January 14, 2012 A Better Day

After reading yesterday's post by Tom it is not hard to see that it was not a good day for us. Our motorhome was in the service bay all day being worked on for the yellow "service engine" light that was being displayed. A Cummin's tech worked most of the morning trouble shooting if it was an engine problem and concluded it was not so it was turned over to a Tiffin tech that specializes in these issues. Ennis(?) worked the rest of the day well past the 3pm time when much of the shop closes for the day and finally was able find a problem that caused the light to go out. We were elated and felt we could be on our way this morning. Ennis told me he felt 99% certain that the problem was solved, I told him that I would feel better with a 100% guarantee to which he said, "okay 99.7%". He suggested that we take the motorhome for a drive before settling in for the night. We had planned to get propane so we went to the local propane dealer to get our tanks filled. Well as we were about to get our tank filled another motorhome pulled into the lot in the opposite direction. After tank was filled, I went inside to pay the bill and Tom moved the motorhome to get out of the way of the other motorhome. When I came back outside Tom standing outside and to the back of the motorhome motioned to me to come back there. Tom had backed into a utility pole and caused damage to the fiberglass in the rear. The sun was low in the sky and really bright causing Tom not to see the pole as he was backing up. As if that wasn't bad enough when we were pulling out of the lot the yellow "service engine" came on and we knew we would not be leaving Red Bay the next day but would have to stay til Monday and return to the service bay again. A real bummer!!!
Today we slept in and had a late breakfast, cleaned up the motorhome and washed the bed linens. We then went for a drive following an 86 mile loop route. We went east a short distance and then took route 247 northeast. About half way on this road we took a side road about 5 miles to the "Key Underwood Coon Dog Cemetery".

In 1937 this cemetery was established when Key Underwood made this site a final resting place for his coon dog, Troop. It is the only cemetery in the world devoted to hunter's coon dogs. There are more than 200 coon dogs buried here. Only coon dogs are allowed to be buried here and they must meet certain qualifications. Each grave was adorn with artificial flowers and the grave markers varied from a very simple markers to engraved stones.

Returning back to route 247 we continued to route 72 and headed east to the town of Tuscumbia. The Alabama Music Hall of Fame is located here but is presently closed. Helen Keller's birth place, Ivy Green, is located in this town. We took pictures of the house but passed on going inside.

As we were traveling through the town Tom spied Deshler High School (Deshler, Ohio was the town that Tom grew up in). Don't know why the school in Tuscumbia, Alabama is named that but we found it rather curious.

Before turning to the west on route 72 we stopped for a late lunch at "Fiesta Mexicala" and had some good Mexican food. We traveled west on route 72 going through a little town of Cherokee and then a few miles afterward turned southwest onto the Natchez Trace Parkway.
The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444 mile scenic road that starts near Nashville, Tennessee and ends in Natchez, Mississippi. The route follows a trail of trading paths used by Native Americans through meadows and woodlands. The 20 mile segment that we traveled went from Alabama into Mississippi. Before reaching Tupelo, Mississippi we turned southeast on route 25 through Belmont, Golden and then ending at Red Bay, Alabama.
It was a beautiful day. Temperatures reached in the upper 50's but will drop down into the 20's tonight.