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.