Southwestern RV Trip – Day 3, Natchez, MS

The third day of our trip was a down day in the Natchez area and we awoke to a pretty good rain that lasted until about noon at which time we caught the towboat, Frank Johnson, heading upstream through the mist pushing 21 barges.  The towboat is 180’ long x 50’ wide and is powered by three screws and a total of 9000 hp.

Heading To The Southwest – Days 1-2

Now that the holidays are over, we have hit the road for a long planned RV trip to the desert Southwest, spending most of our time in Arizona.  We departed Almost Heaven South at 10am on 1/10/19 and pointed the coach toward Tuscaloosa, Al – an area still in shock due to the recent blowout football loss to Clemson in the NCAA football championship game.   Our route took us down I-75, I-24, I-59, and I-459 and the road surfaces were mostly very good except for a few rough stretches and the traffic between Chattanooga and Birmingham was very light – I really like that road.

We pulled into Sunset RV ($32/nite) about 3:30 and secured a long pull through requiring no unhooking of the car, however when I went to start it for its required 5 minute post-tow running, the battery was pretty dead.  Not sure why, but this is why I travel with a battery charger and jumper cables – charger did the trick this time and now I need to figure out why.

On Friday, we left Tuscaloosa at 9:30 am and drove I-59 to Laurel, MS and the road was very good except form the MS border to the split of I-59 and I-20.  Since I had heard that both I-20 thru MS and I-10 thru La were pretty rough, I found an alternate that took us thru Natchez, MS, a place I had been wanting to go.  So we exited I-59 at Laurel, MS and traveled west on US-84 but I would not consider it as a smooth alternative to the interstates as only about a third of it was really good road and it had a lot of coach rattling sections.

We rolled into Riverview RV Park in Vidalia, LA about 3pm – it’s just across the river from Natchez with another dead car battery so my first solution did not work.

A Couple More Breakfast Casseroles

You may recall that I made a couple of casseroles to eat for breakfast while my girls were in Florida and I decided nuking a piece of casserole vs cooking something every morning was a good way to go for breakfast and now, I was ready for another one.  I searched through your recipes and settled on one from Dave at eRecipe Cards called https://erecipecards.blogspot.com/2017/01/best-damn-cheesy-tater-tot-bacon.htmlBest Damn Cheesy Tater TotBacon Breakfast Casserole Ever.  Dave’s recipe makes two dishes so the first thing I did was cut it in half and then I amended the ingredients and directions a little to get this.

Surprise - Very Good Italian In Townsend, TN

One of my jobs in our FMCA RV club is to plan our June rally and since I have a fondness for the quiet side of the Smokies (other side is Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge), I wanted to check out campgrounds in Walland and Townsend, TN.  So we decided to make it a day trip, including lunch, and with a recommendation from a campground owner, we headed for Brianna’s Italian Restaurant and Cuisine.

2019’s First Meal – French (Toast) Cake

Happy New Year To Everyone

We had most of a cake left from our Christmas meal and Bev came up with the idea of cooking it like French Toast and I decided to call it French Cake.  The cake was provided by friend Kathy but we were not working through it quickly and this seemed like a good way to utilize it.

Our Christmas Meals

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, I’m trying to steer us away from the traditional holiday meals (turkey and ham) to something I know we all like better.  Since Wende could only come down on the 23^rd, we decided to have two Christmas meals with the same menu for each - grilled steak, baked potatoes, veggies, and rolls – our grill gets used year round thanks in part to a covered patio and living in the south but I have used it in the snow.

Sausage & Grits Casserole

While organizing the pull out pantry recently, I discovered that we had several containers of quick grits in addition to the stone ground ones in the freezer and when I began thinking about another breakfast casserole, I wanted it to include grits.  I looked through my saved blogger recipes and sure enough found just what I was looking for in the form of Sausage & Ranch Grits Casserole from Steph’s Plain Chicken Blog but since I had no ranch dressing, I decided to make a southwestern version.  I did another search and found a recipe for Mexican grits so I used both recipes and things I wanted in it to get the following.