An Interesting Trip

Well, I am on the road to escape the snow again.

This year I just couldn’t get moving. I left 3 days later than planned. When I finally got the rig totally packed I thought I should take it apart and start all over. I have with me for 3 months approximately twice what I took last year for 6 months. And this year I may not need any winter clothes at all. All the days around Christmas here are expected to be mid to high 70s. I may not wear all the clothes I have with me. Last year at Christmas I had on 4 layers of clothes and was s-h-i-v-e-r-i-n-g!!  This year I’m in my shorts and short-sleeved shirt. What a change a year makes!!!!

I stayed at truck stops for a couple nights until I got to VA. I camped near Staunton and looked for something to do. The natives call this “Stanton” while I was calling it Staunton. Of course when you are in Rome…… I had a conversation about this with a fellow who was actually a transplant to “Stanton.” We were talking about “Ant” vs Aunt; “Stanton” vs Staunton. For years when I lived in the NY area, my friends said “Ant” while I used the King’s pronunciation Aunt. Of course, they drastically outnumbered me but I never gave up the fight.

I found out that Staunton was the birthplace of our president Woodrow Wilson.So I hightailed it down to his library, museum, and birthplace. I never knew much about him, and was fascinated to pick up some of his history. He was a preacher’s boy, born in the Manse (read rectory/parsonage) and left Staunton when very young. But he thought of Staunton as his hometown. As President he came back once and was VERY warmly welcomed by all the townspeople. He was named Thomas Woodrow Wilson. He completely eliminated the first name. I guess he couldn’t get people to stop calling him “Tommy”when he was a lawyer. He had attempts at different careers - a minister, a lawyer, administrator, politics. He went to college in New Jersey at what later became Princeton. He was a college professor and later President of Princeton University. WW was the only president to have earned a PhD, which he received from John Hopkins University in political science. He was Governor of New Jersey, where he was considered a progressive. 

He presided as President through World War I. He proposed the League of Nations to resolve conflicts between nations before they blossomed into world wars. But the US never joined the League. WW won the Nobel Peace Prize for his endeavors at the end of the war. WW began the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission.

He supported the 19^th Amendment endorsing the rite of women to vote. His history with slavery and emancipation is not as clear. He grew up in VA during the Civil War when the North marched into town. At the museum they talked about there being servants that waited on the Wilsons at the Manse. Undoubtedly these were slaves.

At the end of his life, he was very sick, having had strokes - plural. The controversy has always been who was running the country at that time - Woodrow Wilson or his wife? I came away with the distinct feeling it was his wife. 

I found a great store in Staunton. It had products from Nepal, Fair Trade goods, goods which supported endangered species, and unusual things. I loved it and bought some gifts there.


As I left Staunton I stopped in to see a natural bridge. I thought this was going to be an arch type of structure maybe six feet high. It wasn't. It was beautiful. Well worth the trip.

Then I was back to the truck stops. I thought about going to Chattanooga but decided it added too many miles to my trip. On one of these trips I put another s  c  r  a  p  e on my rig and scrape on my car.  At a truck stop ( I mean, really, a truck stop?) there was not enough room to pull around my car. I have a 25’ motor home and small Ford Focus. I was watching my car in the side mirror to see if I was going to clear the concrete barrier, and I hear a scrape. I had bumped the front of the RV into a concrete barrier on the other side. What a mess. And then pulling out I still hit the car on the other barrier, and was about to hit a truck. Eiiii-yeeeiiii-yei!! The cowboy who owned the truck wasn’t even there. He was over examining the damage I had done to the barriers.  I checked to make sure I was going to clear his truck, but he didn’t trust me and moved it back. So now I had yellow paint and dents on the rig and the same on the car. The man at the register said it happened all the time. That didn't make me feel any better. I got gas safely - at another station - and continued.

My last night before Dallas I camped on the Mississippi. It was fun to spell that out. There were barges being pulled or pushed by tugboats and they passed by all night. I completed some tasks and had a great night sleep. I was only 3 hours from Dallas.

The next morning I needed gas again. When I used my credit card it said I should see the station manager. That’s never a good sign. The fraud department had cancelled my card. I was on the phone for quite a while but it had to be cancelled. Someone not me tried to charge $500 on my card. Yecggh!! Now I have to change all the ones that are automatically charged to my card. Maybe I should have a card just for the automatic charges. Then this would probably not happen again. I called my cousins in Dallas to say I would be delayed, and started on down the road. Then in the county east of Dallas there was someone in the breakdown lane. I slowed down to pull over but the car beside me slowed down too. We played this game for a short time and then I brought my speed back up to the limit. That car pulled in back of me. The next time I looked in the side mirror there were flashing lights. I decided not to try to outrun him and, I pulled over.

A sheriff came to the big door. He asked me if I had any animals. I told him I had a cat. He asked me if I had any weapons in the rig. I said no. He repeated this a couple times through the ordeal, asking if he searched the motor home would he find any. He asked me if I had any wrapped Christmas gifts and I said yes. He told me I was hitting the white line on the outside of the highway lane, and wondered why. It was windy. Then he told me to exit the highway at the next exit and pull over, which I did. There was a fireworks company right there and I pulled in thinking it would be good to get off the road. He told me he couldn’t go in there and gave me directions to a Texaco. FINALLY we were parked where he wanted. He came into the rig, took my papers, and asked me to take my phone out and lay it on the dash. I was not to make any calls. He then told me to go back with him to his car and sit in the passenger seat. Then he called into dispatch and spoke mostly in numbers including my license number. He said there was quite a bit of drug running along that route, and he was going to search my wrapped Christmas gifts, and then they would get the dog to go through the rig. So back to the rig we go.

I pulled out the two bags of Christmas gifts, and he asked me what one item was. I knew and told him it was a package of sausage sticks like Slim Jims. He felt it and I told him I could unwrap it. He thought that was a good idea. He peered at it and tried to look down this little 1/16^th inch hole. Then another guy came and he too looked down that tiny hole. I told him I had a flashlight and went to get it. I said I would open it if they needed to see what was inside. As I was figuring out how to open it he said he didn’t need to see anymore. So he walked out and I tried to get the sausages back in the Christmas wrapper. Then he’s back. I guess he wanted me to follow him. So, back to the cruiser. He has mentioned the drug sniffing dog a couple more times as he asked me where I was going and whom I was visiting.

We sat in his cruiser and talked for a short time. He said they were finding wads of cash in wrapped Christmas gifts, gave me a verbal warning and told me to be careful about going over the white line. (Again - very strong wind) (I guess I’m being defensive.) As we sat in his cruiser, I was looking at my rig. I had the flashers on and they were working on the rig, but not on the car I was towing. I’m glad the only thing he wanted to find was cash in wrapped Christmas gifts.