We awakened this morning to crystal clear skies. We took quite a bit of time drinking Irish Cream mixed with coffee, fired of the water heater, took showers and hopped into Charlotte for some exploring in south central Indiana. As usual, my preconceived notions about Indiana were absolutely incorrect.
We drove about a mile down the road from North Vernon into Vernon where we stopped at a place called the Log Cabin for breakfast. When we first arrived, I thought we were at a bar and my suspicions were confirmed once we opened the door and found we were in a completely unoccupied bar. We could hear some sounds coming from a door on the side of the bar and we followed the noises and, after moseying through a corridor, arrived in a little greasy spoon restaurant with local folks enjoying their meals.
The menu of breakfast items was pretty much what you would expect in this part of the world – bacon and eggs, hash browns, toast, omelets, biscuits and gravy. Right up my alley. I ordered something called the Big Humongous Breakfast or something like that and Peg settled for the bacon and eggs. When my breakfast arrived, I was stoked because my menu item turned out to be hash browns covered with scrambled eggs liberally sloshed with sausage gravy and, to take pure cholesterol to a pinnacle, shredded cheddar covering the whole gooey mass with a bunch of bacon dotting the surface. Even better, this most expensive item on the menu ran $6.50. Peggy’s bacon and eggs turned out to be exactly what she wanted and she said they were great.
Strangely, our waitress was an old girl about 10 years younger than me and hailed from El Cajon right outside our hometown of San Diego. Weird. I asked what a dazzling urbanite from El Cajon was doing in a rustic Indiana cafe but this may have been a mistake because she immediately broke into a long monologue about her entire life from the time of her birth to the present. Other folks in the place were having lukewarm political discussions about the deficiencies of the current Democratic administration in Washington and the abuses heaped on the American people by collective bargaining and unions, all accompanied by ardent shrieking from a Nazi Fox News TV broadcast in the corner. I kept my big mouth firmly shut except to shovel in more of my very tasty food.
We left the cafe, cruised through the fascinating one block long main drag of Vernon and then continued south on IN-3 for about 20 miles admiring the rolling Indiana countryside. There is a lot of corn growing along the road in small farms that are interrupted by regular sections of undeveloped forestland with mostly big hardwood trees, making for a very shady and pleasant drive. We arrived in the town of Austin and picked up some really cheap diesel ($2.34/gallon) before turning west across I-65. Once we had gone about 10 miles, we turned north on IN-31 to head back in the general direction of North Vernon. We ultimately turned back east heading for home but, on the way, found and turned into the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge. This is a neat little gem right where we did not expect it with a good visitor center with a bona fide naturalist holding down the small front desk. She was quite forthcoming with all kinds of great poop about the area and mentioned that they had a wildlife viewing room with darkened glass so the animals outside could not see us pesky humans inside. Outside the glass, they have set up bird feeders and all the local birds come here to eat so the viewing is outstanding. I sat in the room for about half an hour watching and photographing lots of types of birds we have seen before and some we have not previously spotted on our travels. It was great! It is also free, which is pretty rare.
As we were on our way out, the naturalist mentioned that there is a self-guided auto tour we could take and she handed over the guide and map. Peggy perused the attached gift shop but we got out without spending too much. Outside the visitor center there was a half mile trail through the dense, shady wood and wetlands that made for a nice stroll but was plagued by copious quantities of nasty biting and blood-sucking insects so we walked through it quite hastily. We re-boarded Charlotte and took off on the auto tour. We spotted Canadian geese and some birds and hordes of butterflies on the refuge. The entire refuge is land that was originally cleared by pioneers in the area but the Feds got ahold of the land and let it revert to nature. It is quite beautiful and, if we have enough time, I would like to go back in either early morning or late afternoon when all the local critters are out dining and drinking.

We gathered up our chairs and sewer hoses and water hoses and electrical cords and trailer stabilizers, dumped our trash and departed Diamond Caverns, KY, and took off for North Vernon, Indiana’s Muscatatuck Park. It was drizzling as we left and got right down to business raining by the time we drove into Louisville, KY. We drove I-65 most of the way and there is quite a bit of construction in the section that extends from Diamond Caverns to Louisville. The construction program has left large, wheel-gobbling holes at most of the bridge approaches, particularly where the freeway has been narrowed down to two full lanes from the usual four lanes. There has not been any form of traffic reduction so, until we crossed the Ohio into Indiana, the going was a bit sluggish. Coupled with the downpours occurring as we passed over the river, the driving was challenging for us interlopers from elsewhere. Once we crossed into Indiana, traffic sped right up but the quality of the road surface went right down. Highway construction and maintenance in Indiana is not approached with the same reckless verve encountered in Kentucky.
Other than today’s drive up I-65, however, I must say the roads in Kentucky were otherwise quite good and very scenic. Kentucky, or at least the section we saw, is quite beautiful. The people were very friendly and hospitable. The stores were everything we needed and the Ford service in Bowling Green left me with the impression that I did not get screwed – a rare occurrence when dealing with Ford service facilities. I-65 was the only part of Kentucky we did not like.
Once we crossed into Indiana, the heavy rain and the roads being engineered such that they do not drain made for some interesting driving. Semis would zip past us leaving us in vast clouds of spray that seconds before had been big ponds of water on the road surface. Visibility was limited to the distance from my head to the inside of the windshield every time one of these leviathans of commerce passed.
After about 500 trucks passed us, all going quite a bit faster than the posted 55 miles per hour, we got off the interstate and headed east on IN Hwy 50 toward North Vernon. IN Hwy 50 makes an abrupt right somewhere along the route but seems to not be important for the local drivers although we missed the not clearly posted right and continued along the straight road we were on until we noted the Garmin trying to figure a new course for us to follow to our destination. The Garmin spent some time re-calculating before giving up because it was flummoxed. Our Virgin phone, a device I have come to hate, did find a route that only meant driving another 10 miles or so before finding out if we were screwed.
We finally rolled down the main street of North Vernon and considerable lane-narrowing detours and pulled into Muscatatuck Park. Muscatatuck Park is shown on a nearby historical plaque as Indiana’s fourth state park although it is now a county park. It surprised us because we were expecting something mundane but we instead found an exquisite entry road that runs about 1/3 of a mile through a ravine with an 1840s quarry site now overgrown with a hardwood forest, a beautiful little stream and nifty little waterfalls emptying into it. The camping is on the opposite side of the ravine from the highway and has spacious RV sites in an enormous grass field surrounded by deciduous trees on all sides.
The campground host, Kevin, came by to check us out and we had a few beers with him. He grew up in this area, is very nice and offered us about any kind of help we might need. After we got the Invader set up in our spot, the skies really opened up for business and dropped an inch of rain in just a few hours. We had enough thrills for today so we turned on some Top Gear on the tube, ate a great Caesar salad Peggy whipped up and snuggled down for the night.

Yippee! Today some new Visa cards arrived as promised by B of A and, hopefully, our credit card woes are over unless some wiseguy compromises their top secret data again. Dealing with the wonderful fraud protection folks at B of A has been a nightmare with their dedicated but idiotic employees telling us lies, half-truths, outright fabrications and devious misstatements except for the last person who spoke with Peggy. He actually told us the truth when he stated that he would overnight UPS our cards to our current camping location.
We spent the rest of the day updating our automatic payments through Visa, making reservations for camp spots for our travels in the next month and doing the laundry. We took a very short break to take a spin in Charlotte to purchase diesel and get a look at the Green River ferry. The Green River is the outfall for all the water that runs through Mammoth Cave. The ferry is a simple little rig that will hold 8 tons maximum and crosses the river at a spot about 100 feet wide.
The design of the ferry is unlike any I have seen before. It has a little cab and an engine housing on one side of the tiny car platform and a paddle wheel partially submerged on the other side. There is a lot of splashing from the paddle wheel. To keep the ferry from running downstream, they have rigged a static line across the river and two pulleys with straps to the ferry run on the line. Simple, but effective. The ferry operator puts the ferry in 1st gear to cross the river in one direction and puts it in reverse to go back. There is very little traffic for the ferry so it works here. I might come back here some day and see if I can get the operator job because it looks like he only needs to work about 20 minutes per day and I think I could do that.

This morning we woke up knowing we had to take Charlotte to the Ford dealership in Bowling Green for her 5000 mile check-up and oil change. We had plenty of time in the morning before we had to take off for dealer so we got to take showers and make a big breakfast before departure. It was about 30 miles to Bowling Green and we got to the Ford dealer 10 minutes early and Greenwood Ford was ready for us.
While waiting for the oil change, Peg resolved some more problems regarding our Visa card which has attempted to become the bane of our existence. Surprisingly, the Virgin phone works in Kentucky and that’s strange because it hardly works anywhere. We have received not less than 3 stories about our replacement cards from Visa; 1. New cards were mailed to our home address on July 28th which turned out to be a big lie, 2. New cards were mailed to our home on August 3rd which may or may not have been true because we ain’t in San Diego to find out, and 3. New cards issued today will be UPS overnight delivered to us here tomorrow which we will find out whether it is true or not tomorrow. We eagerly await results so we can call Visa and razz them some more.
Greenwood Ford finished our truck in record time for a Ford dealer and we left the dealer for a free car wash they gave us for getting our oil changed there. Charlotte came out of the car wash looking all sparkly and clean. Next we went to Chuck’s Liquors, a place shown as having 5 stars by Beer Advocate on the internet, and picked up a case of porter, a bottle of Jack Daniels and two bottles of Irish Cream and left there with big grins on our faces. We drove back down the same road that has both the Ford dealer and the car wash on it and went to a Ryan’s restaurant. We went to a Ryan’s in South Carolina with our friends Gary and D’Ann and it was terrific. This restaurant in Bowling Green does not have the same great food we got in Greer, SC. From Ryan’s, we drove back down the same street again to a Scab-Mart and stocked up on groceries.
We returned home with our happy truck, booze and groceries as soon as we left Wal-Mart because it was about 95 degrees outside but the humidity was only about 85%. It was pretty oppressive but all our shopping is done for a week or two, all our truck maintenance is done until we go south of the Mason-Dixon line in October or November and we are well stocked with booze which should last for a couple days.
After we got home and took a nap, the neighbor in the park, Laurie, came over and gave us a brand new Good Sam campground directory which she had received at Camping World for free. We needed a new one because ours was two years old and getting pretty ragged in addition to being out-of-date. We are not always happy campers when we have to do the mundane tasks associated with long-term loafing but today felt very successful and we can sleep tonight without thinking of any woes unless the jerks at Visa let us down again which is highly likely.

Today we went to Mammoth Cave to check it out. This cave system has 405 miles of mapped cave and a bunch more that is unmapped. Fortunately, we did not have to go all the way to the end of the longest branch.
We started the day driving about 35 miles to get our marvelous Virgin phone to work and made an appointment in the nearby town of Bowling Green, KY, to get Charlotte’s oil changed tomorrow. On the way back, we stopped for some diesel in Glasgow that was quite cheap ($2.359/gallon) and found that again our Visa card was refused due to B of A fraud protection folks being thoroughly fubarred about our situation on the road. The last time we spoke with these geniuses about our sometimes-available credit card, they indicated we would be getting new cards sent to our home where we aren’t due to a data breach that resulted in lots of folks being caught in the same situation we are enjoying. Until the new cards were received and activated, the idiot we previously spoke with stated that we could utilize our old cards. She lied. Peggy got ahold of Visa with our always-dependable Virgin phone and found they had changed the conditions unilaterally and we were now required to call Visa fraud protection every time we wanted to make a charge on the card. Peggy was clever, however, and got the fraud folks to again change the rules such that our old cards would be hunky-dory until we called to let them know we received the new cards and were activating them. I hope they were not lying again.
We eventually pulled into the Mammoth Cave visitor information center and bought two passages on something called the “Historic Tour,” a two mile foray underground into the absolutely black realm of the spelunker. After numerous repetitive warnings from our chubby guide outside in the 95 degree weather, we finally descended a long walkway where they stopped our group and gave us more safety tips about being in a cave along with a description of all the places we were going to wander through on our tour. It was sort of like the Today Show in the morning; there are numerous proclamations about what is coming up in the show but very little actual content because they spent all their time telling you about what is coming up.
Finally Ol’ Portly Girl figured we had enough and we descended into the cave. The cave is a monster – there are sections where you could probably pull off a football game in some places. This is a pretty dry cave so there is very little of the stalactites and stalagmites you see in Carlsbad Caverns but the sheer magnitude of the cave is impressive. After a hike of about a mile down the main tube, we turned off and encountered two sections that gave me some concern. The first one is called “Fat Man’s Misery” which was difficult for me to traverse because I am a porker. Immediately following this was “Tall Man’s Misery” which was also a problem for me because I am 6′-5″ tall and the opening is about 3’0” tall for a ways. After considerable squeezing, grunting, sweating and head bumping, I emerged on the other side of these obstacles with my shirt closely resembling a wet dishrag. Peggy shot right through because she is shaped much better for these kinds of challenges. A good deal of the cave has quite low ceilings and despite my crabbing through underneath them, I emerged with only three lumps on my head and a dirty shirt.
Once we got through the old, fat, tall guy challenges we arrived at a little amphitheater underground where Ol’ Portly Girl gave us some more long explanations of stuff nobody cared about before proceeding to some other really neat rooms and passageways underground. Near the end, we came to a pretty spectacular dribbling waterfall that drops about 150 feet and some monstrous columns before arriving at a steel stair structure that only has 155 upward steps before arriving on a higher cave level. Once you get to the top, a short walk takes you to a gigantic room called “The Rotunda.” It is pretty spectacular for an underground thingy and from here it is only another 75 steps up to the cave exit. It is very humid in the cave, but cool. When we emerged from the cave, it was very humid and 99 degrees. My glasses fogged up. Another quarter mile uphill and we were back to the visitor center and our air conditioned truck.
Photos are mostly impossible in the cave because they do not allow flash and even if they did, the spaces are just too massive for a flash to be any good. Nevertheless, the trip into the cave was pretty terrific and I would probably go again if I chose a shorter tour. The “Historic Tour” is 2 miles in length and involves 440 steps and costs $14 a head. There are shorter and cheaper tours but they only run them a few times a day. You cannot go in the cave without being on a tour which is different from Carlsbad Caverns where you can wander at will and travel any length or speed you desire. Additionally, in Carlsbad you are not required to listen to the inane babbling of a Federal Park Ranger nor are you herded like dumb sheep by a guide with an irritating voice and manner. Carlsbad also has modern, adequate lighting so you can see where you are going. I am sure the idiot herders at Mammoth Cave have many concerns about stupid tourists tumbling down bottomless holes in the cave and, to make things more dangerous, the lighting is terrible but it seemed the Ranger devoted most of the tour to herding us bozos through the sometimes-challenging paths, stairs, bridges, tubes and deadly chasms you will see along the route. I think it would be better if they threw those who ask the Ranger stupid questions about whether the Native Americans had left any graffiti or where the stalactites were into the holes along the path but I was disappointed. Can’t win ’em all.

Travel from Natural Bridge to Diamond Caverns, KY, was today’s task so we gathered up our stuff and got out of the Natural Bridge campground by 9:30. We filled up Charlotte’s tank and set out for a relatively long drive (185 miles) to a TT campground at Diamond Caverns. We have no idea what Diamond Caverns might be but the campground is inside Mammoth Cave National Park and that’s what we came here to see.
The drive across the state of Kentucky was gorgeous with steep, tree covered ridges on both sides of beautiful river valleys on the east side that transitioned to bluegrass rolling hills near Lexington. We did run into a tiny, 30-mile long construction project on I-65 that slowed us down a bit but traffic moved through it at about 55 so there was little bitching.
The TT Diamond Caverns campground is pretty large with all the amenities we require like sewer, electrical and water and they also have good wi-fi. I can say for a fact that in early August 2015, it was hotter than hell but the humidity is only about 35% so it doesn’t seem too bad unless you go into the sun. The campground does not have very many spaces; maybe 75 so everybody is pretty well spaced out. We took a spot right close to the laundry because laundry day is coming soon and it was shady.
We were big chickens about going outside and chose to remain inside the Invader with both air conditioners on high until the temperature outside got down below 85. We crept out into the shade after that and, with the low humidity, it was actually quite pleasant. By 7:00 PM we had gone back into the trailer and found that our computer would stream Netflix with the excellent wi-fi they run here. Most TT sites have crummy wi-fi out in the camping areas and those with wi-fi that is better than old dial-up systems require you to take your device to a building where the wi-fi is no better. Only Ponderosa in California and this place have wi-fi that would allow streaming.
Peg chose an English (BBC?) show called Doc Martin to stream that had a guy starring in it who was as ugly as New Yorkers but much more pithy. It was okay but it seemed a waste to watch an English serial instead of a movie with gratuitous sex and meaningless violence similar to all the movies I seem to find enjoyable. I may have more personality defects than I had identified previously since this type of movie is the type I find preferable.

Today we decided to take a hike up to the natural bridge that gives the park it’s name. We initially got into Charlotte and drove up the road a mile or two and entered the parking lot at the bottom of a very large ridge to the south. There are really large trees, mostly hardwoods, that shade the area. Peggy and I had decided to access the Natural Bridge on something called the Original Trail. It was described as the easiest and most-used pathway to the attraction. The pamphlet we received from the park office stated that the trail was only 3/4 of a mile to the top. I think they might be confused on the measurement of distance here, possibly due to funny arithmetic.
We took the first pitch from the parking lot to the trailhead (shown as a quarter of a mile) with relative ease. It is all uphill but not particularly steep. After completing this section, we agreed that “Hey! That was easy. We can do twice that no problem.” We were stupid or the folks running the park are confused about distance because the section from the trailhead to the top of the ridge seemed quite a bit longer than twice the first section that we had conquered with such ease. We trudged along with numerous younger folks zipping by us for quite some time, stopping at the shady rest stations that had been built by the CCC back in the ’30s. The trail got steeper. We started to sweat copiously.
After about what seemed like a mile or ten, we emerged at the Natural Bridge, which is spectacular. It is a gigantic hole in the rock making up the ridge that you can easily stroll through because it is about 60 feet high and maybe 100 feet wide. Although we were moderately damp from sweat, we elected to continue up onto the top of the arch. The top is accessed via a narrow cleft in the rock on one side of the arch. Peggy went ahead and I followed although the cleft got narrower and narrower such that my corpulent body was rubbing both sides as I crept along sideways through the crack. Just when I thought I was going to become firmly wedged between the sides of the crevasse, the rock was nice enough to widen a bit and my fat ass was through. We continued up some more steps carved into the stone until we were on top where there are grand vistas that are quite stunning.
Once our heart rates got back down to near normal, we chose to return to our car in the parking lot via the Balanced Rock trail, also shown as 3/4 of a mile. This section may truly be 3/4 of a mile but it is all on stone steps and wooden staircases that give old, tired peoples’ knees an invigorating and very sweaty workout. After descending down about 50 stories of poorly-engineered stairs with no regular rise or run and covered with slippery sand and rotten vegetation we arrived at the Balanced Rock. It is pretty neat, too. It is a flat rock about the size of a bedroom in a rich Republican’s mansion. It has some trees growing out of the top of it and the whole array is balanced on top of a little sliver of rock with lots of holes in it. We took lots of pictures.
From Balanced Rock, we descended down another 15 stories of stairs with the same shaky specifications of the upper section and arrived at an enormous cave opening where Peg shot another gob of pictures. Continuing down the same type of tortured stairs and steps for another 10 stories or so, we arrived back at the trailhead. The water we had brought along was exhausted and I made a beeline for Charlotte, climbed inside, turned on the air conditioning and drank about a pint of water before taking the truck out of park.
We returned to the Invader and guzzled another half gallon or so of water followed by Mimosas that had a wonderful re-invigorating effect. We should sleep well tonight.

We had a driving day today so we left Kountry Camping RV in Racine, OH, and started down OH Hwy 7 on the north shore of the Ohio going basically west. There are lots of power plants along this section of river although not too many towns. The power must get sent elsewhere in WV and OH because there is insufficient population here to use all the electricity unless everyone has really inefficient air conditioners and refrigerators.
We crossed into WV for a while and then got on I-64 or I-67 for the run into Kentucky. Once we crossed the border into Kentucky, we left the interstate and drove southwest on what eventually became KY Hwy 11 to Slade, KY, where we got off the highway and headed for our camping spot in Natural Bridge State Park. After some confusion about where we were supposed to camp got ironed out, we pulled into our space. There is power and water but no sewer, no wi-fi, no TV, no cable TV and, most important, absolutely no phone service with our Virgin phone. No wonder they call it Virgin; nobody can ever use it.
Our Visa had been refused a few days back because some vendor we had used had a breach of some sort and today we were unable to pay our outstanding bills, which Peggy does using the phone when and if it works which is very rarely. We were only required to drive about 1/2 an hour west before we could get phone service but found when we got there that, since the Visa card had been compromised, the payment that should have been made to Virgin was not made and we spend quite a bit of time getting re-hooked up for their substandard but infuriating service. After that, we were able to pay the necessary bills and head back to Slade to make ourselves some drinks in the Invader. We also got to watch a movie called The Transporter starring Jason Statham on the DVD / TV. It was pretty crummy.
The campground is gorgeous where we are set up and we have a creek running right behind the Invader with bug flocks of different-colored butterflies hanging out near the water. Despite the crummy utilities, this place is still beautiful and the lack of services is more than outweighed by the spectacular setting. Our spot is in a deep crease in between two tall ridges and we only get direct sun for about 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the day keeping us quite cool in our shady yard.

Exploring was the theme for today so we broke out the road atlas and took off. We started by driving into Pomeroy, OH, which is a little town on the Ohio River. Mason, WV, is on the other shore. We drove east, basically, going upstream until we pulled over at Racine Lock. At Racine Lock there is a dam and parallel locks so traffic can go both ways at the same time but the locks here is not nearly as impressive as the Eisenhower Lock up on the St. Lawrence Seaway because the locks at Racine only lift the boats about 5 feet. However, the Ohio River locks seem to be a lot wider than the 80 foot wide locks on the St. Lawrence. The Ohio River in this section is actually just a series of lakes with locks at both ends.
We continued along the north shore of the Ohio until we ran into Hwy 33 where we turned right and soon crossed the river into West Virginia. The road we took through West Virginia was merely the road running west along the south shore of the Ohio. The West Virginia side is quite scenic most of the way. Every 5 or 10 miles they have built very large coal-fired power plants on both sides of the river and, although they are monstrous engineering marvels, they are hideously ugly and they spew out enormous amounts of pink steam. I am such a fool – I always thought steam was white.
We continued driving downstream on the WV side of the river getting several views of large barges tied in groups of 12 (3 wide and 4 long) being pushed by giant square bow tugs. I am impressed that the tug drivers can maneuver these quarter mile long bulk carriers into the locks without smashing into the lock walls. I noted the lock walls are armored with long steel plates running the length of the lock probably installed to fend off the barges before they grind up the concrete lock walls. The river is very wide in this section because barges going upriver and downriver did not seem to have any trouble passing each other.
We crossed from WV back into OH at Mason / Pomeroy, filled the tank with diesel and retired to the Invader for some light porter drinking.

We woke up this morning knowing it was a travel day. We did not have a very satisfying experience the last time we had a travel day 3 days ago because of the hellish Ohio rural roads and potholed major roads.
Today was the complete opposite. We left the campground at Kimbolton and the first 10 miles of road was twisted and hilly but we soon got onto I-77 and had smooth sailing all the way into West Virginia. I expected WV roads to be worse than Ohio’s but we were pleasantly surprised to find the roads we travelled in WV to be very well maintained and wide enough for even a clod like me to drive without apprehension. We zipped through WV until we turned west on US Hwy 50 which is a very good two-lane highway. We crossed back over the Ohio River and ultimately merged onto US Hwy 7 that took us to Racine. There was one part of Hwy 7 that was a bit slow because the DOT had a contractor out in the road painting a fog line along the right edge of the southbound side. Passing was verboten so we moseyed along at 1 or 2 miles per hour for a while until either they ran out of paint or road and moved out of our way. We continued on 7 a bit more and finally turned onto Hwy 33 for a mile or two before doubling back again on the road to our campground. We found it within a half a mile of where the Garmin said it would be and we checked in. It is very hot here so again we set up, turned on the A/C and popped into the Invader to cool off and create a shopping list.
The drive today was very nice with great roads and terrific rural scenery. Even the Ohio River was pretty at the two spots we crossed it. The shore on the Ohio side is filled with big smokestack stuff which is ugly but the rest was okay.
Since we arrived early in the day, we elected to cool off in the Invader and then attempt a shopping trip. We are headed for some state parks next and shopping around state parks is generally either terrible or worse since the store owners know they have a captive audience of suckers unable to shop elsewhere. We have chosen to avoid this shopping trap by remembering to bring everything we need and shopping in advance. We piled back into Charlotte and took off for Pomeroy, Ohio, about 10 minutes down the road. While in Pomeroy, we gazed across the Ohio River and could see a Wal-Mart in Mason, West Virginia, and avoided going to the Powers grocery and getting caught in the shopping trap. While checking out at Wal-Mart, we found that our Visa card had been refused. We had a similar problem in New York a couple weeks ago. We thought the refusal was for the same reason they gave us in NY; we had the audacity to neglect to inform Visa that we were shopping in a state other than our home state of California. At that time, we told Visa we are on the road and to not refuse charges unless they come from Hawaii, the only state we can’t drive to.
Unfortunately, when we called Visa to let them know we were refused again, they told us that some merchant we had used in the past had a breach and we needed to have new cards with new account numbers. Getting mail (or new Visa cards) on the road is tough because we are never in the same place for more than two days and the mails just can’t keep up. We’ll think of something, I hope. At least we have AMEX cards but they are not accepted in a bunch of places. This is a pisser.