Almost there

I left Tom Sawyer RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas, early this morning with a plan to drive about 300 miles further on my journey south.  We started in Arkansas, but were shortly driving through Memphis, Tennessee.  Memphis on I-55 always puckers me up some because of their low underpasses.  I always end up deeply inhaling and crunching down in the driver’s seat as we go under those 13’ 11” passes.  Not that it does any good, but I just can’t help it.  My rig is just about 13’ 6” tall, and I always worry those roads overhead have sagged some…

Then it was on to a couple of hundred miles in Mississippi.  I have nightmares about my last stop outside of Jackson, MS, at Swinging Bridge Campground, so today’s plan was to head over to Louisiana on I-20 at Jackson.  To get to I-20, I took I-220 to the west.  OMG!  What a horrible road that is.  I drive at 57 mph, and I just can’t understand why anyone would do this road at the posted 70 mph limit.  It’s in terrible condition, and I found myself levitating above my seat because of the severe dips almost constantly.  Amazingly, all cabinets and drawers stayed closed during this harrowing section.  Thankfully, once I got on I-20 the road smoothed out, and I was able to unclamp my white-knuckled hands from the steering wheel and get some feeling back into them.

By 3:00, I was pulling into Poverty Point Reservoir State Park in Delhi, Louisiana.  I’ll post more about this park tomorrow.

Yesterday while I was enjoying a day of no travel and rest, Emma and I spent time watching the barges pass by on the Mississippi River.  We also took a couple of walks.  One of them was to see the ‘tree house’.  It’s a ways back from the river and affords an elevated view of the Mississippi after you walk up a couple of ramps.

There are several wooden benches carved out of trees on the deck surrounding the tree house.  Don’t know what this is used for, but there’s electricity up there, and a fridge and bar looking area inside.  Maybe things happen there during the summer?

                                                   It’s kind of neat how it really is a tree house.

Inside you can see where the high water mark was with the flooding of the river a couple of years ago.  That was pretty sobering.

Here’s a shot from the deck of the tree house of the motorhome sites in the campground.  That’s the Mighty Mississippi on the far side of the rigs.  It seems like the river was quite low at this time of the year.  The far side is all sand.  Just made me think about how the water can rise in the spring to a point higher than I was standing.

I’ve paid for two nights at Poverty Point State Park.  Tomorrow, Emma and I will hop in the toad and drive the 75 miles or so to Bayou Cocodrie NWR to get the lay of the land.  If possible, I like to drive to my refuges where I’ll be staying in the car first before bringing the rig.  Sometimes that has saved me from getting into some real pickles with the big rig towing the car.  Since I’ll be their first ever RV volunteer, I want to feel comfortable with what approach I’ll make to get into the site.  Maybe it will be a snap, but I’ve run into situations with low hanging power lines, or dead ends with no place to turn around.  I’d rather check it out first to avoid the stress of challenging situations.

So, I’m almost there.  I’ll be more than happy to settle in on Tuesday, at last!

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy