Tuesday 22nd November – Insurance admin and some boating

In the back of my mind I had been aware that the RV insurance should be due around now, it had been over a month since we had first gained our cover before our epic day at the RMV!  But as far as I was concerned we had set up auto-pay monthly and this had successfully topped up our mobile telephones without us having to do anything, so why not with the RV insurance too?  I was surprised that the payment hadn’t appeared on my credit card yet, it was a few days late, but I was enjoying myself too much to worry about chasing it.  Until last night when I received some messages from Tash in Boston saying that they’d received some post for us and one was from our insurer stating that our next payment was due by 17^th November (oops).  They stated that they had tried to email me but the address they had did not work and so they had written a letter (why they didn’t bother calling my cell number I’ll never know!).  Never mind any late fees, I was more worried about them stopping our cover and being uninsured on the road!  The timing was not great.  Lake Claiborne was in the middle of a communications black hole - not only with very unreliable Wi-Fi but also with no phone signal at the campsite.  I couldn’t resolve the issue over the internet, it kept crashing.  Plus, I couldn’t download the Progressive App on my phone as my account is registered in the UK… where Progressive doesn’t exist (thanks again Apple)!  I was told that you could get phone signal by the Church at the top of the hill.  I traipsed up a steep hill, past the smelliest rotting deer roadkill you could imagine, constantly staring at my iPhone screen and doing that thing where you hold it up in the air as if that will do anything to help!  At the church, I had between one and two bars of signal and managed to arrange payment for our insurance for the next month on an automated line, before requesting to talk to a human to resolve the issue with my email address being wrong – a missing ‘e’ in my surname.  It had taken just under two hours of my morning, but I had ensured we had cover and placed reminders on my calendar to prevent this late payment occurring again.

The weather was slightly dubious, but thankfully it cleared up in the afternoon for us to have a second opportunity to take Steven Sea-Eagle out.  The lake was calm and we saw numerous birds of prey, terrapins, cranes and other waterfowl.  We started discussing where the range of alligators and crocodiles begins in the USA?!  That made us paranoid about every little movement by the water’s edge.  No one had made mention of there being any reptiles in the area and certainly no one had tried to stop us launching into the lake but as we were the only people on the water in a flimsy, inflatable kayak it was slightly disconcerting….  No gators seen, we had a very sedate and pleasant paddle.  I even went single-crewed for a while after dropping Simon on the shore – taking as much time as possible to watch the huge birds of prey circling above through my binoculars and camera.

I have completely failed to describe the frequency that we see birds of prey since we arrived in the US.  I am a massive fan, enjoying seeing any kestrel, kite or buzzard in the UK that I get a chance to.  But here it is a daily occurrence, along every single highway, to see birds of prey on top of telegraph poles or soaring overhead.  At first we’d shout ‘Big bird!’ every time we saw a shadow to alert each other.  The problem?  I wasn’t able to identify what the birds were.  They were nothing I was used to seeing.  Unlike Simon with his military planes that he knows off by heart (geek), I was showing my ignorance.  I turned to the internet to try and identify the birds we were seeing but by this stage in Louisiana I was still unsure what it was we were seeing.  Maybe I’ll have to invest in a book or an identification chart to rectify this situation?!  But whatever they may be, trying to get images or just sitting and watching their graceful flight is time well spent as far as I’m concerned.  It was a lovely relaxing afternoon enjoying a scenic part of the country that we had visited purely by chance.