June 17, 2021 You mean maps really do change?

 

June 17, 2021

I want one of those critters with the furry tail.  Oh no!  My humans are putting me in the little car that moves!!!  I will never get that critter now!

My morning walk took me all around the RV park, all the way to the golf course.  What a nice RV park this is.  There are yurts and rental trailers, most with lake views.  Most of the spaces are quite large and private.  Some are in the woods, others are near the lake.  It really has been one of our favorite RV parks.

But alas…  we hit the road.  Although I had a disagreement with Lady Gagarmin, I let her win this one.  The most direct way to go west would be to take I285 to the I20 west and that cuts right through the heart of Atlanta.  Both are interstates, but I285 goes all around Atlanta while I20 goes right through.  I285 adds about 25 miles to the trip, but driving thru Atlanta…  It was probably worth the extra mileage.  There was an accident going the other way and the traffic was backed up for miles.  There are a gazillion trucks on the highway… or maybe even a bazillion but we are headed away from the chaos.

I20 west is supposedly a scenic highway according to the AAA map.  But, we have noticed that frequently these ‘scenic’ highways are just a bunch of trees.  In this case, there are trees, and there are trees with kudzu climbing up them.  The Leslie school of ‘scenic’ drives includes water features (pond, lake, river, ocean, waterfall, etc.) and/or rock formations, mountains, hills, glaciers and things like that.  But trees are what we have, but at least it is green.

Once we cross into Alabama, we switch drivers, and I ‘get’ to drive. We also get one of our precious hours back as we enter the central time zone.  Alabama is much more scenic, there are hills, and woods.  We pass the Talladega Forest and the Talladega Speedway and Motor Sports Hall of Fame.  As we come into Birmingham, there is a sign saying there was an accident where we are going.  Ugh..  And it happens to be on an interchange like the 101/405.  And I am driving, and I need to get over one lane…  and I am towing Hannah…  why, oh why…  somehow, I maneuver through the cluster f*k onto I65 north.

Now, here is something.  We are planning to take Highway 78 north west to Tupelo.  Well, we have an old map apparently.  I was wondering why our Mississippi map said it was I22, yet the Alabama map shows it as 78…  It is now a nice I22, bypassing all the towns we thought we would be going through.  Those towns are all probably dying a slow economic death as we fly by without a thought.  Note to self:  GET CURRENT MAPS the next time we go somewhere as they really do change!  It is a beautiful, stress free drive.

We figured that if we drove 250 miles a day, it would take us 10 days to get home.  Day one, we exceeded that from Savannah to Stone Mountain… then we stayed two days.  Guess we are not totally done having fun…

As we came in to Tupelo, we thought we would stay at the Tombiggee State Park.  We passed a sign for it because Lady Gagarmin told us to…  We took her advice…  went about 6 miles out of our way to find that the road taking us there is closed.  And there is no detour offered…  Ok, Lady Gagarmin, what do we do now?  If we back track, that would add so much time.  We found another RV park nearby that wasn’t Elvis related…  They were full, but as we started to turn around, they ran after us as they had just received a cancellation! 

Guess we just got kissed by the RV gods!