A Lot of Basketball, Some Seafood and a Bad Time for Power Loss

(Betty’s RV Park, Abbeville, LA) Hi 72° F Low 59° F

Saturday, April 5^th

Well, Saturday was all about NCAA basketball and the Kentucky Wildcats.  While we did manage to get a couple of small projects and some cleaning completed, we had the TV on to keep up with the Final Four coverage.

One of the projects involved replacing a retaining strap that prevented the expandable dinette table from opening during travel.  The plastic strap was attached on one side of the seam and spanned to the other side with a snap.  We couldn’t find a suitable direct replacement so we bought a small, metal hook and latch and replaced the plastic strap system.  We’ll find out how well it works when we get out on the road again this week.

The other project was to replace one of the screws in the shower enclosure.  I had noticed that a few of the screws were starting to rust a little.  Recently one of the screws came loose from one of the two enclosure sections.  I removed it and found that the black self-tapping sheet metal screw wasn’t long enough to properly contact the second enclosure piece.  We bought some stainless steel sheet metal screws and replaced the one I removed. I think it will work well.

Early in the afternoon we settled in to prepare for basketball.  We flipped back and forth between several channels to catch the coverage.  Florida played Connecticut in the first game and Florida lost by ten points.

The second game featured Kentucky against Wisconsin.  The score was very close the entire game but Kentucky hit a three-point shot with 5.7 seconds left to take a one point lead and held on for the win.

Woohoo!! Go Cats!

They’re in the NCAA Championship game to be held Monday evening.  Big Blue Nation is ecstatic.  We received several texts during the game and afterwards – all relating to the UK game.

We had some local drama with 16 seconds left in the game and the score tied.  The power in the campground went off then came back on within a couple of minutes. 

Huh? What happened!?

We were freaking out trying to figure out how to watch or get updates on the game.  When power to the satellite system goes off it takes about 10-12 minutes to reset, perform self-checks, etc, before we can watch TV again.  It was agonizing!

I have the ESPN app on my iPhone and we quickly accessed the live coverage but it was text-type of play-by-play with no video.  So we spent the last 16 seconds of the game hovered around the phone waiting for it to update every few seconds.  The last few seconds dragged on for several real-time minutes and just as the game ended the satellite signal came back on.  They were replaying the last few seconds of the game so we actually were able to experience the rest of the game.

We then watched several segments of different TV shows relating to the NCAA Final Four and Championship game.

Then we went to bed and read for a little while.

That was our Saturday.  I apologize if our activities are concentrated mostly around college basketball, but such is our life around this time of year – especially when the Kentucky Wildcats are still playing.  We love it!

Sunday, April 6^th

(Betty’s RV Park, Abbeville, LA) Hi 77° F Low 62° F

We woke up this morning and had pork chops, eggs and toast for breakfast.  Really good!

We didn’t do a whole lot today either.  We discussed plans for our next destination.  I think we’re going to head from Abbeville, LA to Vidalia, LA on Tuesday.  Vidalia is across the Mississippi River from Natchez, MS.  We’ll probably stay a couple of nights in Vidalia at River View RV Park and then start on the Natchez Trace Parkway.

It was cloudy and looked like it could rain at any minute all day long.

We went to Happy Hour at around 4:30 pm.  Several of us ordered take-out seafood from a place in Erath, LA.  We could order shrimp, crawdads, or a combination of both, along with vegetables.  We didn’t catch the name of the restaurant.  One of the guys staying here at Betty’s went to pick everything up.

Lisa and I shared a shrimp, corn, and potatoes dish.  They were some of the largest shrimp we’ve seen and they were really good.

We talked about college basketball several times throughout the evening with other campers.  One of the new couples live in San Diego but support Michigan State and are very interested in college basketball as well. 

Several of us decided that if the weather cooperates tomorrow night, we’re going to watch the NCAA Finals on our outside TV and grill sausages, chicken and whatever else anyone wants.  Lisa and I will leave Happy Hour a little early to get physically and mentally prepared for it.

Tomorrow we’re planning on taking a swamp tour at Champagne’s Cajun Swamp Tours.  It’s highly recommended by several people here at the campground and Betty herself.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate.  It’s supposed to move out of the area tonight so we’ll see and probably decide in the morning.

That’s about all for tonight.

Thanks for following along.