Day three and hundreds more miles

Horrible internet reception here. It is Day Three, April 14, and we've driven 393 miles today.

We are surrounded by old people at these campgrounds. I feel like the odd-duck-out among them. Ha. We noticed some campers with children checking in last night, Friday night. I miss seeing the kiddos speeding around on bikes, mindless of everything around them, focused on whatever their goals are at that moment.

We managed to get on the road by 9:30 a.m., our goal was 10. Good-bye Pigeon Forge. We had a great time and will come back again and stay longer.

At 10 we hit I-40 West. WEST! Directions are screwy. From 40 West we picked up 75 South. SOUTH. Seriously? Didn’t we drive north all day on Day One?

11:00 a.m. and still driving through Tennessee. It seems every town is labeled as “historic.” It reminds me of South Carolina where every little burg is historic. But really, isn’t everyplace historic simply because it exists? It has to have some history. OK, I’m rambling.

1 p.m. and I just saw a sign that said we were 30 miles from Cleveland. Our last trip out west (40 years ago) involved a stack of maps to use. Best pull out my Rand McNally Road Atlas and make sure we are not being led astray by the sweet voice on the GPS. Yep, I still have maps with me.

1:30 and we stopped at a rest area and met a man towing a car behind his huge diesel motor home. He told us once he was towing his car and forgot to release the emergency brake after he hooked it up. He noticed sparks flying behind him on the highway. He managed to burn out the car’s brakes, wear off the tires and was dragging the car behind the motor home on its rims. We haven’t done that yet!

2:30 p.m., old time, and 1:30 p.m., new time. We stopped for lunch at a grocery store parking lot in Alabama (not sure always what state we are in as we are skimming along the bottom of Tennessee and the top of Alabama).

As for weather, mid-morning we had a gentle rain. Now, mid-afternoon it is pouring, a good old-fashioned drenching rain with a bit of thunder and lightning now and then. Drove through Huntsville, Alabama, and passed the space center. The shuttle was perched on top of its booster rocket. We saw several other rockets and a plane Paul said was a SR-71 that can fly into space and if you shot a missile at it, it will not be able to catch it.

According to me, the plane is a big skinny black thing that looks like it would be amazing to fly in. I have been to the space center before, back in 1990 during my time in graduate school at the University of Akron. Paul has never been. We may stop on our way home.

4 p.m. and beyond tired right now. We passed a Bent and Dent Grocery right across the street from a health clinic. Are they making a statement?

To make a very long day into an even longer sentence, we drove 393 miles from Tennessee to Alabama, back to Tennessee and back to Alabama, then into Mississippi before returning to Tennessee! We are at Big Buck Camping Resort at Hornsby, Tennessee. If you like rustic, this is the place for you. I was expecting a bit more glam. Maybe the rain had something to do with it, but the place looks like a cow pasture with campers in it. Nice pool, though and it has sewer.

Still on budget. We spent $100 for gas and our camp ground was free due to membership in "Coast to Coast," except for 50-watt electricity rather than 30, and taxes ($12 total).

So for my license plates, I added only one today, Minnesota. But figuring it rained the whole day making it hard to see out the window, not too bad. I never did see any bear and looked for deer along the highway today but didn’t spot any of them either. Maybe tomorrow I will find the cows that belong to this cow pasture! Soon I will get to look for armadillos and scorpions!

Apparently the dog is misbehaving for Lori and the cat is being loved to death by Olivia. It’s pizza for supper. It’s Saturday night after all. I put some pizza in the freezer and just now popped it into the over.

Blessings! Signing off for now - Regina