Nearly 500 Miles

 

Today we covered nearly 500 miles, clearing both Houston and San Antonio and many miles of construction and CRAZY Texas Drivers.  Just before Texas we also had some construction near the boarder of Texas and Louisiana in the latter state.  Needing to have a quick stop, I pulled off of an exit, parked in the parking lot and used the Camper Van's facilities, and upon trying to get back onto the freeway I found that the westward entrance was blocked by construction.  Only option was to go east and make a U-Turn...which was 20, YES 20 miles away.  So add those 40 miles extra and we definitely drove over 500 miles today.

Other than that construction, the rest of the construction today (at least 100 miles of it) was not that hard to face.  While Marcia was taking a nap, there was one stretch where they worked on the Interstate and on the Frontage Road along side the Interstate.  This one older lady kept going over to the far right, nearly hitting the concrete wall once, and finally sees an area where she can go over to the frontage road on a dirt patch that connected the two (probably meant for construction use.)  Obviously she was a local and needed to get to her house.  Told Marcia about it later and added, "Where was she when we needed help getting through construction to get onto the freeway!"

I am convinced that Texas Drivers are the most impatient drivers in America.  Enough said about Texas Drivers...

Wednesday we plan to drive to the outskirts of Las Cruces, just over 500 miles...but no large cities to go through, even El Paso is by-passed now days.

 

 

Dodging Storms

 

Woke up at 6 am and looked at the weather...large storm system headed right for us.  We stopped the night at Cracker Barrel in Greenville, Alabama.  The weather looked real good when we went to sleep at 10 pm, by 6 am it was time to get out of the way.  We quickly got going and by 6:30 we were headed to Mobile Alabama.  At Satsuma, Alabama we pulled off at a Pilot Truck Stop and about 10 minutes later the storm hit.  Lots of rain, some lightening and wind, but not the killer storms other faced further north.  Two hours later (I took the opportunity to sleep a bit), we headed for Mobile with a light to moderate rain still going on.  Traffic was not heavy until we turned west on I-10 and got into Mississippi.  Huge slow down, but by the time we got up to where a wreck must have been, it was gone and the slow down speed up to 70 mph again.  Had some road work in Mississippi and especially Louisiana, but nothing that slow us up too much.  Stopped at Atchafalaya Welcome Center just west of Baton Rouge.

 

Above is a picture of my daughter Stephanie (lives in Salt Lake City), and my two boys, Ryan, the youngest on his graduation day back in 2019 (Chiropractor) and my oldest Michael (works for the State of California at the Capitol).  Plans were to see Steph on the way to Sacramento...until she called me Saturday to inform us she was not going to be in town...she was headed to Cincy to visit Ryan, then she has a conference down in Kentucky.  She will be gone the entire period that we could have been there.  So we will head to SLC after mom's birthday, probably in May, and visit some parks and stuff during that trip before heading back to Sacramento area.

This picture includes Ryan's wife, Kaelyn (also a Chiropractor) and Michael's wife Anna.  Since this picture Michael and Anna have had a baby girl, who will turn 3 in July, AND THE BIG NEWS IS, Anna is pregnant and we will have another grandchild in October.  (Grandpa is smiling big time!) 

So our new plans are to get past San Antonio tomorrow because the risk of major storms drops down to nearly ZERO at that point.  We plan to be outside of Phoenix on Thursday night, visit our friend Laurie on Friday before heading out Friday evening to get to Sacramento by Sunday late afternoon.  Lots of miles ahead of us, but after tomorrow, we won't need to worry about tornadoes, hail, etc., etc.