Feb 24th - We Have Arrived!

We are parked at the campground in Summerdale, Alabama. We arrived here about 5:45PM. The roads today were much easier driving than what we drove yesterday afternoon. Yesterday it was uphill then downhill and always curves. We encountered several 7-8% grades, thankfully the steep ones were fairly short.

The rest area where we stayed last night was quite an interesting place. I really screwed up by not taking a couple of photos this morning before we left. We think it was probably something built by the WPA guys.

It got cool last night. I think the low was 26. I ran the generator for about 2.5 hours in the evening and again for maybe 3.5 hours in the early morning. I wanted to be able to run the “heat pads” on the water and sewer tanks and couldn’t do that while only on batteries. I also turned on the block heater in the morning and let it warm up the engine before starting it.

Today a lot of the roads were 4 lane divided highways, just not limited access Interstates. Traffic was light both yesterday and today, except for Mobile, Alabama. Going through Mobile during rush hour proved to be very interesting. In order to get from one section of Interstate to another you are routed down onto city streets for several, very crowded blocks, with at least 4 lanes of bumper to bumper one way traffic. When you get back on I10 west you have to do one of the 20 mph loops and then merge into HEAVY traffic that is running 50-55 mph. The merge ramp isn’t all that long and when approaching it, it looks even shorter than it is. Cars trying to get out into the traffic stream were backed up about 20 deep. I told Kathy that we might have to set there overnight before we got a large enough gap to get into traffic. She asked if she could do anything to help. I said she could pray. She said she was already doing that. Then Praise the Lord, a gap opened up just as we hit the start of the merge ramp. We were able to get into traffic with no problem.

 

All in all the roadway surfaces were in pretty good condition, not to rough. If I were going to do it again I might drive the extra 50 miles to drive on Interstates rather than Hwy 63 in Missouri and part of Arkansas. We bought fuel at 4 different places (while making pit stops). The most we paid was $3.799/gallon but we saw places that were charging over $3.90.

It was almost dark when we arrived so we have really had a chance to look the place over much. We did just walk over to the office so that we knew when it opened in the morning. It was closed when we arrived. When Kathy called them to see if a spot was available if we arrived today (the plan was to arrive tomorrow) they told up which spot to park in and to come by in the morning and sign in. We opened up all the windows while setting up. At 6:30PM it was 64. Tonight's low is supposed to be 59. I think tomorrow's high is supposed to be 69. It might not be "lounging around the pool" weather but it is far better than what we left, and far, far better than what family members in Indy & Coldwater are experiencing.

Good night to all. May God bless you and yours.