Back to Texas -- KY/TN/MS/LA leg

We left Caesar's Creek Thursday morning.  Kind of dreary and rainy.

Arrived at Elizabethtown Camping Center around 3p ET.  Park was OK, town attached to it was pretty neat.  Lots of shopping choices, restaurants, etc.  Even though it was an overnight stop, we'd come back here to do a little exploring.

Friday morning we left for one of a few familiar stops on this trip -- Two Rivers Campground in Nashville.  Started a theme question of "how many times have we been here?"  I'll get to that in a bit.

 Got there early enough on Friday to settle in then catch the shuttle down to Broadway.  Can't remember being down there on Friday night, but it was hopping.  Really couldn't bar hop a lot because most were full.  We did get dinner at Margaritaville, a few pops at Bailey's Sports Bar and Two Fiddles.  Like always, we had a great time, saw some good bands, and great people watching.

Took the girls out to a great dog park in Nashville, Two Rivers Dog Park.  It's huge, and a great place to exercise not only your dogs, but yourself.

Saturday evening, we went to the Embassy Suites in Cool Springs to watch the Buckeyes play Nebraska in the company of the Middle Tennessee Ohio State Alumni Club.  Great group of folks, food was good, outcome of the game solid.

 

 Sunday we left for another of our favorite spots:  Tom Sawyer's Mississippi River RV Park, in West Memphis, Arkansas.  This stop was designed for a relaxing time, and it was just that.  Did our laundry, some grocery shopping, caught up on work and watched many, many barges work the river.

Stayed 3 nights here and just relaxed.

Wednesday we were off to Vicksburg, MS and another familiar park, Ameristar Casino RV Park the first of two straight Casino Camping experiences. 

 

We started chatting about being to this park before, and indeed upon some research, this was our third time.  Got us to digging so that we could figure how many nights we've stayed where.  Started doing the legwork on that, and we're good back to 2013.  Going to work on 2011 and 2012 when I get the chance and publish it.

Looked for restaurants to go to as neither of us felt like cooking.  Ended up going to the 10 South Rooftop Bar and Grill, located on top of a bank building 10 stories above the Yazoo River.  What a view!  

Final stop on this leg was in Bossier City, LA.  Previously we stayed at the KOA, but this time we decided to try Diamond Jack's RV Park.

Had a little drama getting here.  Missed the turn and tried to get turned around in a neighborhood.  Bad idea.  Streets were tight, and fell off into ditches.  Balked at each of the corners until I got to the end of the street and had no choice.  Tried turning left, didn't like it.  Some of the neighbors came out to help guide me.  Tried turning right, and while I was keeping the truck out of the ditch, the rig started down -- like the jack touched the road.  Not good at all.  Got it backed up, straightened up and tried turning left again and this time we got it done.  Shook some things up in the rig, some of the cowling at the hitch that were broken from our very first unhitching broke, but otherwise, we could have been a lot worse off.

Decided to splurge and do the Casino's Seafood Buffet featuring Crab Legs.  I'll leave you with that.

Treatment day and we entertain Tucker...

Wednesday (June 5th) was a treatment day for Connie.  A double header with both Herceptin and Zometa.  A little tired on Wednesday, she was really zonked Thursday & Friday, rallied a little on Saturday and felt pretty decent today (Sunday).  We've got some big tests on Tuesday.  Her first MRI and Cat scans since she was diagnosed at the end of February.  This should give us some assessment as to how the treatments are going.  I know she's both excited and nervous about them.

The weather has been miserable.  Today was the first day we've broken 70 and actually seen the sun.  We ran the furnace every morning this week.  Yuck.  Not helping Connie feel better, thats for sure.

Thursday, our daughter Bethany came over to Ashtabula and stayed the night.  I have to talk about a great pork chop recipe I made for the three of us, and our friend Lenny who came over.

Started with a layer of peeled (I hate peeling apples, thank goodness Bethany was up for it) apples.  Cover them with brown sugar and some garlic.

Next, layer the apples with thinly sliced onions.


Then, take 3-4 slices of bacon and wrap 1" thick pork chops.  Place them on top of the apples/onion layers.

Cooked those at 375 for 20 minutes in our convection oven, then flipped them for another 20 minutes.  Delish doesn't start to describe them!

As I mentioned, our daughter Bethany came over Thursday and stayed till Friday morning (we had donuts for the first time in forever!!!) and left her baby with us as they were headed south for a wedding and 1st baby birthday of some of their friends.

Tucker has been mentioned before in this blog.  He's a Puggle, and he's all boy.  Our girls, especially Carmen, love having the big lug around.  He's got a ton of energy, and when he finally expends some, he's a terrific dog.  Huge bark, though.  Huge.

He's also used to getting up with his daddy at 5:30a.  We didn't break him of that, we adjusted.  Dark that early.  As I said, when he expends his energy, he's really good.

Took him to the Ashtabula Dog Park with Carmen and they REALLY had a great time.  Tucker was faster in the straight aways, but Carmen had some jukes that made him barrel roll.  45 minutes of pure doggie enjoyment, just the two of them in a big open field.  Shot some video, but it was really too quick to be enjoyable.

Spent a little time over at Lenny's on Saturday, too.  His big girl, 'Dessa (an 11 year old German Sherpherd), wasn't too fond of Tucker.  A little too much energy, and then, there's the bark.  She's already made her thoughts known to Carmen and Sloopy.

Carmen and Tucker are really BFF's.  They play, they wrestle, they snuggle.  Sloopy can take him or leave him, but then again, its a pretty well established fact that she's a diva.

We took Tucker back home today to the West Side of Cleveland, and stopped over to see our friends Don and April (who have 3 cockers) who live on the southeast side.  I think Carmen was OD'd on dogs that were not her sister.  We had a great time, spent a couple of hours with the sun was finally out and we could sit on their back porch and just talk.  Very relaxing.

Keep piling on me, I can handle it.....

What should have been stress free, relaxing Saturday has turned into anything but.

Spent the morning on the phone with either Curascript, the Doctor's Office and Xpress Scripts trying to get some answers.  Apparently, when the doctor placed the order for Xeloda (the chemo) with Curascript, she also placed an order for Ondansetron.  Xeloda was approved by insurance, but the Ondansetron was a quantity the insurance wouldn't allow.  Since they were both on the same order, no can do.  We get nothing and (try to) like it.  Furthering the complications are the doctors are all on spring break.

Let's go relax and take the dogs to the local Dog Park.

Nothing we can do about the meds, so we'll try and control what we can control.  

Why is the "check engine" light on in the truck?  Got to be kidding me.  Took it to O'Reilly's for diagnostics and there's an issue with the glow plug circuits in cylinder #3.  Sensational.  Reading the forums, there either has or hasn't been a recall for this.  So, we'll have something to do on Monday now which should have been another day off.

Rains it pours.  The park is going to have a cook out this afternoon, then we're going to check out the Oyster Fest.

Our friends Fred and Vickie are supposed to be pulling in with their MH later tomorrow.

Roughing it.....

As we mentioned a few posts ago, our fridge started fritzing a couple of weeks ago.  This past Friday (at 4p as everyone is closing), she went.  Out.  Done.

First appointment would be Tuesday in Rockport (about 20 miles from Sea Breeze RV Resort) at 10a.  <sigh>.  We had to rough it.  Threw us back to our houseboating days on Lake Cumberland in Kentucky, where 12-16 of us had to pack everything into a big marine cooler for the week.  The park was kind enough to let us use some freezer space, some friends let us borrow some coolers and it was on.

Got through the weekend, and was reminded of the M*A*S*H episode where it was decided that the "M" stood for mobile and they were going to bug out -- across the road.  Thankfully, we got to Camper Clinic at around 9:30a (in some horrible winds) and the tech said "we'll have you back on the road in 15 minutes."  Terrific!  Wrong, but terrific hope!

Because it was a warranty issue, the tech was going back and forth with Norcold making sure it wasn't this, or wasn't that.  There were magnets involved, checks and more checks.  We had a great time checking out all the BigHorns on the lot and REALLY liked the Landmark Key Largos.  Always fun to see the new models even if we're not in the market.

By 10:50a, we left to go out for lunch.  Sonic Drive-In is a great place if you have dogs to eat on the road.  Afterwards, we visited the Rockport Dog Park.  It was terrific.  No dogs in the "little dog" park, so we hopped over to the "big dog" park where we saw a fascinating Springer Spaniel that had lost a leg and was just as fast as Carmen and Sloopy.  Such a great site to see this 3 legged dog running everywhere.  Then, the owner from hell showed up with her dog muzzled and on a 3 ft. leash.  She wouldn't take her dog off leash (which just frustrated the hell out of him) because she was afraid of our "little dogs" along with a little Scottie.  Amazing.  Time to go.

Got back to Camper Clinic at around 12:30p and she was all done! Running on propane (since we weren't hooked to shore power).  Got back to Sea Breeze RV park, plugged in and the fridge console said "AC no".  Would ONLY run on propane.

Called Camper Clinic back, was on hold for 15 minutes, got a service person who said, "well bring it back in".  Wrong answer.  Finally got her to relent and put the technician who worked on our unit on the phone.  Sure something either jiggled or came unplugged.

"Oh, I forgot to plug the AC back into the board!"  OK, let's do that.  "Reach in there and feel around...."  not what we wanted to hear.  Sure enough Bob got shocked before we turned the breaker off.  Found the cord, got it plugged in and we returned to the land of refrigerated food.

Day at the Dog Park

Today was a good day to get "the girls" stretched out, so we took them to the Frisco Dog Park, 'where people meet people and dogs have fun'.

Sloopy had the most fun as there were some teens 'trying' to play soccer with her, and she was winning.  The park had a bit of a slope that she could negotiate at a full sprint, that the two leggers couldn't quite handle in the down hill mode.  As you can see, the next few hours were spent "recovering".

Settling in to Big D

Getting settled in at the Dallas Arlington KOA here in Arlington, Texas.  Park had a bit of bad luck as soon as we got here.  A transformer back by us blew (it was a great light show for a while) and it was until Thursday at noon until we regained power.  Thursday morning, a pipe in the water broke up by the front of the park and it was connected to the rest of the park, so no water until around 6p.  Those things happen (usually not in the same day!) which is why you a) have a generator and b) keep water in your holding tank.  Check and check.

Nice having a bark park again, it's been since the Indianapolis KOA.  We were here about three years ago and since then, they've partitioned off for a large dog and small dog park.  Our "girls" prefer to run with the big dogs and they got to yesterday with a beautiful Alaskan Husky, Dakota.

Hopefully, last night was a low mark on the temperatures.  Got down into the low 30's with a freeze warning.  Warming up the rest of the weekend, which is welcomed.

Lessons I'm Learning from the Dog Parks

Not everyone knows how to raise a dog.  Our dog is by no means "well trained", and often has some bad leash aggression.

Sloopy & a park full of Beasties

That being said, she loves the dog park.  You can water ski behind her if she thinks she's going there.  She will figure out every possible way to get there and lead you there on a walk.

I'm learning some clues, though, when it's best to not take her in there.  We're a big Dog Whisperer fan, and if you know who "Cesar" is, you know what I mean.  He is constantly talking about owners who transfer their fears through their leash.  I'm getting to the point that if I see someone leash there dog at the sight of ours coming into the park, I'm not going in there.  They don't have a clue and there's no sense in trying, in the short time we're in there, to change their mind.

Sloopy & Misha

Dogs work things out, and dog parks are wonderful examples of that when owners can take a deep breath and let dogs play, sniff, and pee everywhere.  It's what they do.

Sloopy & Lola

The other thing is certain breeds with "their" balls.  If I see a Jack Russell in the park doing retrieves with their owner, I'm out.  Those little guys are incredibly possessive, and our poor little Boston just sees "a" ball, not "their" ball.  That took two times of her getting scraped up by those little maniacs to learn that lesson.

Dog Parks are two things, the dogs and their owners.  Make sure you can get a feel for them both before you put your baby at risk.