Friday September 10th 2021

Once again the temperature was in the sixties overnight. It is nice to have good sleeping temperatures. The bright sunny sky brought the temperature up to the low eighties by mid afternoon. It was a nice weather day overall.

I explored my surroundings in the campground today trying to get my bearings. The campground is on the west side of Bay Springs Lake, but the sun sets over the water. The reason for this confusion comes from the origin of the lake and the location of the campground. Bay Springs Lake is mostly man made. As the water filled the area it filled in all the low ground. The shoreline became very irregular with many fingers of land sticking out into the lake and along the shore. The campground is located on one of those fingers. Inside the campground there are three camping loops. The loops are on high ground separated by more lake. It is sort of like little fingers of land off the bigger finger. The loop I’m in has water on three sides. When you add to the irregular land formation the twisting turning road off of the main highway, it is very difficult to stay oriented. I really want south to be north and east to be west, but it isn’t going to happen.

The lake seems to be used for all forms of water recreation. I saw water skiing, kayaking, and jet ski racing in the course of a few minutes this afternoon. Judging by some of the boats there must be good fishing too. What I didn’t see were ducks or wading birds along the shore. The amount of wildlife I’ve seen so far is surprisingly limited. A couple of squirrels and a bird or two is about it.

The campground started to fill up for the weekend late this afternoon. RVs of all types and a few tent campers have been steadily arriving. Most of the sites in this campground are better suited to smaller RVs. Probably a third of the sites are also occupied by a boat or an empty boat trailer. The occupants of the sites along the water have their boats beached along the shore. I can see the boat launch from my site. There has been a steady line of people launching their boats as soon as their RV or tent is setup on their site. The weather forecast for the weekend should make for good boating.

Thursday September 9th 2021

It was a cool start to the day. The morning temperature was in the low sixties. It was the perfect temperature to finish packing for today’s move. The peak temperature was in the low eighties with low humidity.

Most of the RVs departing the RV park today were gone by the time I pulled out. People started departing around 7AM. I held out until about eleven before hitting the road. My first stop was the gas station to fill the tank. I put in about 55 gallons of gas. That was plenty to get me 150 miles into the middle of nowhere with plenty to spare for getting back to civilization for more fuel.

My destination for today’s travel was Piney Grove Campground on Bay Springs Lake along the Tennessee-Tombigee Waterway. I departed West Memphis in Arkansas, crossed the Mississippi River into Tennessee, circled around Memphis to the south and dropped into Mississippi for a drive across the northern part of the state. Mississippi had the best roads of the journey. Once again I was not impressed with Tennessee roads. Something about the way they build highways makes for very poor transitions on and off bridges. Of all the states I traveled through, I find Tennessee roads can get my RV home bouncing worse than any other.

I arrived at the Army Corp of Engineers campground a little after 2PM. Checkout time at this campground is 3PM. There was no one at the gate to check me in or to determine if my site was available. I called the indicated number only to hear the phone inside the guard building ring until I hung up. Eventually, one of the camp hosts came by and told me to go setup and come back later to register.

It was a bit of a challenge finding my site without a map. Luckily, I had reviewed a map online when I selected my site. I had some idea how to find the site. Then my challenges really began. First I found a place to unhook my car from the motorhome. The challenge was backing into the site off of an inclined road down into a narrow site with my rear view camera giving me a blue screen of a lost video connection. I had to stop and walk around my RV home several times before I got back into the site. The rear view camera decided to come on for the last ten feet just to prove it could.

The campground is nice, but my site selection isn’t the best. I don’t really have a good satellite TV signal. The system was able to find and lock onto the satellite, but the signal strength through the trees provides very intermittent reception. I doubt there are any of the 140 sites that have good satellite reception. The tree cover is very thick. Over the air TV only provides one PBS channel. It isn’t a very reliable signal either. Cell phone service on Verizon is very weak and spotty. If this blog entry goes live on Thursday night, I had some luck getting a data connection. If it is day or more late, I had to drive to civilization to complete the post.

Wednesday September 8th 2021

Today was a cloudier version of Tuesday. It was a nice day humidity and temperature wise and the clouds broke by the end of the day. After a cool start in the sixties the high temperature for the day was in the low to mid eighties.

This is my last full day at Tom Sawyer RV Park on the Mississippi River. It was filled with a lot of miscellaneous tasks. I got the laundry done in the free machines here at the park. Unlike yesterday when the machines were always busy, I had no competition for the machines today. The only negative was the time it took to complete the drying cycle. It was over an hour. I also managed to make a grocery run to stock up for my next stop.

The Mississippi River continues to rise as the runoff from America’s Bread Basket fluctuates. The River level report indicates that the level has come up over ten feet during my stay. Along with the water level the rate of flow seems to increase. In the last couple of days lots of floating debris has been rushing past. When I arrived, there was a sandbar visible almost halfway across the river from the far shore. It is completely covered by water now. I tried to take a picture of the riverbank from roughly the sames spot every day. Here are the six pictures.

Tomorrow I’m moving about 150 miles to the east. I’ll be at an Army Corp of Engineers park on part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in northeastern Mississippi. The reviews indicate the cell reception is spotty and over the air television is limited to one PBS station. If I don’t have satellite reception I’ll be a little cutoff from the world. There is also the possibility that posting a blog entry may be delayed until I have Internet access.

Tuesday September 7th 2021

The temperature got down into the sixties again last night. It was a good sleeping temperature. I got up late at around 9AM to find my area of the campground almost empty. All of the overnight visitors and many of the people that were here when I arrived were all gone. Other areas of the RV park were still a little more populated. The vacancies were all filled by the end of the day.

Today was warmer than Monday, but the low humidity kept the day comfortable. The temperature peaked around ninety under an almost cloudless sky. The next couple of days have a similar forecast.

My mission for the day was the laundry. Someone else had the same idea. Every time I went over to the laundry facility it was in use. Unfortunately, I can’t see the laundry from my site. It is only a short walk, but the ideal solution would have been to watch for it to empty out. There are only two machines and the other patron must have done at least six loads. Once tonight’s campers arrived the competition for the two washers increased. I’ll try again tomorrow.

The river traffic along with the water level increased today. There were two or three barges passing every hour. Just before sunset the most interesting vessel of the day passed by going down river. The American Countess river boat went by. It didn’t look like it had any passengers, but they might have all been inside. I read that several river cruises had been canceled because of Hurricane Ida damage in the New Orleans area. Other cruises may have been canceled because of the COVID surge. The fall is prime season for Mississippi River cruising.

Monday September 6th 2021

Who said the weather doesn’t follow the calendar? Today is Labor Day, the unofficial start to fall and the temperature was in the sixties this morning. It is the first temperature I remember in the sixties since April or May. The humidity was low, and a wind from the north kept the bright sunny day in the eighties. This evening it was cool enough to consider adding a layer. It is forecast to get down into the sixties again tonight.

The mass departure from the campground after the holiday weekend started early. My neighbor was banging away at something around 7AM as he disconnected his fifth wheel trailer from the utilities and hooked it up to his truck. Doing it quietly wasn’t in his thought process. When he arrived on Friday he disconnected his truck from the trailer and pulled it forward into the road. He blocked two thirds of the road with the truck motor running for fifteen or twenty minutes while he leveled the trailer and hooked up the utilities. At least two other arriving RVs had to cross the grass in the campsites across the road to get by his truck. He was oblivious to it all while he setup and today he was oblivious to the noise he created while packing up. ,

It took my first walk of he day near the noon checkout time. The RV park was as empty as it has been since I arrived on Thursday. All of the departed RVs give me a little sense of abandonment even though I’m content to be here for another few days. The campground filled up again this afternoon. It is not full tonight.

Sunday September 5th 2021

The day began cloudy and dull. While I was having breakfast it started to rain. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but it was steady. The rain continued throughout the morning. The afternoon was back to cloudy and dull. Around 5PM the sun started to breakthrough the clouds. Before sunset most of the clouds had dissipated.

The clouds and rain set the moon for the day. I started reading right after breakfast and didn’t come up for air until it was time to think about eating again. I got out for a walk around 2PM and sensed that everyone in the park was in a similar relaxed state. Most everyone was inside their RVs. They weren’t away from the park. They weren’t walking around the park. They weren’t working around their RV or sitting outside watching for barges in the river. Everyone seemed to be hiding out in their RV. It was a lazy day.

With the arrival of the sun around 5PM, the residents of the park came to life. People were out walking. The dogs that had been cooped up all day with their people inside the RVs were out getting their exercise too. At the sites with a view of the river people were sitting outside.

Coincidentally the barge traffic on the river came to life with the arrival of the sun. Four different barges passed by the RV park in about half an hour. I only heard a couple go by all day until that time. Three of the barges were north bound and one smaller fuel barge was making its way down river. I took a collection of pictures of the barges as they passed.

The campground is not quite full tonight. More RVs departed this morning than Saturday and the number of new arrivals didn’t fill all the empty sites. The park is still closer to full than it was at anytime during my August stay.

Saturday September 4th 2021

The day began overcast and ended mostly clear. In between the temperature managed to climb to around ninety degrees. A strong breeze out of the south kept the heat from feeling hot. It was a beautiful day.

In yesterday’s blog entry I wrote about the low water level in the Mississippi River. On my walk today I noticed the water level is higher by a foot or two. The sand bar on the far bank is narrower and an old fuel tank that had floated down river onto the near bank was in the water today. Yesterday it was high and dry. The river level forecast for the Memphis area calls for increases every day this week. By the end of the week the level is forecast to be about six feet higher. It will still be more than twenty feet below flood stage.

The RV park was full last night. This morning many travelers departed, but by early afternoon RVs arrived to take their place. The park seems to be full tonight. Even the odd, less desirable, sites are full.

Friday September 3rd 2021

It was a bright sunny day with less humidity than would seem to be normal for this time of year. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties. The forecast calls for the weather to transition to a different pattern. Late tomorrow into Sunday has a high chance of rain.

After yesterday’s hectic travel day, I slept in this morning. For the third straight day I got up to the sound of lawn mowing. Switching parks unintentionally prolonged the agony. For some reason the sounds of lawn mowing in the RV park continues to annoy me.

I walked around the campground a couple of times today for exercise. On each walk I noticed a few things that have changed since I was here at the beginning of August. The park staff has continued to do maintainable on the roads and sites. Some new gravel and crushed stone has been spread in several areas. The biggest difference I noticed was in the river level. The Mississippi River is quite a bit lower than it was last month. The river level is constantly changing based on precipitation and snow melt levels in all of the areas of the river basin. The basin for the Mississippi is just about the entire region between the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Appalachian Mountains in the east. The river level forecast calls for the level to be higher next week.

The traffic on the river seemed to be low today. It may be do to the holiday weekend, or it might be because Hurricane Ida caused the river to be closed to Navigation at New Orleans. It was only opened to New Orleans today. Earlier in the week it was closed at Baton Rouge. The river south of New Orleans is still in bad shape with grounded runaway barges and other obstacles to navigation. Most of the traffic I saw today was near nightfall. Several smaller fuel barges passed along the river in front of the RV park.

The RV park seems to be full tonight. I saw a couple of empty sites on my last walk around, but they weren’t desirable sites. I suspect they are the last sites assigned. Some of tonight’s residents will probably leave in the morning, but other travelers will likely fill the voids.

Thursday September 2nd 2021

The day began cloudy and ended in bright sunshine. The cloudy start kept the temperature under control. It didn’t reach the high eighties until late afternoon.

This mornings cool temperatures were ideal for packing up to move. With less than 150 miles to travel and a late (3PM) checkout time, I planned to depart around noon. My gradual pace to getting ready had me right on schedule to pull off my site at noon, but then an unexpected wrinkle arrived. At noon people started to arrive for lunch in the day use area. I planned to use the day use parking area to hook up my towed car. Just as I started my motorhome, three or four cars arrived. They parked well away from each other. They spread out just enough to occupy the sixty feet or so of space I needed to hook up. My other options weren’t great. Since I wasn’t in a hurry I waited until the lunch break was over. I was on the road just after 1PM.

Traffic on Interstate 40 heading east was just as bad as last weeks west bound trek. There was a continuous line of trucks in both lanes. In this kind of traffic I find a truck that is traveling around sixty five and keep pace. When it passes other vehicles, I pass them as well. If it decides to sit behind traffic, I sit behind traffic. The alternative requires too many lane changes, acceleration and braking. The road surface and number of vehicles on the road doesn’t support that behavior.

I arrived at Tom Sawyer RV park about 3:30PM. There were four other RVs checking in at the same time. They have a no contact check in process. All of the details are handled on the phone before you arrive. Check in is picking up and envelope with your name and site number from a board outside the office building. I was setup by 4:30PM. The tugs and barges on the Mississippi River should keep me entertained for the holiday weekend. I’ll be here for a week.

Wednesday September 1st 2021

Today’s weather surprised me. I was expecting a repeat of Tuesday’s weather. Either the forecast was wrong or I just didn’t understand the weather talker. Today was warmer and more humid than yesterday. Little Rock broke 100 degrees for the first time this year. It was a little cooler here on the river. It probably peaked around ninety eight. There were also a couple of hours in the middle of the afternoon with short cloud bursts of rain. None of the showers lasted more than a couple of minutes and during some the sun was still shinning.

Most of my time today was dedicated to catching up on chores. The sink had started to fill up with dishes and other clutter had accumulated both inside and out. I got those tasks complete and did a few more things in preparation for moving tomorrow. I’m traveling about 150 miles back to the Mississippi River. I was lucky enough to get a site for the Labor Day holiday weekend at Tom Sawyer’s RV park where I was at the beginning of August.

Today’s impromptu entertainment was a fishing boat race on the river. A couple of young adults with aluminum fishing boats with oversize motors were racing up and down the river in front of the campground. The weight of the motors and driver kept the rear of the boat only a few inches from the water line and the front high out of the water. It was noisy and probably not very safe, but they were having fun. It seems to be a regular occurrence. They were racing another evening earlier in my stay. Ironically this evening I saw a guy fishing from a jet ski. Talk about cross purposes.