Current Location: Lafayette KOA, Scott, Louisiana

Wow, where did the time go? Actually, it was very full of busy-ness. Let’s start with Wednesday, when we left Seattle. We loaded our luggage in our daughter’s car as well as the grandbabies and we headed to drop Violet off at pre-school. From there, we stopped by to get a cup of coffee (or tea in Val’s case) and headed on to Seatac airport.

Our daughter dropped us off around 10:15 and our flight wasn’t until 1:10, so we had time to take it easy after we got through security. We could even see our departure gate from security, so no running around. We camped out at a coffee shop with free wi-fi so Malcolm could prepare the bill of sale for Val’s car that we were selling to some friends of ours in Louisiana. He also called the Ford dealer where we bought the new truck to find out about paperwork for licensing. They were going to be overnighting it to our DMV, so good timing.

By the time our plane landed in Atlanta, it was 11:30 PM. We grabbed our bags, paid for our parking spot and drove home, arriving at nearly 2:00 AM. We fell into bed at the house and, naturally, couldn’t get to sleep. And Thursday was going to be a long day. Once we did get to sleep, we ended up waking up at 6:00. We were out the door before 7:00 and headed over to Montgomery to grab breakfast at Cracker Barrel. From there, we headed to the trailer.

At the trailer, Malcolm grabbed the truck and Val took the car to get the oil changed. Malcolm washed the truck. While he was finishing that task, the local tag office called to let him know the paperwork was there. He dropped by the bank to grab some cash from the ATM and met Val at the trailer. We drove up to the courthouse and got the new license plate for the truck. We stopped by Zaxby’s for lunch, filled the truck with fuel at WalMart then headed over to hitch up.

While Malcolm emptied the tanks at the campground, Val drove over to the house to pick up some packages she had ordered. She joined back up with Malcolm south of Montgomery on the interstate. We ate dinner outside of Mobile at another Cracker Barrel. It became obvious that it was going to be super late before we would get to our destination of Scott, Louisiana and we were wearing out quick. Plus, the truck was low on fuel.

We tried to overnight in a Petro truck stop in Hammond, Louisiana, but all the slots were full. The Pilot across the street was full, as well, so Malcolm filled up the truck and Val found a nearby Cracker Barrel. We called and the manager said it would be perfectly fine to overnight in their lot, so we did. In the morning, we “paid our camping fee” via having breakfast inside.

It was a couple hours to Scott from Hammond. As we were driving through Baton Rouge, a huge rock flew through the air and put a huge chip in the truck’s windshield. As we were getting near Lafayette, the left-rear wheel cover on the truck flew off. Val was driving behind with the car and managed to avoid it, but it ended up getting trapped under the front of another car. Both Val and the other car pulled over and retrieved the wheel cover. It was pretty much chewed up.

Once in Scott, we unhitched the trailer and set it up, then headed to our friends’ house. We went with them to sign over Val’s car to them and headed back to their apartment to relax, which is where Malcolm is currently typing up this blog entry.

Whew, what a couple of days. We’ll sleep well tonight. We have an appointment with Safelite to get the windshield replaced tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM.