Saturday 19th to Sunday 20th November – relaxed weekend in Texas

The situation was very much the same the next morning – we were the only people around, even in the nearby clubhouse.  The site was run by the American Legion so we were just preparing to drop a donation in through the letterbox before we scarpered (as we’re honest like that!) when the owner arrived.  We politely declined the invitation to stick around for their charity turkey shoot that day (just in time for thanksgiving) before we hit the road again. 

A month and several thousand miles had taken its toll on Harvey’s condition – he badly needed a wash!  It’s only when you start washing your RV one section at a time when you realise how ridiculously BIG it is!  And we couldn’t fit the RV in the car wash all in one go so had to keep backing it out, turning around and reversing in.  But it was a noticeable improvement.

We needed to have a cheap couple of days after the excitement of Dallas so, being a weekend, we carefully selected another RV site for only $11 and made the short drive.  The owner was really friendly but there wasn’t that much to do around the site – having gone to say hello to the resident donkeys (right), walked down to the lake and done a little bird spotting we’d pretty much exhausted all the options!
But by chance, despite being in the wilds of Texas this site had some of the fastest Wi-Fi to date – we seized the opportunity to have a planning weekend.  Next Thursday is Thanksgiving meaning that everything stops here – the shops are closed; no tourist attractions are open and I was worried that being a National Holiday we would need to actually book ourselves in somewhere.  Here’s a shot of our USA progress to date and planning map:

Don't worry if you find this map crowded and confusing - you are not alone!

From it we decided that we would spend Thanksgiving in Memphis and stay for some time afterwards as there is a lot we hope to see there.  The only other achievement of today was that I managed to re-dye my hair without covering the inside of the RV with bright red dye!

There was no need to rush the next morning so again we utilised the Wi-Fi for calling family and catching up with social media.  We rang our chosen campsite on the outskirts of Memphis and ended up booking a whole week there as we got a slightly reduced rate.  This would be the first time since hitting the road that we’d stay in one place for so long.

We tore ourselves away from the fast data to make some progress on the road.  We selected yet another PA site about 3 hours away near the border of Texas with Louisiana.  The main reason for selecting this site was the fact that they mentioned you could see beavers in the area (behave).  Having been promised beavers I was understandably disappointed when we arrived and the owner told us they weren’t there anymore and he had repeatedly asked them to take that comment off his website!  I was feeling restless and lacking in exercise.  It was late afternoon but after some persuasion I managed to get Simon to accompany me on an hour-long bike ride in the local area.  Of course, he was eternally grateful when we saw not only deer but a WILD Armadillo!!  Sadly, we were both so taken aback by seeing such a strange and unexpected creature that we weren’t quick enough on the draw with our cameras.  But I was very pleased that we’d had the opportunity to see the iconic Texan resident before we left the State the very next day.