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| Fridays drive: Foss Oklahoma to Tupelo Mississippi. 662 miles |
Friday October 25 2018
We continued our journey home with another long drive on
interstate 40. FlyingJ travel centered spaced out every 300+/- miles made fuel
stops very convenient for us. Despite 40 being a major east/west truck route
traffic flowed smoothly until we neared the Mississippi
River.
About fifty miles west of Memphis everything just stopped. We inched
forward for a very long time, with no indication of what the problem was. There
was no construction, no lane closures, no emergency vehicles, just a long line
of traffic barely moving.
Slowly traffic began to move and soon we were back up to
speed but now traffic was all bunched up. Running turnpike speeds in bumper to
bumper traffic is stressful but we had to stay on I-40 to cross the Mississippi
river at Memphis.
Stopping for the night in Arkansas
was not an option; all the area campgrounds are on the Tennessee/Mississippi
side of the river.
By the time we got to Memphis
the sun had set. Memphis is a major shipping hub
with truck traffic 24/7, there’s Friday night traffic, all the campgrounds are
off the highway somewhere and Memphis
is a high crime area. I decided to stay on the highway and drive on to Tupelo some 115 miles
down the road.
It was an easy run, my only concern was deer running into
the road and that never happened. At Tupelo
we again assessed our situation and decided to check out the local Wal-Mart as
an overnight stop. There were already several RV’s and about 8 trucks lined up
in the back of the parking lot. We joined them and had a very restful night
there.
Our journey today was totaled 662 miles.
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| Saturdays drive: Tupelo Mississippi to A H Stephens St Pk in Georgia. 373 miles |
Saturday October 26 2018
We moved from Tupelo Mississippi to A H Stephens State Park in Crawford Georgia today.
It was an easy run, there was the normal congestion thru Atlanta but traffic flowed without stopping.
Notable in today’s journey, we left I-40 in Tennessee and have been
traveling on 78 and I-22. From Tupelo Mississippi to Birmingham Alabama is one of the nicest roads in America. Thru
rolling hills in northern Alabama,
the highway department has manicured the landscape back for a hundred yards on
each side of the roadway. It is a most pleasant driving experience.
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| I-22 in Alabama |
Nearing Birmingham GPS Aimee and I had another of our
infamous disagreements. I have no idea what route she was trying to take us on,
but I knew the way to the Flying J travel center and then on thru the city. We
kissed and made up on the other side when we both agreed to drive on I-20.
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| A long time ago |
Birmingham
always brings back memories for me. A long time ago I was training at Jungle
school in nearby Anniston
and was volunteered for funeral detail on weekends. On one Saturday we drove to
Birmingham to a southern black church
for the funeral of a young soldier who was KIA in Vietnam. That was quite the cultural experience for this white boy from suburban Newark
Delaware.
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| Our camping neighbors at A H Stephens State Park |
We reached our planned destination for the night at A H
Stephens State Park about 50 miles east of Atlanta. (Stephens was the last vice
president of the confederacy) The park was having a Halloween themed weekend
and was full of local campers. The park employees found us a spot for the night
in the equestrian section of the park. It was a newly constructed camp host
site behind the horse stables. It was a little muddy getting to the site, we
didn’t care, the horses didn’t seem to mind the intrusion, it was a very quiet
and dark night.
We covered 373 miles on Saturday.
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| General outline of our trip |
Sunday October 27 2018
Last day on the road, we can almost smell the ocean. We know
the way home by heart, well most of us do, GPS Aimee had weird ideas about
getting thru Florence.
The fastest way home from west of Florence
is to take I-95 north to exit 181A Hwy 38 to 501. There is one traffic signal
as soon as you get off 95 and then it is smooth sailing at mostly 60 mph until
you get to Aynor.
After nearly two months on the road we arrived home early in
the afternoon. It’s good to be home.
I don’t really know what our total mileage was for the trip;
I would guess it was about 5000 miles. We spent $3240.22 on fuel, most of that
in the motorhome, maybe a couple hundred for the truck we tow. Our lodging
costs where significantly less at $787.86., this is because we spent many
nights at no direct cost to us. We camped 17 nights at Thousand Trails parks
which are free to us as members. We also had two visits to Kamp Kolman totaling
10 days. (Kamp Kolman is Dave and RaeAnne’s driveway) We spent one night in a Wal-Mart
parking lot which was also free.
