Home to Louisiana

We left our new home in Texas and headed to Louisiana on Sunday. We took some back roads through Texas to get to I-20 north of Tyler. This drive was very interesting and we drove by some beautiful ranches and countryside. We drove to Ruston, LA, a small town east of Shreveport. We had arranged to meet a gentleman, Dick Albritton, I met on the Alfa owner’s website and have him seal the air leaks in our coach. I thought this would involve spraying some sealer under the front hood cap but how wrong I was. Dick spent several hours opening up drawers, going under cabinets, taking up the carpet under the driver’s area, and working underneath the coach sealing all of the storage bays. Alfa pays Dick to do this job and he does many coaches each year. I am not sure why they pay him, and others, to solve this problem rather than doing a better job themselves. While we were there we also had him install a microwave vent opener, put some trim on the front cowl, insulate the front door, and install a soap dispenser on the kitchen sink. These are all things he has done to his Alfa coach to improve the ride and look. He also does some other things but we didn’t feel we needed them at this time.

Dick finished the work late Monday afternoon and drove the coach out of the garage and back to our parking space. We spent the evening there and enjoyed the sound of rain for most of the evening. We hope we are also getting some of it back at home. He has a great facility at his home. It used to be a terminal for a trucking company, on 10 acres, and has large doors on each side wide and tall enough for any motorhome or truck. They remodeled the inside of the building to make a living space and still have three large working spaces. In addition to his motorhoming he has an AC/Heating/Electrical business and also drag races in his spare time. He has a dragracer, his son has one, and his grandson has one. His wife Trish also drags a pick-up truck that runs gas but has been significantly modified. Dick and Trish are terrific people that welcomed us like relatives and did an excellent job on each item they did on our coach. They are suffering through their grandson’s battle with a cancerous tumor so take a minute to say a prayer for all of them.

We left Dick’s place this morning under cloudy skies and a cool breezy day. We drove the 170 miles to the Coushatta Grand Casino Luxury RV Resort in Kinder, LA. Tomorrow we will take the coach to the freightliner facility in Lake Charles, LA for a 6K mile Initial Maintenance. The park here is pretty nice but not really a Luxury Resort. There is lots of grass area and a small lake but it really isn’t anything special but it is comfortable which is fine with us. We are going to the steak house at the casino tonight and then head for freightliner early in the morning. We will return here tomorrow night and then head back into Texas on Thursday. I will post a couple of pictures of us with the coach and a couple from our ride today. I will try some more tomorrow so until then be safe.