Travel Day to Fontainebleau State Park, Louisiana

March 3, 2010.


The wind died down overnight and we awoke to bright sunshine and temps in the 40's. I was itching to get moving as it was a travel day and I like travel days! I hoped to be out of our site and at the dump station by 10:00.  It was closer to 10:30 by the time we rolled to the dump station to empty our black and gray tanks in that order.


Shortly thereafter we were on the road. Everything was looking good as we rolled down I-10 towards Louisiana, it was a sunny day,  traffic was light, Joyce was following behind in her car, Maggie and Rico were sleeping in the back seat and I had smile on my face.

I was keeping an eye on my tire pressure monitor not wanting to pay it too much attention.  However, I began noting that the tire pressures were gradually climbing past the cold pressure of 80 p.s.i. to 83.. 85.. 87.. 88.. 90.  Ooops, the left rear tire on the fifth wheel wasn't going over 84 p.s.i.  It seemed to be stuck at 84 p.s.i. as the other tires climbed (as is the norm).  Hmm, I thought that this wasn't good, but perhaps it was just a glitch.  I kept driving for several more miles.  Then after having it at 84 p.s.i. for several miles, the pressure reading dropped to 83 p.s.i.!  That surely wasn't good as the other tires were now at 88 or 90 p.s.i.  I got to thinking that perhaps the tire pressure transmitter that I screwed onto the valve stem this morning was loose and letting out some air.


We just passed into Louisiana.  I saw a sign ahead for a rest stop at the Louisiana Welcome Center.  I made a decision that I would stop there and investigate.

I pulled into the truck section of the welcome center rest stop amongst a few 18 wheelers.  Joyce took Maggie and Rico out for a break while I checked the tire pressure transmitter on the valve stem and it seemed tight.  I had charged the tank of my compressor before leaving this morning, so I decided to put more air in the tire.    I aired it up to 88 to match the other tires that were all heated up.  Then I heard it!  The unmistakeable sound of air leaking.  I checked the tread and saw a nail in the center of the tread and I heard the air leaking from around it.  


I knew changing the tire would be a daunting task!  A hundred thoughts raced through my head.  The hassle of getting the spare from under the trailer and knowing that I hadn't checked the tire pressure in the spare ever!  (Note to self!)  If it was too low, I might not have enough reserve left in my compressor tank to bring it up. Then the hassle of jacking up the axle and un-torqueing those lug nuts.  Then everything again in reverse.  We have Coachnet road service but have never used it nor did I want to today!


I went to my Garmin GPS and typed in "tires".  There was a tire store 4.5 miles away!  I called and they could work with me if I could get there.  We loaded up the dogs and I got back on the interstate with 83 p.s.i. in the leaking tire.  It wasn't long and I was exiting the interstate and pulling into the rather small parking lot of Gause Tire and Auto.

The attendant had a "can do" attitude and quickly decided to work on my rig's tire.  I watched like a hawk as he tried to jack up the rig after I told him not to put the jack against the bare axle as it would dent or bend the axle.  I told him that it needed to be jacked at the leaf spring attachment to the axle.  Well, he tried...but with a 2-ton jack.  Obviously that wasn't going to work.  So then he tried a bottle jack after declining to use my 8 ton bottle jack.  However, his jack wasn't fitting.


I decided perhaps I should use the Big Foot Leveler system.  I had never used it to jack up one side of the rig, but I knew it could be done in theory.  So to the amazement of the mechanics, I put the Big Foot Leveler system in manual mode and activated the left side levelers to lift the tires off the ground while still attached to the truck.

With the left side lifted and the tires just off the ground, the mechanic was able to get the tire off and work on plugging or patching the hole caused by the nail.

Throughout the repair, Maggie and Rico waited patiently in the back seat of the truck.  They were so good and deserving of some extra attention later!

It didn't take long and we were ready again to hit the road.  The bill for the tire repair came to $22.   Joyce stopped traffic and I backed out onto the 4-lane Gause Blvd. and headed back towards the interstate.  Before long we were pulling into Fontainebleau State Park.

Against my better judgement, we had made a reservation for a site at the park.  I wanted a 50 amp site for 7 days and used Reserve America to make the reservation.   Several folks had told us that the park fills up on the weekends, which prompted me to make the reservation.  


Well, it turns out the site we reserved is a pull through and is almost slide out to slide out with another fifth wheel on our driver's side.  On the door side is a considerable amount of mud and standing water.  In fact while setting up, I managed to slip and fall in the mud, which aside from giving Joyce a chuckle, resulted in a change of clothes!  Actually most of the sites in this old loop have a lot of standing water.


I wasn't in a frame of mind to take pictures of our site, so I'll do that tomorrow.


Today re-inforced in my mind some of my personal travel rules.  
A.  Travel during the week and not on weekends.  This assures that if you have travel problems and need a mechanic, they are more likely to be available.
B.  Avoid making campsite reservations.  You never know when you may not make it to the destination or as in today's case, you might be disappointed in the campsite once you get there and have a non-refundable reservation!

Laundry Day and The Shed Barbeque and Blues Joint

March 02, 2010.

It was a cold, windy gloomy day.  Temperatures were in the 40’s but the wind was wicked.  Maggie was comfortable snuggling in her crate.

Joyce went into town to do the laundry and once again I stayed home with Maggie and Rico. I stayed inside most of the day and worked a bit on my Campsite Review Page and returned some e-mails.  Rico was wanting to go outside.

Later I took the dogs for a long walk, but it was still very windy and cold. We just can't seem to catch a break with the weather!  I did some minor preparations for our travel day tomorrow.    

We plan to travel to Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, La.  My brother and his family live in the area and so we plan to visit with them this weekend.

After Joyce got back from doing the laundry, we decided to try the highly recommended restaurant, The Shed Barbeque and Blues Joint.  

The front door, almost makes you think twice about entering!

The outside certainly doesn’t look inviting.  I noticed they had plastic up to cover the open areas from the foul weather.  They have a small outdoor stage on the other side of this mess!

The inside wasn’t very impressive either.  More of a junkyard atmosphere.  The menu claims that the owner is infamous for dumpster diving for junk!

However, the barbecue was spectacular!  Perhaps a bit pricey given the lack of ambience and the fact that the meals are served in a to-go styrofoam container with a plastic fork.  $31 for the two of us!  It appears a famous food critic , Guy Fieri from the Food Network cable T.V. show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives was at The Shed in 2008.

Across the dirt parking lot is an RV park that we decided to check out.  The friendly clerk opened the gate for us and allowed us to take a quick look around.  Definitely not our type of park!  I’ll leave it at that.

Local Drive, Shepard State Park, Bad Weather, Campsite Review Page

February 28 and March 1, 2010.

Sunday the 28th was a beautiful sunny morning.  After taking Maggie and Rico for a walk, I took out the lawn chairs and sat outside in the sun with them.  Rocky and Gloria stopped by on their way home.  Joyce made some waffles and we all sat outside and talked.  I think Gloria wants to do some camping if she can persuade Rocky to buy an RV!   We really enjoyed their company and hated to say good-bye, at least till next time!

In the afternoon, Joyce and I decided to take a drive in her car over the bridge and along the beach via US90.  

We drove through Biloxi towards Gulfport and checked out a few RV parks along the way.  None of the parks we saw, were the type that we like.  They all had small lots and were close to each other.  However, these parks exist because of the location on the beach and proximity to the casinos, so they can pack people into them.  They are not destination parks!  I would call them location parks.

Afterwards we drove west along US90 back past Ocean Springs and into Gautier Ms.  We found Ms. Shepard State Park, which was going to be our plan B if we had not been able to get into Davis Bayou. The park is 10 miles east of Davis Bayou.  The park was down a street towards the bay through a residential area.

We paid the $3 to the park manager who was working the ranger station.  We told him we were interested in checking out the campground.  He offered to give us the $3 back on the way out if we were back within 15 mins.  However, he was very nice and gave us a bunch of brochures.  He also told us that his campground has been full or nearly full for the last couple months.   Because of his friendly presentation we decided he was going to keep the $3.

We drove into the campground noting the gravel road and the fact that the sites were small and amongst the trees with lots of shade. 

The elevation through the campground was somewhat irregular.  All in all a nice campground if not just a little tight for big rigs.  However, we both concluded that we are happier with our site at Davis Bayou.

Back at home, I worked on a new feature for our blog available through Google Blogspot; pages.  Pages gives me the opportunity to have a page of my campsite reviews.  So, I decided to play with it and began working on a Campsite Review Page.  It appears the software has some bugs that need to be worked out with regard to the spacing and fonts as I struggled with it to get it to look right.  I’m still not happy with it and it continues to be a work in progress!  I also still need to add some reviews. The link is in the side bar of the blog page.

March 1, 2010.  The day started off sunny and we took the dogs for a good long walk in anticipation of rain later.  Because our site and frankly none of the sites here at Davis Bayou have sewer hook-ups, I decided to empty the gray water holding tank in our rig.   I used our gray portable tank to drain the rig’s holding tank.  Our portable tank only holds 18 gallons.  The rig’s tank holds 62 gallons.  I made a couple of trips with the portable tank pulling it by hand over to the dump station and emptying it.  I’m not at all concerned about the black/ sewer tank on our rig, as I know it will contain us for over a week and we only have a couple more days before we pull out.

Later in the day, Joyce decided to go to the mall we had driven past yesterday.  She also needed to go to a grocery store.  I stayed home with Maggie and Rico and prepared for the approaching storm. 

As the storm approached from the west, the wind picked up as the rain began to fall.  By the time Joyce got home around 4:00 it was raining pretty hard.  Later in the evening the winds were really gusting and reported to be up to 50 mph.  A few good gusts shook the rig a bit.  We tried to take the dogs out after dark to relieve themselves.  However, we didn’t get far from our rig as the fierce wind and temps in the 40’s made it too cold and formidable.

We plan to leave Wednesday, March 3rd. We were ready to leave Monday, however had planned to stay two extra days due to forecasted bad weather Monday and Tuesday.  In our lifestyle, we try to work with the weather and not against it!