Riverview RV Park, Vidalia, LA

We stayed at the Riverview RV Park in Vidalia, Louisiana while buying our Dutch Star and then shifting all our belongings over from the Pace Arrow (which took way more time and effort than we expected). This has turned out to be one of our favorite RV parks.

It is located right on the Mississippi River. We can sit in the coach and watch Tow Boats pushing barges up and down the river. I (James) grew up in Greenville, Mississippi which sits on Lake Washington, a lake formed when the mighty Mississippi shifted its course eons ago. When young I lived next to the levee that protected the flat Mississippi Delta region from flooding. I would go up on the levee and watch the tow boats come into port. Plus many tow boats and barges were constructed in Greenville near where I played on the levee. So seeing all this again brings back a lot of fond childhood memories.

The city of Vidalia has built a nice park and walkway along the river that comes about 1 1/2 miles down the river from the bridge and connects to the RV Park. It provides a great place to walk Clay, our Golden Retriever. He loves taking these walks greeting people and sniffing the air for the smells of critters that live along the river bank. There are a couple of spots where he always wants to stop and investigate. I imagine a coon, possum or perhaps a feral cat lives in the brush and trees along the bank.

We stayed here a couple of weeks and then went to Timberlake Campground near Flowood Mississippi, a suburb of Jackson. This campground was right on the Ross Barnett Reservoir and pretty nice. It was really convenient for shopping and visiting with family. We had a good spot next to the water on an inlet of the reservoir. They have a two week limit before you have to leave or shift to another site. So we are headed back to Vidalia to spend March and wait for the weather to warm up before we move north. Our rough plans are to go to Russellville, Arkansas for some more repair and service work. Then probably over to Memphis to visit friends; up to Napannee, Indiana to have a desk installed; Chicago to visit our son Ward; Du Quoin, Illinois to attend a Newmar rally in late June. We will visit whatever strikes our fancy along the way. Plus we have to make a side trip, probably by car, to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to get our drivers license and make other arrangements to establish South Dakota as our legal residence. As "full timers" without any real estate in a fixed location, we can pick our home state. South Dakota has no state income tax nor personal property tax. The sales tax is only 3% which was a savings on the recent purchase of our Dutch Star.

We are using Alternative Resources for our mail forwarding. Our mailing address is:

3700 S. Westport Ave #4050
Sioux Falls, SD 57106

We hope to hear from you all when you have a moment to update us on what is happening with you.

James and Monique

New RV for the Thompson's

We have a new toy - a new (to us) RV!

To begin our new journey as "full timers", we left Lexington, SC in January 2008 seeking a different RV for our travels. We had done much research and decided we wanted a good used diesel pusher motor home,with one of our top choices being a Newmar Dutch Star.

During our research we had spotted a used 2002 Dutch Star model 4090 in Natchez, Mississippi for sale by an individual. Our research had also pointed us towards PPL, a large RV consignment dealer in Houston, Texas. We figured we could go to Texas to look for a new unit and then use PPL to sell our existing Pace Arrow motor home once we found a new one. Along the way we could stop in Natchez. So that is what we did, and we liked the Dutch Star in Natchez well enough to buy it.

As is often the case it was not 100% of what we were looking for, but was close enough. Plus the owner was a very nice gentleman who had taken excellent care of the unit. He and his wife traveled in it full time for about 18 months before buying a home in Natchez. They built a special shed to store the Dutch Star and regularly exercised it to keep everything in good shape. It turns out the motor home has not had many miles added since 2004. So far we have found few problems, but there are a few things we must fix and some upgrades we wish to make.

We came to Jackson, Mississippi to purchase new tires and to have routine service done to replace all the main fluids (oil, transmission, etc.) The service was not due based upon miles, but rather upon number of months. We are going to play it safe and have all the key services performed.

We also plan to go to Nappannee, Indiana this summer or late spring to have a desk unit built that will interconnect with the existing dining table and make a very nice work area while we travel. Somewhere along the way we will add satellite TV service and upgrade to a flat screen HDTV. We also have a few repairs we need made. We have found a highly rated dealership in Russellville, Arkansas and will go there the first of April for the repairs, after it warms up a bit more.

We have included some pictures so you can see our new toy. It has full body paint in a thunder gray color with 3 slides which give us much more room.

As we had planned, we took our Pace Arrow to PPL in Houston to sell. The folks are very nice there and very experienced in selling used RVs. We are hopeful they can be successful selling ours.

We are glad the trip to Houston is behind us. We had to travel over some terrible roads in Louisiana. They are all being rebuilt. Future travelers will have a better time, but it was a tooth jarring ride most of the way for us. Then when we got to Houston, we spent the night on PPL's lot before turning the coach over the next day. It turns out they are located right under the intersection of two interstate type highways. Monique counted 7 overpasses within a few yards of where we were parked. (See the picture). Needless to say that was not a restful night!

On the other hand we found a very nice RV park in Vidalia, Louisiana, one of our favorites among those we have visited. We are headed back there for most if not all of March. More about that in another update.