Tuesday August 17th 2021

It was another partly cloudy day with a high temperature a little warmer than Monday. The temperature peaked around ninety with plenty of humidity. The forecast calls for more scattered showers over the next couple of days.

Today was mowing day around the resort. This morning around 8AM the sound of a gas powered trimmer filtered in through my bedroom window. The sound kept getting louder until I could see the operator out the window only a few feet away. It’s not the best way to start the day. On the positive side, it did get me out of bed at a decent hour. While I was having breakfast the guy was back on the lawn mower creating even more noise. Three hours or so later he was back with a blower to clean the cut grass off the cement. The sound of lawn mowing in RV parks and campgrounds really gets on my nerves. For some reason, I want to go away and hide until the mowing is over. I have to admit it looks nice when they are done.

Finding a place to stay this weekend got the better of me today. I decided to stay here another week to give me a little more lead time. This is an OK place, but if you aren’t spending a lot of time in the casinos, there isn’t a lot to do. I haven’t been in the casino in the five nights I’ve been here. With another week here, I’ll probably make a visit or two. I’ll also get out and drive through the cotton and corn fields that fill the ground between the casinos looking for interesting things to do.

My neighbor seems to represent the average visitor to this RV park. They stay a couple of nights and visit the casinos from late in the afternoon until late at night. I’m sure it includes a nice meal during the visit. In the case of my neighbor they make a lot of noise when they return.

Monday August 16th 2021

It was partly cloudy with a gentle breeze most of the day. The temperature peaked in the mid eighties. To the north, in the direction of Memphis, there was a lot more cloud cover. The TV news reported that there rain showers in the Memphis area. Just before sunset the sky to the north went from cloudy and gray to dark black. The weather that had lingered to the north all day was approaching this area. As I’m writing this blog entry it has been raining for about half an hour.

Weather is one of the reasons I’m here. Tropical systems Fred and Grace constrained my travel while they figured out where and when they were going to hit land. My intent is to move north and east from this area. As of last Friday, Fred was going to hit somewhere from the Florida Big Bend to Bilox Mississippi and Grace might follow it a few days later. I didn’t want to move right into their paths so I extended my stay here until the middle of the week.

Fred made landfall this afternoon near Panama City Florida. Its northbound path will take it through eastern Alabama, western Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Most likely I wouldn’t have been far enough east to be in the worst of the storm, but why take the chance. Grace currently has a more westerly path that takes it toward Mexico. The newest storm is in the Atlantic east of the Carolinas and isn’t expected to have any impact on the mainland USA.

My next issue is finding a place to go from here. Once again I’m having a difficult time finding a place for the weekend. One of my options is extending here through this coming weekend and work on a reservation for the weekend eleven days out through the holiday weekend to follow. I need to step out of the box and broaden my search criteria. This whole summer I haven’t had a good handle on travel planning and reservations.

Saturday August 14th 2021

Today was an overcast day with a lower high temperature than the days during the last week. The high temperature was in the mid eighties. The forecast threat of thunderstorms never materialized.

The casinos in the area seem to be a little busier this weekend than two weeks ago. The parking lot for Sam’s Town has more cars in it. When I walked over to the casino area there were people entering and leaving the casino. Last time I was here there was nobody going in and out. Judging by the traffic on the road the Hollywood Casino across the street was even more active. As I recall, it is a slightly bigger facility.

The RV park has a few more occupants for the weekend than it did Thursday night, but it is not very busy. There are about 15 rigs in the park. It is about a quarter full. The middle of the summer is not the best time of year to visit this area of the Mississippi Delta. You can only look at so many green cotton plants or fields of corn.

Friday August 13th 2021

Nothing bad happened today despite it being Friday the Thirteenth. Instead, the weather pattern changed. The day began warm and sticky, but it changed as the day continued. Around 2PM the sound of thunder could be heard all around except maybe the south. The sky to the west, north and east was black with clouds along with an occasional lightening flash. It continued that way for a couple of hours before the storms seemed to take an interest in my immediate area. Around 4PM in became windy and some rain started to fall. Overall it was anticlimactic. It never rained hard and it was all over by 4:30PM. The sky to the north and west remained very dark for the rest of the daylight hours.

I finally got to watch the local news this morning. I’ve been busy with other things the last few days. One of the stories I heard might be the reason for the difficulty I had finding a campsite for the weekend. This weekend is the annual celebration of Elvis Presley. His death occurred on August 16, in 1977. There are a lot of events in Memphis, particularly at his Graceland home. The event was seriously cut back last year, so it is attracting additional attention this year. It’s not something that I’m interested in attending.

Today was a slow day. It was an inside air conditioning supported day. I spent most of my time reading, watching TV and wandering through topics on the Internet. Most of my days here are likely to be similar. There are not a lot of things I’m interested in doing in this area. One good reason to stay here is that I’m west of the projected path of the latest tropical system heading north along the Florida west coast.

Thursday August 12th 2021

My focus this morning was on getting packed and ready to move on to my next stop. All the activity replacing my coach battery yesterday didn’t allow me to get a head start on the packing. I had plenty of time before the noon checkout, but it would have been nice to complete some of the tasks in the cooler evening hours.

With only fifty miles to travel I was aiming to leave as close to the noon checkout as I could. On the other hand I was anxious about the success of my battery replacement. The RV engine cranked and started fine at 11AM. Everything seemed to work fine as I brought in the slide rooms and raised the leveling jacks. Once I had the car hooked up to the back I was underway by 11:40AM. I didn’t have any issues on my trip south to Tunica Mississippi. For now, I’m calling the battery replacement a success.

I’m back at the RV Park at Sam’s Town Casino. It has nice sites and is relatively inexpensive, but more important, it has sites available. I was having difficulty finding a site for the weekend at a couple of the other places I tried. I’ll be here until the beginning of next week. I’m not sure what’s going on in Tennessee to fill up the campgrounds. School started this week so I would expect more availability rather than less.

Wednesday August 11th 2021

The heatwave continues in the Memphis area. The TV weather talkers continue to warn about a heat index around 107 degrees. As long as you stay out of the direct sun it really doesn’t seem that bad. The forecast calls for the system to break on Friday.

Today’s task was replacing the starting battery in my RV home. Yesterday I got some supplies and verified that it wasn’t just loose connections. This morning while the sun was shining on the other side of the rig, I got the old battery disconnected and out of the motorhome. A trip into West Memphis to the Advanced Auto Parts store resulted in a new Diehard battery. I waited until near 6PM this evening for the sun to get low enough in the sky placing the front of the motorhome in the shade once more before completing the replacement. Everything seems to be OK. I was able to start the motorhome after replacing the battery. I still have concerns associated with the strange way things worked and didn’t work on Monday. It is always possible that the real problem is in the charging circuit or one of the many relays isolating the coach from the chassis batteries. I am likely to be very nervous as I pack up and move on tomorrow.

I continue to be befuddled by the occupancy or lack thereof at campgrounds. This park was just about full Monday night. Last night there were slightly fewer. Tonight it looks like there are even less. My impression is tomorrow night will be full or close to it. When I booked my stay Thursday night was not available in my size site. Most of the guests are travelers either going north south on Interstate 55 or east west on Interstate 40. Each night there have been several Texas and Louisiana RVs, but I have also seen California, Florida, Oregon, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Virginia RVs. The two or three RVs that have been here all three nights are from Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. The local states.

Tuesday August 10th 2021

It was another hot day today. The temperature peaked in the upper nighties. When combined with the humidity the heat index was around 107 degrees. The normal high temperature in the Memphis area this time of year is closer to ninety. The difference is enough to get the TV weather talkers excited.

The meteorologists on TV believe they have an obligation to inform the public so no one gets adversely impacted by the heat. The result, particularly with people like me that aren’t familiar with the local weather, is a higher level of caution at best to a real fear at the extreme. I’ve been in lots of areas of the country with higher daily temperatures and higher humidity. It all comes down to context. Activity in areas without shade is not particularly safe even with the nice breeze we had today.

I had a busy day today. My first stop was to get some tools and supplies to work on my RV coach battery issue. The second stop was for groceries. Once again my refrigerator and pantry were getting a little empty. The Walmart was the source for food and another battery service supply. I was surprised that the majority of customers at Walmart were back to wearing masks. The store wasn’t too busy, which is good since it was also getting rearrange. There were large sections of empty area and many shelves were empty.

This campground is very much an overnight stop. It was close to full last night and empty by noon today. My site is across from the office so I watched tonight’s guests arrive as the afternoon and evening went by. I don’t think it is as full tonight.

Monday August 9th 2021

The temperature is back in the upper nineties with humidity. A strong south breeze kept things manageable most of the day. The heat index was around 107 degrees.

Today was a short moving day. I tried to time things so I left at the noon checkout, but I ended up pulling out about twenty minutes before that event. I paused in root to my new location at the Arkansas welcome center on the interstate to kill time. I checked into my new location about twenty miles away at 1PM.

The day wasn’t without a challenge. The 12volt RV chassis battery didn’t want to start the motorhome this morning. I found a loose connection at the battery that after a little work I got the motorhome running. I didn’t turn the vehicle off until I was on my site at my destination. It turned itself off when I tried to lower the leveling jacks. That took more work to get everything setup. Tomorrow I’ll work on it some more and probably buy a new battery. If that doesn’t work I’ll have to get the motorhome and a mechanic together on Wednesday.

I am at the Memphis KOA in Marion Arkansas until Thursday. I’ve been at the park twice before including last year about this time of year. The memorable milestone is the kids in the area starting back to school this morning.