We're smokin' now

May 29, 2007
Jacksonville, FL

With Mom safely housed in rehab with Rick and Annette's excellent care, we hit the road down Sand Mountain this morning. We had smoke from the Georgia and Florida fires on and off all day. We went south on US-431 to I-20, where we saw smoldering fires along the side of the highway near the Alabama-Georgia border. We were running ahead of schedule until we ran into a serious traffic jam right before we got to I-285 on the west side of Atlanta. It took us too long to figure out an alternate route so we missed the first available exit, right near Six Flags. We ended up getting off the next exit and going "overland" south and then east to connect to I-285 about 5 miles south of our original plan. The traffic was awful on the alternate, but better than on I-20, where the highway was basically shut down due to two multi-vehicle accidents.

We had more smoke, so strong it's filled the coach with aroma hours later, along I-75 near the Georgia-Florida border. We pulled in to the place we're staying a little after 7 PM (EDT, with an hour time change from Alabama). There were no road closures or anything, and even the construction zones were easily managed.

Tonight we went to a local BBQ joint -- why not, since we smell like smoke anyway? Neither one of us felt like cooking after a long day (we left at 7 AM CDT) on the road. We'll do some grocery shopping tomorrow so we have enough stuff for the next few days. Thursday afternoon, we'll head over to Orlando to have the coach aligned on Friday. There's a place there (JoSam's) that is supposed to be the best in the land, so we'll find out. They align everything in multiple dimensions, no just the "front end" like on a car. First, they adjust the ride height to make sure everything is to spec since height can influence the alignment settings. Then, they look at the alignment of each of the three axles. The front end manages the steering and tracking quality. If the drive axle is misaligned, the whole coach will run down the road with the back end to one side, which is less efficient. If the tag axle is out of whack, that causes increased tire wear. All these potential problems cause decreased handling and increased fuel use.. We're looking to get everything as good as we can get it.

Once we're done on Friday, we'll stay here in Jacksonville that night before heading north to the D.C. area. We'll take two days to make that trip.

Tomorrow will be a "down day", dedicated to cleaning up the coach (vacuuming, washing of floors, cleaning interior windows and mirrors, etc.).

We checked with Annette late today to see how Mom did with therapy and the report was very favorable. She was up and out of her room, ate well, and was in better spirits -- all good. Everyone is partially convinced that part of the issue is her "playing" us to get out of doing things, which is pretty much the regression you'd expect. We're hopeful that the therapy helps get her back on her feet.