A helping hand

Friday, February 25, 2011

NASHVILLE, TN — The only glimpse of sunshine we had today was a few rays hitting the hillside as we headed west again on the Interstate 40 from Harriman. For the rest of our short, 150-mile trek it was overcast, but we were spared from rain. Wind, on the other hand, we had plenty of, which meant Val had to keep a firm and steadying grip on the steering wheel.

Very soon after we left Harriman, we entered the Central Time zone, which provided us with an extra hour. We stopped for fuel near Cookeville, and greeted another motorist. “Hah, y’all,” he replied, and we started to chat. When we said we were from Canada, he said “you won’t find any strangers here,” which has proved to be quite true so far.

We had a little problem to take care of upon our arrival in Nashville. Last night we tried to open the bedroom slide of our fifth wheel trailer, but when we hit the switch, nothing moved. Not finding an obvious explanation, we figured Nashville would probably have a trailer servicing business that could help us out.

Sure enough, as we drove down Music Valley Drive toward our KOA campground, we passed an RV business and a Camping World right in the neighbourhood (as well as the Grand Ole Opry! More on that tomorrow.) The KOA manager told us about their RV technician, Neal Stewart, and when Val called, he said he’d be by around 3 or so.

The campground sustained some fallen branches from yesterday’s severe weather – though no trailers were damaged. The manager figured it was lashed by the edge of the tornado that touched down two miles from here. We learned to head for the concrete shower building or main building if we should hear the tornado siren during our stay. I’ll gladly give that event a miss.

For the first time since we left Canada, we separated the truck from the trailer, and headed off for some lunch and a little look-see. I’m sure Val felt a certain lightness driving the truck without the 32-foot hunk of dead weight behind it.

A yellow utility truck pulled up to our site around 4 o’clock, and Neal, a giant bear of a man, stepped out to help us with our problem. The whole trailer lurched when he came in! He called us “mayam” and “sir” with the same southern drawl as Forrest Gump, and set to work. I prayed that it would be something small, and not something requiring us to drive the trailer to a dealer and leave it for days! Neal found a loose connector in the storage compartment electrical box, and when he tightened it, the slide whirred into place, to my whoops of delight. Meanwhile, we discovered that the microwave and the lights in the living room slide weren’t working. Neal fixed the microwave problem by tripping the breaker on our shore power connection. No sweat.

The living room lights was another story. He hemmed and hawed, checked the fuses, verified the connections and still couldn’t get them to work. Outside, he found another electrical box, and when he unscrewed the cover, a great gush of water spewed out! A little souvenir of yesterday’s deluge! Back inside, though, still no lights. We could tell Neal was really stymied. Then he ducked upstairs and back and flipped the switch. Voilà! It worked! The water had triggered the ground fault interrupter. Neal’s reset put everything to rights at last.

By this time we were hungry for dinner, so we decided to walk next door to the “Cock of the Walk” restaurant, which boasted the best catfish in town. We ate off of tin plates and drank from tin mugs. Our server brought a hot iron skillet with corn bread in it, which she flipped about three feet into the air and caught back in the pan before placing it on the table! Then she brought a large mess of catfish and fries, heaped on a tin platter, and placed it in front of us, along with a bowl of pickled onions. Our cole slaw came in an earthenware crock with a wooden spoon, and we fished our cutlery and napkins out of a tin pail sitting on the table. It was a most unusual – but tasty! – meal.