Air You Can Wear

Can it possibly get any hotter!  It was really hot coming across Alabama and Mississippi.  I about stroked out changing those blowouts in the middle of the day.  But since getting to Livingston it has only gotten hotter.  In these few days that we have been waiting for jury duty to start, the temperature has reached epic highs.  The actual temperature has peaked at 110 several times.  And with near biblical rains in this area for the past few months everything is soaking wet, raising the humidity levels to the point that the heat index has been topping out between 115 and 118 degrees.  The air is so thick you don't breath it, you wear it.

Our 5th wheel RV has two of the largest air conditioners you can have on an RV at 15,000 BTU's a piece.  But they can't begin to keep up with this kind of heat.  The temperature in the rig rises steadily with the sun, staying roughly 20 degrees below outside ambient.  So when it hits 110 outside we're running almost 90 degrees inside.  Not comfortable.  We spend our afternoons in the truck running errands for things we don't need at places with good air conditioning.

To top off the heat, Cyndee has come down with strep throat.  We located a doc-in-a-box and to our surprise the doctor said that Cyndee was her fourth case of strep that day!  Pretty amazing given that it's the middle of summer.  What's going on in Livingston?

And we learned something.  Shop around for medicine, the differences between pharmacies for the same medicine can be huge.  We spent $60 at one national chain and learned later that it would have been only $10 for the same thing at another one.

Jury duty time has arrived.  The little burg of Livingston, population 5,335, has a history that dates back to 1835.  Despite its diminutive size, it is the county seat of Polk County and had a courthouse built befitting the position.

Polk County Courthouse.
This one built in 1924

But oddly enough, no court proceedings are held in the courthouse.  Instead, all judicial proceedings are held in the relatively new (built in 2011) Polk County Judicial Center directly behind the old courthouse.

Polk County Judicial Center

Not being in the old building with questionable environmental control was great as far as we were concerned.  We would be happy to be in a modern structure with the latest in air conditioning technology.  But were we ever surprised to pass through the metal detectors in the entrance and be greeted by stale hot air being blown around by a hastily assembled conflagration of fans.  It seems that one of the thunderstorms that came through over the weekend had knocked out the electronic controllers for the roof top unit that cooled the courtrooms.  Ugh.

All the jurors, about 100 of us, were assembled in a single room and given the preliminary rundown, culling out those that were ineligible to serve and hearing the pleas of those wishing to be excused.  All were hunting for anything they could find to fan themselves with.  There were a lot of red faces and everyone's hair was wet with sweat.  We were then divided into two groups, about 40 a piece, and sent to respective courtrooms for further winnowing for the actual trials.  Cyndee and I were sent to the same courtroom.  Looking like we are going to be co-jurors.

The judge introduced the case to the jury pool, a lawsuit, and then turned the lawyers loose to question each of us for suitability for the job.  That's when it got a little strange.  The lawyer representing the two gentlemen bringing the lawsuit began, what appeared to us, an argument for the prosecution of the case.  Now mind you, the trial had not started, this was just jury selection.  And he was not exactly a smooth talker either.  Maybe it was the being sick from strep or the heat or a combination of both but this lawyer's approach flew all over Cyndee and when the lawyer made the mistake of asking each of us if we had any problems with anything we had heard, Cyndee let loose and there was no one in the room that didn't know that she had a problem with that lawyer.  Guess who got excused from jury duty.  Guess who didn't.

A bright spot in the day was lunch.  Jury selection ran right up to lunch so Cyndee and I were able to eat together.  We chose to try out the Whistle Stop Cafe just across the street from the courthouse.











They had typical Texas home cooking - meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, etc.  But I chose the Texasist home cooking of all, chicken fried steak.

Lunch was over too soon.  I headed back to the hot courthouse and Cyndee headed for the hot camper.  But we were in court only a short time when the judge said it was clear that the trial was going to last more than one day and that we would adjourn and begin again tomorrow.  I think he was not too happy with the plaintiff's lawyer either, or the heat.  Since we only have one vehicle Cyndee had taken it home so I was afoot.  I called Cyndee to come back and get me.  If it had not been so hot it would have been nice waiting in the gazebo on the courthouse lawn.

Deep Recliner Sitting

You know, sometimes you just don't want to do anything.  We had been on duty seven days a week as volunteers for Chattahoochee Bend State Park for 14 months and then nearly a week long, nerve wracking, excruciatingly hot trip from Georgia to Texas.  We wanted some down time and decided to take it.  Both of us got in our recliners, kicked back and catnapped almost all day.

There were a couple of moments of lucidness where phone calls were made.  We inquired about how to volunteer for jury duty and learned to our surprise that they seat juries only on the second Monday of every month, and that was four days ago.  But for some strange reason they had a heavy court schedule this June and would be seating a jury on the third Monday also.  All we needed to do was to show up.

The Rainbow's End Escapee Park has a lot of amenities and features.  There's a clubhouse, pool, onsite insurance agency, and mail service to name a few.  They also have a facility called CARE, it's a place you can park your rig while recuperating from surgery or long-term illness.  They provide three meals a day, shuttle you to doctors appointments or grocery shopping, do light housekeeping and even walk the dog if you can't.

We are signing up for their SmartWeigh service.  It is a precision weighing system that weighs every single wheel position independently.  Weighing in this manner lets you determine load balance in the trailer as well as accurate weights on the truck axles plus all the calculated weights for gross vehicle weight and gross combined vehicle weight.  With the tire troubles we have had I want to get an accurate weight on each wheel to see if I have a load problem.

Whew, I'm exhausted.  It's back to deep recliner sitting for me.

Skipping NOLA

Okay, here we go.  It's a new day, we have two new tires, new brake lines and all new brake fluid.  We are hitched up and about to depart Campgrounds of the South at just a little after 7:00 am.  Our destination is not even an hour away but there is a lot of anxiety about getting back on the highway given our break-down history of the last two days.  We'll get there way before check-in time but we'll be off the road before the asphalt exceeds 120 degrees.  We have learned that our make of tire may be sensitive to hot pavement, hence the comment about asphalt temperature.

Happily the drive is going flawlessly as we approach our exit but as we talk about it neither of us feels much like doing the tourist thing in New Orleans.  We've already lost the two days we had planned on spending in NOLA and even though there is no schedule carved in stone for being in Livingston, TX, we would just as soon get there and get on with the things we need to do there.  With each mile that passes without issue our anxiety fades a little so we roll on past our planned exit and set our sights on Livingston.  Mother nature is helping, we've got cloud cover and intermittent rain so the temperatures are not skyrocketing.

A little after 1:00 in the afternoon we pull into Rainbow's End RV Park, an Escapees member's park.  We are Escapees members and this is our home park.  It is our legal domicile as well.  This is where our mailing address is, our driver licenses issued, registered to vote and serve jury duty.

In fact, jury duty is one of the components of coming home.  We have both had multiple jury summons' but we have always been in some remote location.  In fact, not a single summons made it to us less than a week past the date we were to show up for jury selection.  But Polk county is very familiar with Escapees and each time we have called in they have said ;"No problem, just stop in and volunteer then next time you are in town."  And that is just what we are doing.

The office assigned us a site number and we drove around to it to back in.  But despite telling the person behind the desk that we would be staying for up to a month and would prefer a site that did not have trees that would block the satellite dish, we found ourselves assigned to a site that was so covered in trees that we could not even get under the branches.  So we got out and walked around scouting out sites that would work, found a good one and went back to the office and got reassigned.  By this time the skies had cleared and the heat and humidity had come on strong.  But this was just a hint of what was to come.

Escapee Parks are typically grass and gravel operations for the campsites.
Some interior roads are paved, but not always.

We had made the six hour run between Gulfport, MS and Livingston, TX without any mechanical issues, an encouraging sign but there is still the need to figure out why we are going through tires so fast on the trailer.  With these last two blow-outs we have now replaced all six positions in less than four years.  Some of them twice!  I settled in for some deep research on these Goodyear Marathons.

Unscheduled Stop, Gulfport, Mississippi

It has been awhile since my last post, again.  Things have been hopping and getting online has been a challenge.  But to pick up where I last left off, the people that we engaged to repair the damaged brake lines did a bucks up job.

They showed up the next day as scheduled and got the damaged brake lines removed and off to a local shop that can custom make new lines on the spot.  That was the key to success for this job.  It would have been easy enough to remove the damaged lines myself and order replacements from the manufacturer.  But that would have been days, if not weeks waiting for the parts to get to me.  These repair guys shortened the job to a few hours.  The hardest part was purging about 25 feet of brake line and six calipers.

It was mid-afternoon by the time everything was buttoned up and ready to go but it was horrible hot, plus we were a little gun-shy about having a problem on the road.  That brought us to the decision to stay put until the next morning when it would be cooler, and more importantly, would have access to open businesses if something else did happen.

Well, since we are "stuck" in Gulfport, Mississippi we are obligated to go to the beach aren't we?  I think it is a law or something.  The sun is not setting until after 8:00pm but shadows are getting long so we hustle out of the campground (which is pressed against I-10) and head south.  It is still unbelievably hot and Big Gulp's A/C is going full blast as we approach the beach community.

Like Gulf Shores (see post), Gulfport had been severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, but fortunately a number of the old, pre-1900 buildings weren't completely wiped off the face of the earth.  Gulfport has also been spending considerable effort restoring and building back their waterfront.  It looks great.

We got to the beach just as the light of day was beginning to fail.  The crowds had gone and the sand was left to itself to give up the heat it had been absorbing all day.  A stiff on-shore breeze was blowing and the warm waters of the gulf were saturating the air.

It almost got dark before we made it to the beach.
We had the last light of day all to ourselves.

We are going to get an early start in the morning so after just a little bit of looking around we got back to the RV and got it configured for traveling.  The trip should be really short, Mandeville, Louisiana is less than an hour away.