Craig is the tile repair guy in the service area. He said it would take 3 hours and it did ... almost to the minute.
The tiles in the rig are adhered to their 3/4" plywood base with an epoxy based grout. This grout can flex which is the reason they can build the complete tile floor and then hoist it as a single 45 feet x 8 feet single piece unit. Then the grout in between the tile is also a 2 part epoxy - the glue and an accelerant.
We were told it would take about 3 hours to fully set and that we needed to stay off of the tile until then. Craig had marked the tile off with bright yellow "caution" tape. We took the rig back to our site and started setting it back up. I went to the back to put out the 2 bedroom slides. The first thing I did was step on the tile - about 4" of it. DANG! Then, Irene went to get some Dawn soap for me to put in the soap dispenser in the wet bay of the RV (the bay with the fresh water hook-up and the gray water and black water drains) and what does she do? BINGO steps on the tile! Then she had to put the black water additive into the toilet since we had just emptied it (it's a concoction of Dawn Detergent; Baking Soda and water softener. It makes the black water smell "better" and keeps it from building up on the sides of the tank). She was V-E-R-Y careful not to step on the tile that time. I realized that the only hope for this tile to make it the 3 hours without being displaced was to get the two senile, old morons totally away from it. ROAD TRIP!!
We had never met the family that rents the house we own in Jackson, Mississippi. We had bought it to rent to Joel and Brenda when they lived there. Then with the downturn in the economy they moved to Midland, Texas in June of 2012 where the economy is booming. This left us with a house that wasn't selling in a depressed economy, so we signed a lease-purchase contract with a couple that was wanting to rent it.
The drive to Jackson is a little over 200 miles. THAT would give this poor tile the time it desperately needed to set. We drove down the Natchez Trace. If you've never been on the Trace it is a beautiful drive. It goes from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. We highly recommend it. It is a 2 lane road that commercial trucks are NOT permitted to use. So its just cars, pickups, RVs and the occasional school bus. The speed limit is 50 mph for the most part. It is enforced by Federal Marshals (it is a Federal Road like the Blue Ridge Parkway).
We met the family (at least the wife and 3 kids, the husband was still at work) and were ecstatic to see that they are taking marvelous care of the house AND told us that they are going to exercise the option to purchase immediately. They had an appointment with a banker this coming week. That would be nice.
Next (and another great reason to go to Jackson) was going to Ichiban Chinese Buffet (Hint to the owners of the restaurant - "Ichiban" is a JAPANESE WORD. It means "Number One" - as in "the best"). All of the Linguistics aside, it IS "Number One" for the quality of its sushi buffet. Irene and I LOVE good sushi and this is GREAT sushi.
Below is a picture Irene took of the sushi buffet. That is NOT a mirror near the top of the picture, it is another 8 foot counter of even more, different sushi. So if you are a sushi lover as we are, 16 linear feet of great tasting sushi is a close to heaven as you can get in this world.
After dinner we headed back to Red Bay. This time we drove on Mississippi 25 to Starkville and then picked up US 45 to US 78 (soon to be renamed I-22). These highways are all 4 lane divided, so the drive back in the blackness of night was about 45 minutes faster than the drive down on the parkway.
As we walked back into the rig and turned on the light I could swear I heard the tile say "Now I can take all the abuse you can throw at me. Thanks for the time off."
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