Day 18 – April 21

Before we retired last night we had a visit from one of the park staff. We hadn’t been able to pay the $18 for our site yet as there was no one in the office when we went back to pay after selecting our site and he wanted a record of our name. This guy also worked in the Mississippi jail system and along with his clip board was packing a flashlight/taser combination (I don’t know how I managed to leave home without remembering to bring mine). For educational purposes only I’m sure he showed us the neat blue spark when you pushed the little button. I considered asking him to be careful where he pointed it as I belonged to a religion that frowned on dancing but thought better of it and offered him a fig newton instead.

We had heard some loud and unfriendly conversation from a nearby site that seemed to be some domestic dispute. He told us that he had already been over there and seized the alcohol and issued a warning to the husband. However the wife, who according to our taser guy had blood on her t shirt, didn’t want any trouble so he couldn’t eject them from the site. He said he would be monitoring them through the night, which offered some comfort. Maybe my neck is starting to get a little red in this southern sun but frankly I wouldn’t have been upset if taser guy had given buddy a few prophylactic zaps just for behaviour management.

We packed up without having breakfast as there was a gas bar and MacDonald’s just at the park entry and we wanted to take advantage of the wi-fi , gas up and have breakfast. Sort of an eat here and get gas stop.

We got back on the Trace and headed towards Natchez, the southern terminus of the highway. We met a couple of bikers from Asheville who were driving the Trace from Nashville. Two really friendly and funny guys who managed to smoothly accuse Ike of saying that Jane weighed 1000 lbs.

By 1:00 we had reached a trip milestone, the end of the Natchez Trace.

Goodbye to The Natchez

We stopped at an national historic site for lunch and toured the grounds of the park. There was a Taraesque mansion that was undergoing extensive exterior renovations and several outbuildings that had originally been slave quarters. The site was 80 acres and until the 1980’s had been privately owned.

Southern Splendor

The Grounds

A Southern Beauty

We crossed the Mississippi River but there were no signs of the extreme flooding further up the river we have seen on the news. We continued on secondary roads heading west but as the day wore on we were seeing few camping sites. Getting low on fuel and needing some provisions and directions we stopped in Mansfield and were given directions to a local ‘RV Park’. It was not far away and we soon pulled into the Highway 509 RV Park.

In all fairness to the following comments it was obvious as we pulled in that this ‘park’ could best be described as a mash-up of Trailer Park Boys and Duck Dynasty but it was getting late and we wanted to settle in before dark. In hindsight it would have been better to wait until dark before we pulled in. To quote Gino Vanelli, black cars look better in the shade and this trailer park definitely would have looked better in the dark.

We were told that the park was almost full as this was the park of choice for the workers at a local paper mill but that there were two adjacent sites available. Ike headed off in a golf cart with the owner to view the sites and came back to tell us that they were a bit ‘rough’ – you learn things about people when you travel with them, who knew that Ike was a master of understatement.

The owner had mentioned that they were ‘working’ on the sites. In Canadian that translates to ‘we have let a D9 Caterpillar loose on the site in an attempt to bring it to near lunar conditions’. Possibly a future space theme park is in the works. Typically when we get to a site we try and level the rigs. Jane and Ike’s LRT has levelling legs. The BRT uses a couple lengths of 2×6 under the wheels. On this site I settled for finding a spot where all the wheels were on the ground at the same time. Some strategically placed ropes and pitons inside the rig allowed us to walk around and prepare supper.

The ‘site’

We knew that only one of the sites had water so the BRT was assigned that space and was designated as the cook shack for the night. That water hook up consisted of a tap soldered to the end of a piece of pipe that appeared to have emerged of its own accord from the primordial stew at the back of the site. This is the first park we have been at that didn’t even have a picnic table so our fold up aluminum Lee Valley table was pressed into service.

Now after less than three weeks of RVing we are far from seasoned and we understand that not all locations have the same level of amenities but imagine our surprise when after setting up we discovered that there were no washrooms. At this point the Wall Mart parking lot we had passed on our way to this little piece of paradise was starting to look like a very attractive option. However after a quick scrum we decided that we would press our respective on board facilities into service for the first time.

Long term readers may recall the ‘brief’ description on Day 13 of the plumbing systems of the BRT. The LRT houses portable facilities. Up to this point our washroom/shower had been serving as general storage for beer, bedding and other detritus so a bit of reorganizing was in order. To be honest I had not even peeked under the lid of the toilet up untill then so I thought some preliminary investigation of the mechanics of the facilities was in order. Upon lifting the lid I was pleased to see that the bowl was still full of the red winter antifreeze, a testament to the tightness of the bottom seal. There are two levers on the side of the bowl, one that reads rinse and the other that reads flush.

Curious as to the difference and pushing the one that said rinse I quickly found that referred to what you have to do to your face if you push the button with the lid up. Visions of Robin Williams again flashed before me and I was thankful that I had experimented in a non toxic environment. A brief clean up of my face and the surrounding environs ensued.

We had a tasty supper of barbecued sausages and a salad followed by fresh baked cookies from the BRT’s oven and spent a pleasant evening in the entertainment lounge of the BRT with Jane and Ike. At Jane’s suggestion we agreed the only real solution to our current situation was the application of generous portions of alcohol. She proved to be right.