Thursday, April 20 – We snuck (Sneaked was the original past tense and past participle for sneak. Used as early as the late 1800s, snuck has become the standard variant past tense and past participle of the verb sneak….just in case you are interested in a little English history…lol) through downtown Houston bright and early this morning. Traffic was heavy, but we moved right along and had no problems. We arrived at our destination – the Texarkana RV Park in Texarkana, TX, shortly after noon.
Texarkana RV Park is a very nice Passport America park. They have concrete streets and patios, large gravel, full hookup pull-thru sites, laundry, game room, a pond and rental cottages. We have never stayed in an RV park that has better placed sewer, water, and electric hookup locations. We have stayed at this park in the past and recommend it to fellow travelers passing through northeast Texas.
Looking right.
Looking left.
Bella was so happy to get off the road.
Friday, April 21 – Our sprint across the country continued today with an early departure from Texarkana, TX. We had many miles to cover and wanted to get an early start so we could be off the road by mid-afternoon. I suppose you hear God laughing at those plans! Two hours after leaving, just east of Arkadelphia, Arkansas, Paul noticed smoke in his rear-view mirror. He quickly checked our tire monitor. It showed no indication of trouble. He carefully pulled over to the edge of I-30, a VERY busy interstate to investigate.
No flat! Everything looked fine. We waited a while to get our minds together and decided to move on down the freeway. Nope, we didn't get a mile before the smoke returned. After careful thinking, we decided it was either a brake on the 5th wheel was stuck “on”, or we had a bearing seize. Marsha checked on the Internet and found we should NOT drive with a bad bearing. So we called Coach Net, our roadside emergency carrier.
They said help would be quickly sent and even dispatched the Arkansas Highway Patrol to check on us. Officer Church, with the Highway Patrol, was there within minutes. We soon found out that additional help would not follow suit. The Officer lit up the side of the road with his blue lights which was a wonderful relief.
With help supposedly on the way, Officer Church had to move down the road, but he assured us we were safely off the highway, and he would return in about an hour to check on us. Hopefully, we would be gone by then. Unfortunately, we were still waiting for roadside service. Officer Church recommended we head for the next exit and offered to follow us with lights a blazing to keep traffic from rear-ending us. We had to stop twice because our wheel was smoking but at the second stop the roadside repair service caught us with us. Thank you to Officer Church. We have never met a more caring and concerned Officer. He even called us at 6:30 p.m. to be sure we were back on the road and safe. How wonderful was that!
They removed our wheel and chained up the axle so we could drive carefully to their repair facility. Officer Church again escorted us down I-30 until we exited the freeway.
We pulled immediately into the repair shop. The guys started work immediately. We would have been out of there in no time but they had to order parts from a nearby town and wait for over an hour to have them delivered. Not only was a bearing shot but we needed a new brake pad. $$$
It was a huge place.
These guys were so polite and concerned for us. They tried to get us back on the road as soon as possible. Thanks so much to Hartsell Farms & Excavating Co.
Our early departure this morning was destroyed to say the least. We broke down about 8:15 a.m. and did not get back on the road until 2:30 p.m. No way to make our intended destination so we found a stop in Blytheville, AR, where we had stayed previously and called it a day. What a stress filled day!
Grizzly's RV Park is absolutely nothing to write home about. It is good for one night only! PPA, $14.00/day FHUs. That is all we can say about it.
Looking right.
Looking left…isn’t that beautiful.
Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!
