It's a long story, but a local older couple really came to our aid. I'll try to do the cliff notes version. The RV went up in flames due to an over filled propane tank on the RV. Mrs. Atlee salvaged a lot of our clothes.

We had been on a long walk with the dog at the 1st rest stop in Mississippi on I-10 coming from Orlando to New Orleans.

This local older retired couple had just gotten on the interstate headed to Biloxi ironically to look at a RV. But fortunately for us, she needed to use the facilities.

This is what the did for us after finding us stranded.
1) Went back home to get their pickup to take our salvaged stuff.
2) Feed us lunch
3) Took us by the local State Farm agent to make arrangements, and a rental car.
4) Drove us to Biloxi to get the car, only to find the rental car agency had closed up early.
5) Drove us back to their house, made supper for us, put us up in a spare bed room for the night, washed the smoky smelling clothes, and let the dog stay in their house.
6) The next morning feed us breakfast, drove us back to Biloxi to get the rental car. They also let us leave the stuff we didn't need at their house.
7) After our sojourn in New Orleans, we stopped back at their house to get the rest of our stuff and we then headed home.

Obviously, we offered to defray some of their cost, etc. but they absolutely refused. So we ended up making a contribution to their Good Samaritian Fund at their church. It was the least we could do for them. We've stayed in touch since then via Christmas Cards where we continued to make a contribution to their church.

An amusing thing happened while we were eating supper. Her daughter called, and could hear voices in the back ground. She asked her mom who was over. Mom explained the entire situation, and we could hear daughter yell, Mom, you don't know those people. I'm sure she was concerned "those people" could be bad people. And then daughter heard our dog bark. Again, the daughter asked rather loudly, "Is that a dog?". Answer, "yes". Daughter again, "Mother, you never let us have a dog in the house when we were growing up." We got a chuckle out of that exchange.

PS: Mike Harris, the current Senior Editor for SI magazine, was the Richmond Times Dispatch beat writer for VT at that time. He got wind of our story, and did a side bar article on our "adventure" to go with his coverage of Tech at the Sugar Bowl. Interestingly we never read it because we were in New Orleans, and no one back home saved us a copy.
[Post edited by Atlee Hokie at 02/27/2016 08:47AM]