook outside over our darling little mini-grill, so I set up a grill basket of vegetables, made two skewers of veggies for Ed, set out marinated fish for me and rib-eye steak for him. We soon learned, however, that the grill basket takes up the whole top of the grill. The skewers, laying on top of it, weren't feeling the heat. Another time we should just do everything together.
Other than that things worked out fine. What didn't work so fine, though, was bedtime. Zack realized he was in a lonesome place, hearing strange and unusual noises from outside, and not able to smell our body scents. He began to whine and scrape at his cage door; a yip was coming any minute. I lay awake feeling guilty because I'd forgotten his nighttime pain medication. (That's not as awful as it sounds--we were told to gradually taper it off and he'd had doses the previous evening and morning)
But after a minute of guilt I got up. Smearing the capsule with a dollup of wet food, I crammed it down him. Then I put on a hoodie and jeans and curled up on the recliner with him at my feet. Sadly, I'd forgotten how to make the recliner recline--after a minute of twisting and turning and completely failing to find a position of relative comfort, I felt down all over the outside, front, and footrest of the recliner. No secret button and no Accio spell to summon it. I even fetched the flashlight to look.
Finally I sat back down and my sleep-deprived brain woke up enough to use logic. I'd checked every surface--right, left, up and down--excepting one. The inside crack. You that place where keys, remote controls, and bits of snack food always end up disappearing until they eventually drop on the floor when you move the sofa?
That's where the magic lever resided. With the footrest extended, I was able to contort my body into a sleep-capable position. Not ideal, but it sure beat the airline economy seat I'd been stuck in one month before. And whether it was the drugs or the nearby odor of my unwashed human carcass, Zack closed his eyes and worried no more.
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