We arose at 2:58 on Saturday morning and were heading out of Green Bay by 3:40. We drove as far as Racine before stopping for breakfast at America's most well-known restaurant: McDonalds. Thankfully, traffic in Milwaukee was light, and we had an equally easy trip through Chicago. We were pleased to learn that the navigation on our new truck works very well. We paid for a map upgrade last month, and we found that the system kept us on track all the way south. The upgrade was well worth the money.
While we love not having the dual tires on the truck, we miss the large 84 gallon (regular plus auxiliary) gas tank that we had on the old truck. Having only a 26 gallon gas tank forced us to "fill up" at least twice a day. The old truck was diesel, so at least this gasoline truck made filling up easy.
We packed sandwiches for lunch, so we stopped by a wayside near Rend Lake in Illinois. I am attaching pictures because this was probably the prettiest wayside that I have ever used.
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| The wayside had beautiful views of Rend Lake. |
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| Lots of lawn offered plenty of space to walk and to stretch our legs. |
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| A covered bridge allowed weary travelers to walk a path to get a better view of Rend Lake. |
We spent the night in Clarksville, TN, and got an early start the next morning. Nashville usually gives us weather trouble, but we had sunshine the entire trip down. Rick drove most of the day as I battled a killer headache.
We experienced construction at various points on our route, but we had very little delays except for a stretch just south of Atlanta, GA. We also found that traffic was more heavy in that area. With all of the evacuees from Hurricane Matthew, we wondered if some of the traffic were those evacuees returning to the east coast to learn what was left of their homes.
Cotton was growing in the fields as we drove through southern Georgia. Our goal was to travel to Lake City, and we pulled into that city very tired but safe on Sunday afternoon. Our hotel was clean and comfortable, but since it was located near the highway, we had traffic noise all night. We saw many trailer parks in Georgia or northern Florida located right next to the highway. I wonder how they can tolerate the constant traffic noise. I think that would drive me crazy!
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| Our front garden needs a bit of trimming. |
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| For some reason, the front bushes grew much more tall than the crotons in the back. Time to trim! |
We arrived home by 10:40 on Monday morning. Gladys is in good shape. We received no damage from Hurricane Hermoine earlier this summer. The only chore that immediately presented itself was lots of overgrown shrubbery. That chore, though, I can handle.
This past winter we cancelled our pest control service and Rick started spraying the house instead. We were a little worried that we might find the place crawling away since we no longer had anyone come to spray around the house this summer; however, we found the house virtually bug-free. Yippee! Our system works!
Everything works the way we had hoped it would. The car started right away, the refrigerator purred to life after we plugged it in, and the water flowed with no leaks when we turned it back on. Even the cable re-connect was not much of a hassle.
While we miss family and friends, we were welcomed back warmly by our neighbors down here.
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