Current Location: Fort Toulouse Campground, Wetumpka, Alabama

The original plan was to stay in Nashville until Saturday morning, but that changed today.

The big cold front that swept down through the nation on Wednesday afternoon and evening got the best of our trailer’s water system. By about 8:00 PM the outside temperature was around 12 degrees. We had filled the water tank and disconnected the hose in preparation. However, the pump was having difficulties drawing water from the tank. We would run it from time to time and it seemed to clear up.

Shortly thereafter, we found that we no longer had cold water (but curiously had hot water) at the kitchen faucet. The kitchen sink is at the very back of the trailer. The bathroom faucets all still worked, however. The temperature got down to around 4 or 5 degrees overnight. By the time Malcolm went to go to bed, the pump could no longer draw water from the tank.

This morning, Malcolm decided to work from the trailer so he could watch for the water system to warm up enough to start working. Also, he has been fighting a mild sinus infection and thought he might try to find a clinic somewhere to have it looked at. Also, we needed a propane tank filled.

Around 10:00, with the temperature up in the teens but still no water, Malcolm headed out with the LP tank. The campground’s LP system was down, so he went next door to Camping World and had it filled. Once back, we decided to go to the grocery store and pick up a couple things.

On the way to the store, we had an idea. With the temperatures staying below freezing until at least Saturday morning in Nashville, Malcolm decided that we would move further south today. Malcolm called work and verified that our mail had arrived at the office. We arranged for one of Malcolm’s co-workers to run the mail down to the lobby of the office and we stopped by to pick it up. We stopped by the store and filled up the truck, then hitched up and pulled out from Nashville a little after noon.

We arrived in Wetumpka around 5:30 and quickly set up the trailer enough to get the heat turned on and let the cat loose inside. We headed to Zaxby’s for dinner, then back to the trailer. Malcolm tried the pump, but it was not coming on. Also, the power and tank monitor on the control panel was acting funny. It indicated that the batteries were supposedly almost dead, but the lights, furnace blower, leveling system and slides had no problems operating.

Malcolm finally found that the water pump and the power monitor were on the same fuse and it had blown, probably from us trying to run the pump with the system frozen. Once the fuse was changed out, we found that the pump works and all our faucets are now supplying water. Yay! The temperature here the next two nights is forecasted to be in the lower 20’s. We know from experience that the furnace will keep the water system functional down to about 18-20 degrees, so we should be fine.

Malcolm is going to work in the Wetumpka office tomorrow, then we’re hitting the road on Saturday to start towards Tampa, arriving there on Sunday. The forecasted high temperature there on Sunday is 79 degrees. We’ll take that.

Not a whole lot of license plates today – the roads were not too busy. Found 21 of 51 plates.

License plates