Day 52: On the road again…

Saturday, May 25, 2019: We were up at 6:30am again today. Going back to the Central Time Zone after a few weeks on Eastern Time really helps to effortlessly become an early riser!😋We seemed to breeze through the morning and get packed up super quickly. We were driving out of the RV park by 930am… And after I had just bragged to Joe the night before that we rarely leave a park before 11am.Last night I had told him we probably wouldn’t be ready to meet him until 11:30am… I was so wrong. I felt bad because I know he holds the mornings as his sacred gym time. He likes to get up early and have his workout before anything else comes up during the day to derail it. So when I texted him that we were on our way, he was still at the gym. Sorry Joe!😞
He was cool with cutting his workout short though. He said he was just about done anyhow.He told us to meet him near the base, just off the freeway so we could get back on the road quickly. He sent us a Google Maps Pin of the spot where it would be the easiest.

We were literally stopped there for less than 2 minutes when the police contacted us to see why we had stopped there. The cop was very polite and friendly though. He was from CA and let us stay there when I told him we were just waiting for my brother. Joe pulled up just a few seconds after the cop drove away. He thought it was funny we were contacted. We do look pretty shady after all. 😋

Joe upped his game and brought way more movies than I had anticipated. Fred and I will be set forever! Wifi and cell service is spotty on the road, so this will be awesome.
Joe also brought a canvas print of a family photo that Kristin was going to mail to our mom. It’s way easier and faster for us to drive it back to CA than to mail it.

We joked about swapping it out with a painting in a KOA rec room somewhere along the trip and then coming back in a year to see if it was still there. I honestly think it would still be there!

I took the opportunity to snap a quick photo with Joe and then we hit the road.

Kristin had told us about a freeway rest stop in Milton, FL that had a bug-wash station for truck windshields to rise off the nasty love bugs. That was going to be our 1st stop.

We made it there around 10:30am. Fred took the opportunity for a little rest and I finally finished up the blog posts that have been piling up. (Sorry about that by the way. I put a lot of thought into them and sometimes I’m not quite sure how to capture the day… Sometimes I’m just too sleepy)

Once back on the road, we looked for “Buc-ees.” My brother had told us about this epic truck stop he had found while driving back from training last week. He said it was a circus of food, gas pumps, and random shopping. He had never seen a truck stop that supplied shopping carts! So of course we had to check it out.

There were more than 200 gas pumps. Outside was a zoo! The parking lot is meant for cars so RV manuevering was very, very tricky. Inside was even more of a zoo! There were easily 1,000 people inside, packed tight, like when a football stadium crowd all tries to leave at the same time. It was too much for me. Crowds like this make me so anxious all I can do is think of running out the door.

There was a ton of food in there but mostly BBQ type stuff that might have ingredients that would set off a sensitive tummy. We walked through in overwhelmed awe… and then left.

We would grab lunch some where calmer. I would love to see this place around 2am, when it’s empty and I could walk every isle and really enjoy it’s glory. We made our way back out of the chaotic parking lot and hit the road again.

We did have to stop real quick to take a picture of this craziness… Only in the South!

We Google searched and found a cool, healthy-food place called FOY in Mobile, AL. FOY looked promising and seemed very much like Jack’s Urban Eats, a weekly haunt we love back home. And if it didn’t workout, there was a Chick-Fil-A next door. But Google maps dumped us in downtown Mobil, near the convention center, during some kind of basketball conference. It was more of the madness we had just escaped.

Luckily, Fred is an amazing driver and we were able to make a U-turn before we got too deep into that mess! We got back on the freeway and drove until we saw an Arby’s just off the freeway, with very easy on/off ramps.

It was tasty! And Fred found they had Mocha Milk Shakes… It wasn’t a “Friendly’s Fribble” but he liked it.

We got back on the road & this time, we set our sites on an RV park. Fred had pre-scouted a spot in Louisiana. It had great online reviews so I called it and snagged their last site for the night.

Stopping tonight at Lake View RV will give us about a 5 hour drive (300 miles) into Houston, TX tommorow, and then a 3 hour drive (180 miles) Monday up to Leander, TX to visit Fred’s sister Nadine and her husband Grant. So if all things workout, we should be to Nadine’s by Monday afternoon. 👍

We pulled in to the RV park around 5:15pm. It was nasty hot… Setting up camp in that kind of heat is brutal.

Fred stretched out for a quick nap. I like to go for a walk when we get into a new RV park to stretch my legs, get my bearings in case of an emergency, and scope out the type of crowd hanging about. But it was way too hot for that today. So I did some indoor RV yoga instead.

I ended my yoga session just as Fred was waking up. I felt refreshed but I could immediately tell Fred was not feeling great. He gets very quiet and moves gingerly when he doesn’t feel well.

Earlier I had told him that I might like to grab some apples and salad if we passed a grocery store. He was determined to find and take me grocery shopping no matter how bad he felt. There was one about 5 miles away, so we hit that real quick and then came back to the RV for dinner.

I ate my leftover kalua pig from last night and it was still delicious! I made Fred some of Joe’s Top Ramen & poached eggs recipe.

I left off the sweet chili sauce as that might upset Fred’s tummy. But Fred said he did not enjoy the texture. I think I over poached the egg and made it too hard boiled. That’s why it had a funny texture. I will have to try it soon to check it out.

During dinner, Fred steamed the Toronto/Milwaukee basketball ball game on his computer and the Red Sox game on the TV. Sadly, the Red Sox lost so that didn’t make him feel any better.

At least the basketball game was entertaining. I’m always impressed at how long they can make the last 29.2 seconds of a basketball game last. Seriously, it was like 10 minutes long!

I finally got my walk after dinner when I took the trash up to the dumpster. The sky was full of stars. I stood outside admiring them for a bit. Then this cute cat walked up to me. I thought he was going to rub on me … Nope. He took a big poop right in front of me. What a weird way to end the day.