Back in the heat

September 3, 2007
Albertville, AL

We left Connecticut on schedule (7 AM!) last Friday morning, just as Alicia was packing for college. She’s started attending Eastern Connecticut University and, like all these new beginnings, it’s an emotional time for everyone involved. We know she’ll do well and make everyone proud of her!

Our route took us south on I-91 to Hartford and then west on I-84 to Scranton, PA. At that point, we turned south on I-81 for the long ride through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. We ran into rain in Virginia, some of it pretty heavy. This was pretty much of a guarantee, since Al and I had washed the coach and Range Rover on Thursday! We made a couple of stops on the drive, for fuel in Carlisle, PA, and for rest stops as needed, and achieved our first night’s goal of Fort Chiswell, VA around 8 PM. We’d planned to overnight at a truck stop (Flying J) that we’d stayed at before, and it was a good call. We topped off the fuel tank and pulled out back in the truck parking area, which was only ¼ full. We found a spot away from anyone else and pulled in so we didn’t even have to disconnect the car. We heated some leftover pizza in the microwave and called it a night. It was nice and cool outside when we walked the pups for the last time.

Saturday, we got off to an early start. I got up at 4:30 and got everything ready to leave, walked the pups, and grabbed a couple of coffees. We were on the road by 5:00, which is really too early. We continued on I-81 to I-40 through Knoxville where we picked up I-75 south to I-24 through Chattanooga. We then went southwest on US-72 to Huntsville. From there, it was a short hop along I-565 to I-65. We were headed to visit our friends Linda and Wendell at their place on Lewis Smith Lake, so we exited I-65 at US-278 and were parked by 2:00. The heat was building during the day, so we had to start the generator to run the roof air for the last couple of hours of the drive. They had reserved a spot for us at a local membership park (we were fortunate that they were able to talk their way through that!), and we spent the afternoon and evening with them at their place. We relaxed with Al-tinis and then took a short boat ride. It was nice out on the water, and the threatening thunderstorms just didn’t materialize. We visited with some of their neighbors for a bit and stayed for a nice steak dinner before heading back to the coach (it’s only about 4½ miles) where we called it an early night.

Yesterday (Sunday) was also a warm day, in the lower 90s, as we made the 2-hour drive over to Rick and Annette’s house in Albertville, arriving right around Noon. This was Alyson’s first weekend back from college, so it was good to see her, too. We went over to see Mom for a bit and she’s doing OK in the assisted-living facility. She’s weaker and less coherent than the last time we were here, but definitely beginning to settle into her new surroundings. They’ve been fiddling with her medications to fine tune things, and that’s obviously helping. It was good to get over there to visit now, so we’ll know our way around when we’re back here at Thanksgiving. After a short nap, we had a nice dinner of pork ribs and sauerkraut with a Shiraz and a Cabernet Sauvignon, and were able to call it another early night. I think I’m just about caught up on sleep.

Today was a relaxing day, also in the 90s. We did some grocery shopping this morning and had a noontime lunch to allow Alyson to head back to school in the early afternoon. She had a ~5 hour drive back to Mobile and needed to be back for classes tomorrow morning. We’ll have a light dinner later. The plan for tomorrow is pretty simple: we’ll visit with Mom in the morning and head out in the early afternoon. We’ll drive about 4 hours tomorrow and then finish up the trip into southwestern Illinois to visit with Geri’s son, Mike, on Wednesday night.