Vicksburg, Mississippi

Great Husband is really into weather. He brings along his weather radio on our travels, which means he is good at choosing which day is better for a hike and which day is better for a museum, but which also means he can be victimized by unnecessary weather worries. Late this afternoon, after we had finished our day of touring here in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and had returned to the camper, the weather radio announced that large hail and ferocious winds were fast approaching. But in his listening haste, Great Husband didn’t quite catch the details. Although the radio listed the affected counties we hadn’t a clue which county Vicksburg is in, so did the dire prediction really apply to us? Regardless, we jumped into the car and dashed for security at the car wash. Car wash? Yes, where better than one of those covered bays to shelter the car from hail and sit out the storm? Well, wherever that dastardly hail actually went, it didn’t get to us!

I really didn’t mind; I know it is better to humor Great Husband’s weather phobia than buck that personality trait. I used the time in the car wash to start reading a book written by a soldier about his experiences in the Civil War, a book serendipitously appropriate to our visit earlier today to the Vicksburg National Military Park. Within the first few lines of the book, I learned that this very soldier had been involved on the Union side in the siege of Vicksburg!

The Military Park here has a nice museum with artifacts of the battle, but it’s best to start with the very good 20-minute film which sets the scene and gives an explanation of the siege. We also liked the large narrated wall map, lit with red and blue LEDs to show the Union and Confederate troop movements. Battles between the forces are represented by a frenzy of flashing yellow lights plus sound effects.

We took the 16-mile scenic driving tour of the battleground and siege positions, which includes hundreds of monuments and statues and plaques. It is wonderful that this has been preserved and honor given this way to those who fought and died, but it is easy to come down with monument overload. More interesting to both Great Husband and me was the Union iron-clad gunboat Cairo, part of the “Brown Water Navy” established to fight on the Mississippi and its tributaries during the Civil War. In the 1960s the Cairo was lifted from the muddy depths where it sank in 1862, the first ship ever brought down by a mine. It is now preserved in a magnificent outdoor display. 

Vicksburg National Military Park

One of many monuments at Vicksburg NMP

Gunboat Cairo

Little Rock, Arkansas

Because of the lost snow day at the beginning of this trip, we dropped the first day’s touring plans and instead were able to meet up with Tall Son for a Panera breakfast in Overland Park, KS. We then pressed on, driving all day to reach Little Rock, Arkansas.

We stayed at the Downtown Riverside RV Park, nicely run by the city of North Little Rock, where a reservation and a Passport America membership get you a full-utility site for just about $11.50. The campground sits right on the Arkansas River. The office, the restrooms, and the laundry all seemed rather temporary, and we speculated that this is because this area is probably a flood plain and the wall at the back of our site (called the "sea wall") is there to protect the city from high water someday. 

A brisk morning walk across a former railroad bridge brought us to the other side of the river to the William J. Clinton Presidential Center. Even Bill’s mom and Hillary’s got some recognition – intersecting streets on the north end of the bridge are named after Mrs. Kelley and Mrs. Rodham. This somehow appealed to the Clinton cynic in me.

I did get an overall favorable impression of this city, and especially liked their number one attraction--their whimsical Old Mill and park. This place never really was an operating mill, but it appears in the opening credits of “Gone With the Wind” and is worth a visit.

Downtown Riverside RV Park

The Old Mill

A Winter Trip is a Different Animal

It’s no surprise that snow and ice are possibilities if you plan a winter camping trip that starts in Nebraska. And yes, a winter storm did delay the start of our trip, but just by one day. What we hadn’t anticipated, however, was how cold weather affected our ability to load the camper in advance—who knew what might be damaged by below-freezing temps? The TV? Liquids such as laundry detergent and body wash? Soups and spaghetti sauce? 

And what about all the foods intended for the refrigerator? Due to the outdoor temperatures, which were as low as -5 degrees F (-20 C) the morning we left home, the refrigerator in the Escape was also well below freezing, so the trick became how to keep the cold foods warm enough! All the foods which would normally go into the refrigerator instead had to start in coolers in the car just to keep them from being frozen. At one point the temperature inside the refrigerator was just 13 degrees F (-10 C). And the back of the car was stuffed with items that would normally have been travelling in the camper.

Because it was so cold at home, we were also unable to do the normal sanitizing of the potable water system for the first trip of the year. That had to wait until we reached the relative warmth of the first two campgrounds.

Another surprise was how bad our mileage was in the bitter cold weather, 11-point-something miles per gallon at the beginning of the trip. I guess the poor Flex and the camper were both feeling as stiff and miserable as I do when it is so cold outside. 

Winter Escape of 2013

We've got our reservations and soon will be off for five weeks in the Escape, heading toward warmer states. Here's the map of the master plan. I intend to bake bread in the car (yes, in the car!) while we are driving, and have never heard of anybody doing that before. Stay tuned.

Coming up in February and March...our first big trip of 2013

C  George Washington Carver National Monument, Keosho, MO
D  Fort Smith, AR
E  Little Rock, AR
F  Vicksburg National Military Park, Vicksburg, MS
G  Fort Pickens, Gulf Islands National Seashore, near Pensacola, FL
H  Grayton Beach State Park, FL
I  Anastasia State Park, St. Augustine, FL
J  Little Talbot Island State Park, near Jacksonville, FL
K  Fort Clinch State Park, Fernandina Beach, FL
L  Crooked River State Park, St. Marys, GA
M  Fort Gordon, GA
N  Williamsburg, VA
O  Chippokes Plantation State Park, VA
P  Chillicothe, OH
Q  Kickapoo State Park, Oakwood, IL
R  Jubilee College State Park, Brimfield, IL
S  Omaha, NE

Christmas on the Great Plains

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Baffled, Part 3

Kibitka is finally home from the authorized Dometic repair center. We didn't mind that it was gone so long since we had no trips planned and we looked at this as free camper storage off of our driveway for the time.


The repair center consulted with Dometic on the phone and Dometic sent them a fan and baffle to install in the space behind the refrigerator, under warranty. The fan operates on a thermostat and has an on-off switch on the left side of the refrigerator (over the bed) for enabling the fan to operate. The switch is labelled "refrigerator fan switch" which leads us to believe Dometic has repeatedly seen the need for this switch and fan. The Dometic baffle is somewhere near the top back of the refrigerator, although we haven't removed the vent panel to see it. We will not be able to conclusively prove the success or failure of the new fan and baffle system until warm weather. Their purpose is to move more air across the cooling coil than occurs naturally. Great Husband and I are rating our confidence level in this fix at about 50-50.


Update as of 3-28-2013:  We've just finished a long trip with the new baffle and fan, albeit a cold-weather trip. We are reluctant to declare victory until we take a trip in hotter weather, but on this cold-weather trip the refrigerator worked great at all times.

Baffled, Part 2

On our big 4-week trip, we took several complete days of data regarding our refrigerator, and put it all into an Excel spreadsheet when we got home. It is clear that the baffle we installed did not fix the situation at all. Once we observed that, we tried other kinds of changes. For instance, for brief stints of driving, we sometimes removed the top or the bottom vent covers behind the refrigerator to see what impact that had on refrigerator cooling. No improvement. And in the second half of the trip we added a second thermometer inside the fridge to verify that the first one wasn't just giving us bad numbers. They both correlated.

The bottom line is that the refrigerator never cools while in motion on the road and always cools great while sitting still, both on propane and on electricity. I became proficient at dashing from the car into the camper to get data very quickly at each stop! And, after being on the road with the fridge temp rising, we always saw the fridge temperature start dropping right away no matter how short the stop. 

So we have just dropped the Escape off at a certified Dometic repair shop and were delighted to see the repair guy taking our spreadsheet seriously and then to hear him say, "I'll be in touch with Dometic. This might take a new refrigerator," and "We'll get this fixed. I don't give up." That's the kind of positive attitude we need!