Sunday, February 15th — I am very happy to be back online after several days with a virus in my website, and very grateful to our future son-in-law for helping me take care of the issue! I’m not sure what joy people get from messing with other people’s property, physical and/or intellectual, but I’m happy that the intrusion wasn’t more destructive. I’m equally happy and very blessed that we have someone in the family who is a social media / PC / software / gadget guru, so thanks to Kyle, I can post once again! I do have a couple of posts that I wrote off-line, and I’ll get those up later today when we touch down in Vicksburg, Mississippi. That’s my virus story, and it segues into my cold tale….
For the last three nights we have been staying in an RV park just a bit south of Memphis, which around here they call the Mid-South. We figured that as long as we are this close to another national park – Hot Springs National Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas – we would leave here and head a bit north to Little Rock for a night or two, then drive an hour south and west from there to Hot Springs. I even had a spa appointment made for us in the baths at Hot Springs on Wednesday. But then we saw the weather forecast…! It seems the Mid-South is going to get freezing rain and snow starting tonight, and Little Rock / Hot Springs is right smack dab in the middle of the winter weather advisory. And while we really feel for our family up in Illinois and Wisconsin, friends back up in Chicago, and Cousin Aleta outside the Boston area, and we know we shouldn’t be complaining, we have gotten soft on winters. So these days where the highs are only in the 40’s and the lows are down in the 20’s are, as my grandma used to say, “for the birds!”
Fortunately, this gypsy lifestyle of ours here in our motorhome allows us to be pretty darn flexible, and if ever there was a time to take advantage of such flexibility, it is today! Around 10 o’clock this morning as we were ready to head out, we had a quick pow wow and decided that instead of heading north and driving right into that crappy weather, we were going to head south. Just like that. A right turn heading south instead of a left turn heading north.
As I type this post, Fred is driving Charley south on Highway 55 with a destination of southern Mississippi; about three hours south of where we were this morning. While we were driving, I cancelled our RV park reservations in Little Rock for tonight and tomorrow night; the lady completely understood our desire to stay out of the incoming inclement weather and cheerfully cancelled our stay. I cancelled our hot springs soak for Wednesday, but know we’ll ultimately be back up there to visit. I called and made reservations for the next three nights in Vicksburg – home to Vicksburg National Military Park, and more importantly, about 15 degrees warmer than Little Rock for the next three days. And then, just because we have the flexibility and are now nearby, I just booked us four nights in an RV park in the French Quarter of New Orleans! If anyone out there also has flexibility and wants to come stay with us this coming weekend in NOLA, give us a shout – we will be happy to be out of the cold weather and welcome you to join us!
