Titanium Owners Rally

Thursday May 26th, we headed to Kingston with our fifth wheel for the annual Titanium Owners Rally which is held at Rideau Acres Campground. This year over 40 Titanium owners were in attendance. It is always fun to see all the units set up in our rally area.

Unfortunately Mother Nature did not comply and our Thursday night welcome campfire got rained out. Rain continued into Friday, so rubber boots were the style of the day as we did the best we could to meet some of the new folks.

We got together with our good friends Doug and Sue to share dinner and a movie (Jane picked Shutter Island - not your Friday night chick flick!!)

Saturday morning we were greeted by the dulcet tones of the bagpipes – as the annual Celtic fest was being held at the campground. After three years, we have started to become accustomed to the pipes and they were more like background noise while we held our Tech Session meeting. We felt really sorry for the Celtic marching bands and performers who were tromping through the wet grass – which quickly became muddy fields. An added attraction this year was watching one of their motor coaches being extracted by a monster tow truck!

Saturday night twenty six couples went on the Kingston Dinner Boat Cruise. Forty eight of us piled onto a school bus for the ride down to the boat dock. The sun came out and was shining as we cruised the Thousand Islands area. Dinner was great and we even got to dance to the music of the on-board entertainer. A good night was had by all.

Sunday morning started with a Pancake Breakfast – which was hosted by the park in their indoor hall. No wet grass this morning!! Sunday evening is our PotLuck dinner – so we’d better bring our stretchy pants!!!!!!!!!

Titanium Back at Our Summer Campsite

Wednesday morning we slowly headed to Morry's - arriving after 1pm. As usual we ran into some forum members! Bill and Margaret showed up shortly after our arrival- so we spent a few minutes catching up on their winter adventures.

Our trailer was ready, so Paul spent a some time going over the new axle to familarize himself with the new parts. After paying the bill, we headed for Dundalk, Ontario. Our Texas neighbors John & Marg had invited us to stop, so after parking our rig in their neighbors driveway we settled in for the evening. Rick and Judy who also live there joined us for a great dinner and lots of conversation.

Next morning we all headed over to Rick's place for breakfast - and as usual, Judy spoiled us with lots of delicious food. Also got a chance to see Rick's garage where he rebuilds cars for the Phoenix auction. What a large operation. Before we left, John took time to show us his collection of vintage cars. These two guys are amazing - with their collection of vehicles.

We arrived at McGowan Lake around 7pm - and we were seriously outnumbered by the swarms of blackflies!! So we quickly backed the unit onto our lot, dropped the front landing gear and left!

Saturday afternoon was the "Welcome Seasonal Campers" wine and cheese - so we headed back to the lake to catch up with our summer friends. Unfortunately it was raining, so attendence was down. But we did have a chance to rake the leaves on our lot into piles - and hook up the power to the unit. Then we headed back home to our dry warm house.

If it ever stops raining we'll go back up to the lake to start the camping season.... LOL

Heading to Walkerton

In the three weeks since we arrived in Ottawa, we celebrated Easter with a full turkey dinner and most recently Mother's Day with a lobster feast. In between the two events, the weather has not been pleasant, so we have not missed our Titanium, nor our summer retreat at McGowan lake. I guess we've become 'warm weather' campers and were in no rush to join the 'hardy' folks who have been anxious to start camping season.

Last weekend Paul and Amy went car shopping and Amy is now the proud owner of a 2011 Honda Civic - nice car!

Today was a beautiful warm day, so after Paul had the truck's rustproofing re-applied and Jane returned from her swimming class at the OAC - we packed up and headed towards Morry's Trailers in western Ontario to retreive our trailer. It is scheduled for pickup on Wednesday so we drove to Barrie, Ontario and camped out at a Super 8.

Stupid Axles!!!!

Camping overnight a Morry’s is always interesting. We arrived just as Tony Lane had finished setting up his rig, so he gave us a hand to connect to electricity. It’s always fun to run into other forum members who are camping for the night - we met Gary from New Brunswick and Don from Perth. Well the propane heaters quickly warmed up our units and after a short chat we settled in for the evening.

Lo and behold at 4 am it was 42 degrees in the Titanium – so Paul had to go out and switch the propane tanks and fire up the heater. It seems we only run out of propane in the middle of the night.

The work on our rig started early and by eleven am all my scheduled work was almost done. But when they raised the rig they checked the wheel bearings …guess what! I got to join all the other Titanium owners with a set of problem bearings. Even though I have Lippert axles not Dexter axles – it seems our unit suffered the same defect.

After an examination of the options, we decided to leave the trailer at Morry’s and get replacement axles from Lippert shipped to Morry’s. It got real interesting trying to empty the contents of the home we lived in for the past six months into the pickup. Well it was crammed packed, but we did a good job of packing. So off we went down the 401 and got home in Ottawa by 11:00 pm.

The weather in Ottawa is terrible – so it’ s nice to be in a warm home. We will go back to get our trailer in a few weeks (maybe it will really be spring by then!). We are settling in to our Ottawa routines and preparing to spend Easter weekend at home.

Here are some of our last pictures showing camping in warm Mississippi and the slow progression north into snow!

Northward Bound – Yikes SNOW!!

Early Thursday morning (April 14th) in the warm sunshine, we hitched up and said goodbye to the Hollywood Casino RV Park and the Tunica area. We had planned to stay two days, but ended up spending four. Definitely a stopping-off point on future trips. Jane plans on buying the guide to casino camping – so we can make sure we aren’t missing other deals.

Our trip north took us from Mississippi to Tennessee to Arkansas to Illinois and finally to Indiana. We drove US 55, US 57, and US 70 – a good route that avoids major towns and is not totally a truck route. So after 450 some miles we arrived at Cloverdale RV park in Cloverdale, Indiana. This is an adequate park with free wifi, 30amps and not far off the highway.

We were glad that we were well north of the tornados so at least we didn’t have to worry about that once we left Mississippi. However, with each rest stop, we have had to find warmer clothes in the back of the closet. Thank goodness we have an electric mattress pad because we blew a fuse on the furnace so it was quite chilly in here in the morning.

Friday we continued our journey, ending up in Howell, Michigan – at the Taylor’s Beach campground – which actually opened on April 15th. Jane chose this park since it is on the same road as an Outlet Mall she wanted to visit (How convenient is that?). We were going to move on the next day – but decided to stay two nights. Howell is an interesting town with plenty of eating and shopping opportunities.

Sunday morning we awoke to the dreaded “S” word – SNOW!!! Yikes.!!! We had an interesting drive fighting the strong winds and snow squalls – but we arrived safely at Morry’s and are preparing to camp here for the night. Let’s hope the repairs go quickly so we can be on our way home. If it’s going to be cold and snowy – a warm house sounds real good!!

Exploring Memphis

We awoke Monday to warnings of possible tornados in the area. Humm, where do you hide in an RV during a tornado???

We decided a field trip to Memphis would be a good way to spend the day – if it were to rain and possibly get worse. It’s only a short 20 mile drive into Tennessee, so we headed for Graceland. Our first task was to find lunch at an authentic Memphis BBQ. After rejecting a derelict restaurant in a sketchy area, we headed for choice number two and we lucked out. Jim Neeley’s Interstate BBQ – rated the best little pork house in Memphis and the best BBQ in the U.S. in 1989 - was a great place to have lunch.
The building hasn’t been renovated since well before 1989 but the food was fabulous. Paul had a pulled pork sandwich but Jane opted for the house specialty – barbecued spaghetti!! Yes, a plate of spaghetti smothered in a spiced barbecue sauce with lots of chopped pork, along with a side of coleslaw and slices of white bread. Quite an interesting lunch!!

We then headed to Graceland but first we had to find our rain jackets in the back of the truck since we were in the worst rain storm we have seen since last fall. Fortunately it was just a thunderstorm – no tornados were sited in this area.


We thoroughly enjoyed the Graceland mansion tour as well as the auto museum, his two airplanes, and the other new exhibits. We spent over three hours visiting the various exhibits and felt it was really intriguing and interesting.

To see all the pictures of our visit to Graceland - click here :

http://picasaweb.google.com/pjkralik/Memphis





We then headed for historic Memphis – specifically Beale street. The original BB King’s Blues Club is located on Beale Street and the music was pouring out onto the street. Beale street is closed to vehicles and pedestrians fill the streets. It seems like a mini Bourbon Street. We dropped in for some food and libation. Food was great and the live music was outstanding. On our way home to the RV park, we were stopped by Memphis’ finest – one of the headlights on the truck had burnt out – oops! Another job for the morning.



Tuesday morning we moved from Harrah’s RV park over to Hollywood’s Casino RV park. Harrah is in somewhat of an isolated area, with the RV park some distance from the casino and hotel. Their shuttle comes only once an hour – but worse, no free WiFi. So over to Hollywood where you can walk to the casino/hotel, and the wifi is free – not to mention the nightly rate is cheaper! (A whopping $12.51 a night for a concrete pad with full 50 Amp services!) We even used the hotel’s pool and hot tub.

For dinner we crossed the street over to Sam’s Town Casino – since Tuesday is senior’s day. We got $5 dollars off the buffet which included wine and beer, and $5 dollars to play in the casino. We are starting to catch onto the senior deals!

Wednesday morning Paul drove over to the local GM dealer and had the headlight bulb replaced – while Jane stayed at the park and caught up on some overdue laundry. In the afternoon, we headed over to the Fitz Casino for their senior specials. We both ended up with free dinner buffet tickets, money to play on the machines, a free gym bag, and Jane won a free night in the hotel (good until Dec 31st). Oh yea, the beer in the casino was free - is this a recurring theme here in Tunica??

Tomorrow morning we are hitching up and heading further north – destination unknown, but we can’t delay much longer!!

New Orleans (Day 2 & 3)

On Friday noon as we checked out of the French Quarter RV park, we watched people setting up in the overflow area so they could “dry camp” for the weekend. We had no idea that the French Quarter Music Festival draws so many people. We moved to the Pontchartrain Landing RV park which is located about five miles north of the French Quarter on the inland waterway near Lake Pontchartrain. It is a fair size park with good facilities located on port authority property, near some marinas and factories in a very remote area. Most of their sites are narrow and some are a bit cramped. We were lucky that they run a shuttle bus to the French Quarter 3 times per day so that we did not have to rely on cabs. Parking was absolutely impossible during the festival so we never considered that to be an option.

We explored the French Market on Friday afternoon, listened to more music, and ate dinner on a patio at the ‘Famous Gumbo Pot’ right near the Mississippi River (too bad the food was only fair). On our way back to catch the shuttle, we walked by Bourbon Street which was starting to crank up as the sun went down – what a crazy place.

Saturday morning, we headed to the French Quarter on the 10 am shuttle so that we could do more exploring. Once we saw how busy the festival area was becoming, we decided to explore different parts of the city. We really enjoyed the free ferry from Canal Street across the Mississippi River to Algiers Point since we were able to get a good view of the music festival and the buildings near the shore.

We then hopped on the historic St. Charles Street Car line to view some of the beautiful mansions in the Garden district – which were built by the wealthy ship owners to compete with the historic downtown homes. However, since we weren’t the only tourists with the same idea plus the locals crowding onto the street car – this is a trip we will have to repeat when we can see more. We decided it would be impossible to get into any of the museums so we headed back to listen to more music. We dropped into the St. Louis cathedral for early Sunday mass – somehow the Gregorian music didn’t fit the jazz tunes coming from the outside.. LOL.

By now the downtown core was totally shut to all traffic. It was wall to wall pedestrians and party goers. We have never been in a festival that covers such a large area of a city. This party totally consumes the entire French Quarter.

We headed up a few blocks from Bourbon street to the Maison Dupuy and ate at their ‘French Quarter Bistro’. The food was excellent. Paul’s crab cake and Jane’s red fish were fantastic dishes – topped off by a piece of cinnamon apple pie! What a meal.

We then hopped the shuttle bus back to the RV park – went out to gas up the truck and buy a few groceries and prepared to depart the next morning.

Early Sunday morning, we left New Orleans and headed north on I – 55 to Tunica County, Mississippi, now the third largest gaming area in the U.S. and about 20 miles south of Memphis. We were amazed that I-69 leads directly to the casinos – an interstate highway only 15 miles long which was almost deserted on a Sunday afternoon. We booked into the Harrah’s Casino campground which has over 200 sites, only a few of which were occupied. Casino camping is usually inexpensive, and often comes with a good choice of eateries in the casinos. True to form, the sites are first class pull thrus, but the only disappointment is that wifi is not included – and we were not prepared to spring for $12.00 a day to be connected. We paid a short visit to the casino and decided to pass on the Paula Deen buffet – we weren’t sure that our arteries could handle the cholesterol overload after a day of driving.

To see our pictures of New Orleans : click on : http://picasaweb.google.com/pjkralik/NewOrleans