After finishing up with the National Parks in South Dakota, the next city on our list was Chicago. However, before we could go there we had the small matter of a 4 day music festival by the name of Bonnaroo in Tennessee. We had a couple of things we wanted to get checked out before we took Ita to a field with no electricity for 4 nights so we booked her in for a service in Nashville on the Tuesday. We had a good few hundred miles to drive so we left ourselves two full days to do it after the punishing 900 mile 24 hour trip from San Diego through the heat.
After looking at one of the bits of travel literature we have we discovered Arthur Bryant's BBQ in Kansas City, Missouri. This restaurant is famous all over America for having amazingly good BBQ so we chose Kansas City as our destination for the first day's drive. We woke up at the rest area and hit the road to get the miles done nice and early and hopefully enjoy some delicious BBQ and watch the basketball. The first leg of the trip was quite forgettable as the miles ticked by but things heated up once we reached the state of Missiouri. Over the past few days we had been witnessing thunder and lightning storms every day so we assumed the one we were driving into was no different. How wrong we were.
At first there was the bright forks of lightning and pretty soon they were flashing out of the dark clouds every few seconds. Then the rain started, at first like a wet Irish summer, then a downpour and pretty soon it was end of the world style rain. It was so heavy the wipers couldn't clear the rain from the windsreen, even on the fastest setting. During this rain the wind started to pick up and gust, causing us to drift across the lane. Cars were starting to pull in under bridge overpasses but we were way too large to be able to do that. The torrentail rain showed no sign of easing and was soon accompanied by hail. Like the rain, the hail started lightly at first, tapping on our roof as it landed but soon it was hammering down all around and on top of us and causing the road and grass to turn white all around us. The wind was continuing to gust and swirl, sometimes blowing us to the left and switching to the right a few hundred yards down the road. At this stage our best bet was to get out from under the thick black clouds. We could see the bright skies up ahead in the distance so I put the foot down and we drove through the wind, rain and hail. Up ahead what we went through will live with us for a long time. The hail started increasing in size, exploding on the road in front and beside us. Next thing we heard this massive bang behind us. I grabbed the wheel thinking a tyre had blown out but the RV continued in a straight-ish line so it wasn't the tyres. The hail falling was now the size of sliotairs and some of them were raining down on the roof as well as all around us. The two of us were very nervous and incredibly keen to get out of the way of the missiles raining down. A couple of minutes we reached the edge of the storm and pulled up the next off-ramp. We could hear the radio again and the National Weather Service had taken over all the stations and was issuing a severe weather warning. We had driven through the beginning of a tornado.
I hopped out of the RV and had a quick look around the sides of the RV and on the roof to check the damage. The sides were fine but there were some big dents on the roof and one of them had punctured the roof completely. I talked to a woman in a car in front of us who was on the phone to her sister. As I did numerous cars and trucks with spinning satellites were flying past us and heading back into the dark menacing clouds. She advised us to continue the way we were going so we did. As we rejoined the interstate we could see the dark clouds swirling around in the middle, right where we had come from. We left the radio on the station as the National Weather Service continued to issue warnings - unfortunately they issue them for counties which are not on our map so we weren't sure which way it was heading so it was a nervous last hundred miles. We continued to head for Kansas City and watched as storm chasers flew past along side us and against us and thankfully we encountered no further severe weather along the way to the city.
As we approached Kansas City there was a noteable increase in temperature and humidity - the storm was the dividing line between the cool weather in the north and the muggy, warm weather in the south. Sat Nav brought us to Arthur Bryant's BBQ restaurant in Kansas City. It isn't exactly in the safest neighbourhood but it is quite popular - one man had been on the road 14 hours and wanted to stop there for dinner. It also looks like it hasn't been done up since it opened back in the middle of the 20th century, it has a very simple decor with simple tables and chairs and a counter at the back to order and pay at. They had the basketball on so we ordered a rack of ribs with fries and the special - rib tips with fries. The ribs came covered in the most flavoursome sauce I have ever tasted with a massive portion of home cut fries. The sauce wasn't like your typical BBQ sauce that we are used to and had experienced so far on the trip, it is very much a unique taste to the restaurant and draws people in from all around to enjoy it. It is a red sauce with numerous spices mixed in, not like the sweet brown sauce we are used to. Emer wasn't as much of a fan of it as I was but we were both hungry so we gobbled it down. Or at least as much of it as we were able, the portions we got were massive. They were closing so we weren't able to stay for all of the basketball. As Emer was washing the sauce from her hands I looked at the photos adorning the walls - a who's who of famous American people from the last few decades. Many past Presidents and the Republic contenders from the last election, John McCain and Sarah Palin, have all eaten in the restaurant. We checked the Sat Nav and found a sports bar and grill nearby so we headed there to watch the reaminder of the basketball.
We arrived at the beginning of the 4th quater so I ordered a beer and settled in to enjoy it. It was an incredibly tight game all the way to the end. The Lakers drew level with 0.6s left on the clock. Orlando had a chance to win it but the ball bounced off the rim so the game went into overtime. We got chatting to the staff about the weather we had come through and the barman was telling us that if we had comprehensive insurance then the RV is covered for the damage sustained in the storm. Meanwhile, the Lakers pulled away in overtime and won the game to take a 2-0 lead to Orlando. We continued chatting as the news was showing the hail from earlier and we had 2 pints of local stout bought for us by a drunk local who told us that not all Americans are bad guys. Quite funny really how much they want to be liked. Pretty soon the storm started moving into the city as lightning lit up the night sky. With the holes in the roof this was our cue to leave so we hit the road east to get out of the rain and rest for the night. We drove for a couple of hours to a rest area where it was dry. I covered up the holes as best I could and we reverse parked under a tree incase the rain reached us.
Which it did at around 5am. Thunder rumbled and shook the RV, lightning lit up the sky all around us and rain fell for hours. There was nothing much we could do about it so we just slept as best we could. The following morning the rain had stopped and a bit had gotten into the RV. I got up on the roof, swept off the standing water and we were on the road again. Emer drove as I rang the insurance company about the damage. The claim was lodged and an agent rang me from Nashville. He was to meet us at Camping World in the morning where it was booked in for a service anyway which was quite convenient. We drove through the morning and afternoon, I had the leftovers of yesterdays amazing BBQ for lunch. It still tasted as good as yesterday. As we drove through the afternoon we had the weather sirens on the radio and we looked at each other, the National Weather Service was issuing more severe thunderstorm warnings but thankfully we weren't affected today. We stopped just over the Tennessee border and went to the cinema to see Up 3-D, the new Pixar film. It was very enjoyable, except for the mother who brought her 2 year old in. To the 9.30 pm showing. The kid was full of sugar and didn't keep quiet. Emer said something to the mother after the show and got a barrage of abuse from the mother but agreeing glances from others leaving the show. We drove to Camping World and parked about a mile away for the check in the morning.
We were up and at Camping World just after 8.30am where we met with Dan, our insurance auditor (I think that is what they are called anyway). We had a quick discussion where he said due to the value of the RV there is a chance that it will be written off as roof repairs can be quite expensive. Emer drove Ita into the garage and saw the reaction on the face of the mechanic - it looked quite likely that it wasn't going to get repaired. We left Dan and the mechanic look at the roof and discuss the costs while we waited and caught up on our diaries and stuff inside. Dan came into us and said he needed to do the maths and a few minutes later it was official, Ita was to be written off. We looked into renting an RV but there wasn't a chance of getting one at this stage as Bonnaroo was starting on Thursday and it was now Tuesday. We went through our options with Dan to see how we would move forward. We told him about Bonnaroo and how we needed it for the weekend as we had the RV ticket and hadn't organised anything else. He said that we could keep Ita for the weekend and then meet him on Monday at the salvage yard where Ita was going to go and we could get the cheque for the full amount we paid, including the tax so it was a bit of a blessing in disguise as we wouldn't have to go through the ordeal of trying to sell it. There was also a couple of other options, one was salvage straight away and use the $750 vacation expenses entitled to us in our insurance cover but it would probably cost more than that in accommodation for Bonnaroo. The other option was to keep the RV, insurance pays us the full value minus the estimated salvage value and then we can pay for as many or as few repairs as we want. We continue to be insured if we are in a crash but not for any damage to our own vehicle.
Option A seemed to be our best option so he told us to go to Wal-Mart and get duct tape and black liners and seal all off the holes and dents so that if it rains it will keep the water out as technically it is their vehicle and it will reduce the salvage value. We parted on that, cancelled all the scheduled repairs to our RV and went to the RV park down the road. All the parks in Manchester (beside Bonnaroo) were completely full so we booked in for two nights before Bonnaroo. Here I taped up the roof good and proper and we had BBQ for lunch and dinner, recharged all the electronics and looked into what we would do after Bonnaroo. All our options were looking very expensive - even the smallest RV is $160 per day excluding mileage and must be dropped back to where they are rented from, a car worked out at nearly $2,000 until the end of July and then you have to buy food and pay for accommodation on top of that, trains are quite expensive too and then we have to deal with getting around all the cities. We rang Dan back and enquired about losing the salvage value and keeping Ita. He got onto the salvage yard who were busy and he was finished for the week so he left the matter with the team leader. We were expecting to lose a grand or two as the salvage value but it would still be the cheapest way to complete our road trip.
We got a call back later that evening informing us that their estimated salvage value is $400 which means that we can keep Ita and get a cheque for $5080. We agreed to this option and laughed at how lucky we were. We paid $480 in tax when we purchased the RV which we assumed we would never see again as our hope was to sell it in Florida for $5000. To earn that we would have had to fix the things that were going wrong along the way and hope that we find a dealer/person looking for something like that and also have the money to be able to give us instead of having to wait for installments. Now we have an RV that we can drive into the ground and then give to someone we have met along the way who wants it or a scrap yard for a couple of hundred dollars. Either way we are effectively driving around a free RV!!!
After this news I went back on the roof and taped up the holes even more since we need to roof to hold for another few weeks and no doubt we will see some more showers and thunderstorms. We took it easy in the RV park, got things cleaned, emptied and filled in preperation for the weekend and left the park early on Thursday morning. A friend of mine, Kelly, was travelling to Bonnaroo with 8 friends in a rented RV and we were planning on meeting up and going into the festival together so we arranged to attempt to be in Manchester Thursday morning. Myself and Emer had to collect our tickets from Will Call as they were only posted out in June and we had no address at that time. We turned up at the office just as a thunderstorm was overhead so we waited in the RV until the downpour past. It also gave us a chance to see how my expert duct tape job fared out in it's first test. We had a small bit of leakage but nothing serious, a few drops for maybe 5 minutes after the raining stopped. I got out and joined the queue when it stopped. Emer came up and joined me a couple of minutes later. She had seen that it hadn't moved at all so went up and asked if people were all waiting to collect tickets. It turned out that they were all there to buy tickets or enquire about what do because they had lost their tickets so we were able to skip it all and join the queue inside with only two people in it. We got our tickets and headed back to the interstate. I rang Kelly and they were about 50 miles behind us heading straight for us. We arranged to meet in a Wal-Mart car park a few miles away and it all went to plan. We went through all the introductions and then took an age to hit the road as the group of 9 in the other RV tried to decide which way to go. It was quite funny to watch from afar and after a while a consensus was agreed and we were on the road. They were much bigger than us so we followed them and pretty soon we were in the queue for Bonnaroo.
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