Well, it could be worse.

May 11--West Plains, MO

I neglected to mention that last night, while trying to connect my electric and water, I scratched the hell out of my left shoulderblade with a corner of the panel cover. I thought it was just a welt, but I found this morning that I had broken the skin and that it looked rather nasty. Given the copious amount of dirt on the cover, and that I hadn't had a tetanus booster in 10 years, I decided to take care of that. So I packed up early (I had actually slept quite well; I didn't have the 3am wakeup I usually have) and tried to find an urgent care that I had looked up on the Internet. Which wasn't where the map said it would be, but I saw a billboard for another place and got the shot (plus a suggestion I put some Neosporin on the scrape) in about 50 minutes. And found my blood pressure, even though I was about to get a shot, was in the "high normal" range, which is pretty good for me under stress. Yay not teaching!

I got back in the RV and drove for about 40 minutes before stopping at a WalMart to get supplies (condiments, tortilla chips and salsa, a sandwich for brunch). The rig was running fine, so I headed out.

Right before I got to Memphis, we hit the Delta. Flat as a pancake, which continued through much of Arkansas. The weather was cloudy and only about 75, so quite comfortable. Until the hills came back.

The rig had been a trooper, but about 2:30 we hit the same wall: the damn thing just didn't want to go up hills. This was more of a problem than it had been yesterday, because I was on a two-lane road with little room for passing. At one point I was relatively sure that I was going to wind up not only not being able to climb the hill, but actually going backwards!

I stopped for a few minutes, to see if this would help. It did for a bit, but then not only did I lose power, but the "Check Engine" light came on. I kept on driving, mostly because I was in the middle of nowhere and I figured I probably wasn't hurting the engine too badly. While passing through West Plains I saw a Dodge dealership and stopped.

The mechanics pulled it in, did a lot of head scratching, revved the engine like crazy (I have no idea, by the way, what the cats in their carriers in the back thought of this), then said my turbo booster was bad. This is a not-uncommon thing in Dodge Sprinters, like mine; I'm just glad it decided to give out now and not, say, in the Yukon. They ordered the part, and it should be in tomorrow.

I drove the rig a couple of miles down the road to a very nice campground, even if it is just off the busy road and by a railroad track. There's a pool, which is very cold, a nice common room off the office with books, and a storm shelter right up the hill, which everyone apparently used two days ago when the tornadoes came through. We may have storms tonight; I do hope we don't need to evacuate to the shelter.

I'm going to take the rig back tomorrow; the part should be in about noon, and I'd like the engine to be nice and cold so they can transfer it right away. I'm not sure if I'll go any farther tomorrow; there is a big tornado outbreak predicted just north of here, and I'm in no hurry to get into that. I'll just play it by ear and check the storm prediction tomorrow.

But I'm well (not even a welt where the shot was--the Benadryl I took apparently worked), the rig is fine even if it can't climb hills (and I'm in the middle of the Ozarks--there are hills everywhere), and the cats are quite happy. Lots of eating, no more barfing, although Puck needs to realize he can't sharpen his claws on the carpet-covered walls above my bed. For a day that began in an emergency room and ended in a car repair center, it really could have been much worse.