Let’s Consider : Travel brings good times, despite glitches
Posted on Wednesday, August 6, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/hl/Lifestyles/25256/
One of the things to be anticipated when people travel away from home, and are gone for more than a few days, is: What travails and / or triumphs will we experience during our travels ?
Or: What things will be a real test to our patience ? Or: How flexible will we be ?
On the other hand, one might wonder before take-off as to: What wonderful thing (s ) will happen to us ?
Or: What good deeds will be done for us along the way, either by perfect strangers or perfect friends ?
Or: Which things will turn into laughable memories that will be long talked about around the kitchen table ?
During our 10-day vacation this summer, we experienced all of the above.
One of our glitches happened because I had neglected to bring the GPS recharge cord that plugs into the cigarette lighter cavity in order to stay charged up and at the ready. I was really mad at myself for being so careless. After all, we were traveling a long distance, through some very big cities, and through a lot of new territory for us. But our daughter came to the rescue and discovered that her cell phone cord charging cord would do the job — as long as we could plug into electricity each night.
And that brings us to another glitch. On one of our early-in-the-trip overnights, the electric power we were plugged into suffered through a hard storm, and, because of low voltage (we think ) our air conditioner quit working, even with the generator on. The result of low voltage was a piece that burned out. The loss of air conditioning is not pleasant in late June and early July. But, just short of panicking, we were able to adjust, use our ceiling vent / fans and an electric fan we carry, and sleep through the blessedly cooler overnights until we found a camper service place.
On the first few nights out, we parked at my sister’s place, alongside their garage, because we were doing activities in their area and with them. Then a very heavy rain on one night left our RV mired into the soft soil underfoot, especially when we tried to back out. But, again before panic set in, a brother-in-law of my brother-in-law came to the rescue with his heavy pickup and towed us right out of that sticky predicament.
Even a low tire on our drive across the southern states didn’t cause us too much grief. We were able to stop occasionally, blow the tire up, and keep going. Since my husband is a long-time tire man, I never worry about our tires, knowing he will make the right decisions about the tires. And if one needs changed, he can handle that, too.
There were a couple of times during the trip that we were caught in neighborhoods that caused us to feel a bit insecure. I think every large city has some of those neighborhoods. For us, it was once in Atlanta, but we were able to keep driving and reach our destination without any real trouble. Then on another day we drove into Montgomery, Ala., to see some of the landmarks of the civil rights movement.
After we had walked around in the downtown area and got back into our RV, we made a wrong turn that took us into what I call a “ projects neighborhood. ” The apartment buildings were close together, the heat was unbearable, the residents were all outdoors to breathe in some air, we didn’t know where we were or even where we should be going. We gained some confidence when we saw some police cars in the neighborhood, and officers talking to some folks. Thankfully, we were able to keep moving and soon our GPS system told us where to drive back toward our highway.
We were happy to visit our daughter’s good friends in Franklin, Tenn., and get acquainted with their baby daughter, so adorable and sweet. She made it a pleasant stop on our itinerary.
Always on the lookout for Baskin-Robbins ice cream shops, we are especially watchful while traveling. In Franklin, we were searching for a campground that evening, and inadvertently ended up in the downtown area, driving the RV and pulling our car on its dolly. I love picturesque downtown Franklin, but not while driving such a rig. But suddenly, there was a Baskin-Robbins shop and we were able to park in the driveway of a nearby business in order to satisfy our taste for ice cream. Refreshed, we were able to drive out of our predicament in the downtown and head for a campground in a rural area.
We are still chuckling about a couple of other Baskin-Robbins shops we found later, where the employees were pretty much clueless as to the simple concepts of service and speed. But they did come up with some peanut-butter-and-chocolate ice cream, so we were satisfied.