When we started the planning phase of this trip, we knew we needed to schedule the trip around a few previous commitments. Sprinkle in some board meetings here and there for Ben, make sure we don’t get lost and we actually make it to the 2025 Mather family reunion in July and then lastly, we have Chris returning home from his internship at Parker to start his senior year at Florida Poly in early August. Check, check and check! Punch those conflicts into the calendar and it pretty much left the spring and the fall for travel and the fall is WAY too risky for Ann. The temps might possibly fall below her 70° comfort level. In other words, it’s way too close to winter to leave Florida. So here we are, traveling the country at the end of May.
We banged out the first two nights on the road, first in Madison, Florida and then Hattiesburg, MS. Really boring start as we were in well known territory and nothing really humorous happened other than the lovely interstate through Jackson, MS broke all our dishes in the Airstream (AGAIN) and sloshed what little toilet water was in the bowl all over the bathroom floor. Jackson Mississippi crappy interstate roads, you SUCK 🙄. Beyond that kind of entertainment, we just typically spend the boring trip between Hattiesburg and Hot Springs Village counting the number of Dollar Generals out in the middle of BFE. It’s A LOT.
So on Day 3 of the trip we arrived to the folks house in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. We spent our down time hanging out with the folks and Hannah, who joined us there. We watched the dogs chase all the chipmunks off the property and we worked on a few projects here and there. It was our time to unwind from the grueling weeks of planning and packing, prior to our departure.
Our time here didn’t include any camping, as we were back in a proper bed on night three and had all the creature comforts. It’s the last chance for Ann to shave her legs without doing any fancy leg maneuvers in the world’s tiniest shower and to paint her toenails without stinking up the whole tiny tube. We were slowly breaking ourselves back into the whole camping thing. Meanwhile, the airstream was safely parked and plugged in at the local RV campground about 5 miles away.
At about 10 pm on our second night there, the wind started picking up and weather alerts started going off on phones, tablets, and the little weather radio inside. The news wasn’t good. Strong thunderstorms headed our way with 70 mph gusts and ping pong ball size hail. Our eyes bugged out a bit as we saw that last line of the forecast. We had maybe five minutes to get anything outside closer to inside and to pull the truck a little further in under the carport and then the hail came in as predicted. It only lasted for maybe ten minutes, but it sure did come down.
While a bit short of the ping pong ball size estimate, still pretty nasty.
The damage was done, so there was no point in rushing over to see if the airstream was ok, so we just turned in for the night.
After dreams of golf ball shaped dents and broken windows all over the airstream, we headed over in the morning and were pleased to discover that the storm was not as intense in the campground, so our Airstream, as well as the campers of all of the other surrounding guests, were just fine. Lots of tree debris but mostly just messy. All good!
The hail storm was a bit of a wake up call for us both, and we resolved to watch the weather a bit more closely as the trip progressed.
The next day, we hooked up the airstream and headed up scenic highway 7 and slightly less scenic but faster paced 40 and 49 to see Hannah up in Fayetteville. We found a little campground outside of town about 10 minutes from Hannah’s house, so that we could visit and help her out for a few days.
It was great to see Hannah in her first house and to tour her facility in her first job in her profession! We got to help do some projects around the house, stuff that we always did either when we first bought houses or more likely stuff we did immediately before listing that we should have done at the beginning. Hannah benefitted from our experience in the latter and we took care of a lot of things that likely would not have made the priority list for a while but made living in the house more pleasant.
And, we got more experience with spring thunderstorms. SIGH
When we first arrived, a big band of thunderstorms moved through the area just north of us, which created some beautiful skies for us in Fayetteville. Here is a shot a neat shelf cloud rolling through with a really neat band of turquoise sky pinched in between fronts. We don’t know if that is a meteorological correct statement but we also don’t care. But if you’re in Arkansas you at least have to pronounce it “peenched.”
It turns out there are worse things to think about in May, other than cooler temperatures and weirdly pinched skies. With both of us growing up in the Midwest, as well as living in several Midwest locales you’d think we’d remember that the month of May can be crazy. In our defense, we’re trained now for the much longer advance warning that we get for Florida hurricanes, which are really just a slower moving form of tornado that occasionally carries a wall of water with it. Very similar in their destruction, but the amount of hustle required before the arrival of each is VERY much different! When you’re old, having minutes to react vs days is brutal.
What we definitely didn’t think about was how freaking scary it is in a metal tube! And out in the middle of a field, which is EVERY campground location.
While we were working late at Hannah’s house on our second night in Fayetteville, the weather alerts started going off again, and this time, it was a tornado in Oklahoma headed directly toward our area. Warnings of 2” hail accompanied the alert.
Shortly after that, the tornado sirens started going off outside.
So we gathered the important people and animals and documents and huddled in Hannah’s interior bathroom for about 15 minutes.
Soon after, the weather indicated that the tornado had passed south of us, so we ventured out of the bathroom to see how things looked outside. All was well, so we wrapped up our work and we headed back to the campground.
As we got closer, flashing emergency vehicle lights and no lights at the local businesses gave us the indication that perhaps the storm was a bit worse down here. As it turns out, the tornado hit Greenland, AR which is also where our campground was located.
We pulled in to the campground, expecting the worst, and once again, we had been spared damage. Some debris on the ground and quote a few campers had pulled out of the large campground, but all appears to be fine. Thank God!
As we went in to the airstream, we noticed that a few neighbors were running on-board generators in their big class A motor homes. Didn’t think much of it. Lights were working for us so we went in and started to get settled in for the night.
As it turns out, power had been knocked out for the whole campground, so we could run lights and the fridge could keep running, but it was all on battery power only. So, no AC and no 110v outlets. Note to self, get an on board inverter and carry a generator for future trips.
Luckily, it was cool enough that we did not need the AC, but one of the things we learned early on was to keep the fan for the AC on in low mode to drown out outside noise in the campgrounds. This helps tremendously with local road noise, neighbors that may be slightly overserved, and noisy campers and trucks idling close by or pulling in late or pulling out early.
With the fan off, every low frequency hum of a generator or diesel engine idling was clearly heard, as were doors opening and closing anywhere nearby. Of most significance though was the fact that the thunderstorms were still rolling through, and Ann does not like loud thunderstorms overhead. Not at all. Not one bit actually. Neither does Ben when that storm is experienced inside of a thin metal tube, unanchored to the ground. Our only course of action was to watch the weather and to keep our hands or other body parts away from the aluminum inside walls of the airstream. A useless precaution perhaps, as once lighting has travelled several miles at light speed to reach our camper, the separation of a few inches of air between the camper and our meaty little bodies sure isn’t very much, but it is what we had.
That night and the next were spent without power, which gave us a decent taste of what it would be to boondock in the camper, and I think we both agreed that perhaps boondocking is not for us, but it works in a pinch (Or in a peeench). We will just bring a 12v fan to block out the noise or better yet, hook up and move out of the storm’s way next time!
Still no power as we pulled out on Wednesday morning. The tornado hit on Monday night, so I guess waiting for the power to be restored post tornado is a lot like waiting for power post hurricane. Surely it’s just coincidence that we keep running into storms right? The weather can’t be bad for ALL 60 days of our trip???
TaterTotTales 