Wednesday - September 12th - Leaving Monroe

After a final trip to our 10'x20' storage unit here in Monroe to offload things that will not be used while on the road, we said our good-byes to our hosts at Hoyt Highfill & Associates. They were so kind to allow us to use their parking pad with FULL hook-ups for the past eight nights!

We drove 125 miles south to the town of Marksville, Louisiana, home of the Paragon Casino and RV Resort. We are here for four nights as part on the Bayou Kruisers "chapter" rally. This is a club of mostly south Louisianians who all own Newmar motorhomes or 5th wheels. Newmar Corporation sponsors the international "Newmar Kountry Klub" which all owners of Newmar products are invited to join. The overall Klub is divided into about 10 "regions" and the regions are divided into individual "states". The states then have one or more "chapters". We are members of the Bayou Kruisers (obviously, Louisiana) and the Palmetto Pals, South Carolina, where we plan to settle down later this year.

We were very surprised when our friends from Van Alstyne, Texas, Terry and Sylvia Hix, called me from Alexandria, Louisiana. I did not know that they were planning to come to this rally. When we last saw them in Lake City, Colorado in July, they were not planning to come to this rally. So, I was very surprised when I got Terry's call that they had a front tire blowout on the I-49 overpass in Alexandria, on their way to this rally. They were about 30 miles away from Marksville. Terry assured us that roadside assistance was on the way and that we could be of no help. Around dinner time (of course, Terry) they showed up. About 14 of us went to dinner at Rosie's, a 50's kind of eatery in the Paragon Casino.

We had intermittant rain enroute from Monroe and it has been raining here since we got here. Tropical Storm Humberto came ashore in southeast Texas and this rain is part of that system.