Still in Jackson MS, Visit to Natchez MS, Trouble Backing up

October 28 – November 02, 2014   

It’s not warm in Jackson anymore but it is still sunny.  This past weekend the 1st and 2nd of November the temps haven’t left the low 60s and the night time temps have been in the 30s.  Saturday night was our first time in the RV below freezing at 30 for the low temperature!  We didn’t do anything special for the cold.  We ran our electric fireplace which keeps the RV a little over 20 degrees warmer than the outside temp.  We also set the propane furnace to 60 for overnight.  Then in the morning we just turn up the furnace to 65 and open the blinds and let the sun in.  We are facing east so we get a lot of sun in the morning so the furnace only runs once just to get the temp up a little.

As the title says, we are still in Jackson MS and still without the truck.  It has now been 21 days since I took the truck in to Rogel Ford in Crystal Springs MS and was told it would be just a 2 day job maybe 3.  The first week it was there we were more worried about getting to Buffalo NY and what was going on with Patty’s mother to be real concerned about the truck.  The second week we were in Buffalo attending to the death of Patty’s mother so we again didn’t think too much about the truck.   This past week we have been in a routine of waiting for Ford to call in the morning which never happens and then I call them and find out it will be ready the next day.  Then I go to the office at the campground and pay for another night.

Finally by Friday the 31st Patty got fed up and wrote the owners of Rogel Ford an E-Mail explaining our problem getting our truck back.  That got us connected to a higher up guy at the service department who actually called us and apologized and said the truck will be done next Monday.  OK, that means we will be here for the weekend again!

This is what I’m worried about, Rogel not doing the complete job on changing this oil cooler out.  It is very important that the cooling system be flushed out properly.  I did some reading on this and found out that to properly do this job the cooling system needs to be flushed out using a couple of chemicals.  If this doesn’t happen then the oil cooler will just clog up again in a few months and we will be 1,000 miles away.  I have lost confidence in this service department to do the right job.  All I can do at this point is to question them when we finally get the truck back and hope for the best.

Also, besides the truck issues, I managed to back the rental car into a light pole here in the campground.  It just gets more expensive as we go along here!  I don’t like backing up any vehicle but this car has very little visibility when backing up, especially compared to driving the truck.  Anyway, our site has a tree a few feet back and also a light pole 10 feet further away both on the passenger side of the site.  The sites are pull through so they are angled toward the exit direction. This means you need to make a tight turn as you back up to get centered into the exit road.  I saw the tree and concentrated on missing that and then hit the pole.  To make matters worse, I then tried to paint the scratches to make it look better and failed badly.  Not sure how much this will cost but it won’t be cheap.  

Bad light pole!

The coldest day was Saturday he 31st so we decided to get laundry done.  We have the rental car so we can go outside the campground where it would be cheaper.  This campground it one of the highest we have seen, $2.50 per machine, even the dryer.  There are also only 2 washing machines and only one dryer.  Even in Jackson the cost was still $2.00 per washer but just $.25 per 10 minutes in the dryer. However, they had many machines so we were done in about an hour.

With the wash out of the way we decided to have dinner in the other Mexican restaurant within walking distance.  The Mexican Grill has many more customers than the other place but the food was about the same as far as we could see.  We both had a full meal with a glass of wine and a beer for me and the bill was only $26.  The only thing we could see was maybe the prices were just a little bit cheaper than the other Mexican restaurant that is only 2 minutes from this one.  We liked both places about the same so it was a wash for us.

Nice little wrap on my very cold beer.

Back at the RV for our coldest night in the RV yet and hopefully ever!  The temperature dropped to 30 around 6 am in the morning.  Since there isn’t any wind and it is clear out, it really doesn’t feel as cold as Texas did when it was in the 30s there.  We did fine with no issues at all.

Sunday the 2nd we decided to take advantage of the rental car and take a drive to Natchez MS by way of the Natchez Trace Parkway.  Natchez MS is 102 miles from our site via the Natchez Trace Parkway.  There are many places to pull off and see a site, hike or just have a picnic.  We managed to pull over for a few things on the way making the trip about 2 hours long.

There a few places on the Natchez Trace that are sunken due to all of the foot traffic over hundreds of years.  This is one of them.

This is the original Natchez Trace that has been worn away over the years.

At the top of the trace is a sighting of the colorful Patty.

We arrived in Natchez MS around 1 pm and decided we would check out the town as we didn’t know anything about it.  First, I didn’t know that Natchez was on the Mississippi River.  Natchez is a very old city dating back to the early 1700s.  It was originally settled by the Spanish as a major cotton and slave trade town.  There is a very old sign in town that reads “more Negros means more cotton and more cotton means more Negros.”  

This marks the start of the Natchez Trace on the southern end.  It continues over 400 miles to Nashville TN.  We now have been on the first 250 miles and the last 87 miles.

The old Grand Hotel in Natchez MS.  It sits just off of the Mississippi River.

Tug boat pushing a barge north up the Mississippi.

Looking north up the Mississippi with Louisiana on the left and Mississippi on the right.

There are 2 casinos here in Natchez, this is the Magnolia Bluffs.

This is the other casino, the Isle of Capri on the steam boat the Natchez. 

We eventually found our way to the “town under the hill” which is what the old town of Natchez is referred to as.  We both needed to use the facilities and then get a bite to eat. We found a great little place right on the banks of the Mississippi called the Magnolia Grill.  We had a couple of glasses of wine and a couple of appetizers and watched the tug boats push long barges up and down the Mississippi.  It was a great afternoon!

Nice place to watch boats on the Mississippi River with some wine!

View from inside the Magnolia Grill.  Patty only sat there so I could get a picture with her in it.  She sat with me across from the window so we could both watch the boats on the river.

All good times come to an end so we headed back to the RV around 4 pm.  This time we took the faster interstates to get back which still took us about 1.5 hours.  Patty had started a pot roast in the crock pot before we left so the RV smelled great when we got back inside.  The cool fall like weather made the pot roast a very nice meal for the end of a great day site seeing.

Tomorrow we hope to get the truck back!  If we do we will be headed to Lafayette Louisiana on Tuesday.

Stay Tuned!