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.

And There is ALWAYS a Route #3

 

We are near Peachtree Georgia, Marcia is visiting her friend that she has known for well over 50 years.  Due to weather (see above), we are changing our route...going to head back down to I-10 towards Mobile, Alabama.  The route I showed previous is littered with possible storms, even possible Tornadoes, so the far southern route is going to be our route.  It is about 11:45 am et, and we plan to leave here by 1:00 pm.  We will hit some rain, but the chances of the extreme storms will be way less than if we headed over to Little Rock.  

Visit with the Great Grandchildren was wonderful (as with Granddaughter and her husband).  Slept at a Cracker Barrel in LaGrange, Georgia last night, and other than a little road noise, it was very peaceful.  Hoping for another good Cracker Barrel 'over-niter' tonight.