Mar. 5 finds us in Durham, N.C. We ate last night at a “Cracker Barrel” restaurant, and stayed overnight in their parking lot. Quiet, safe, nice. The chain has a policy permitting overnight stays, which we found out about some years ago. In the restaurant, guys were wearing cowboy hats un-ironically, so I know that I have left the northeast.
The news has been full of tornado stories. The most amazing one that I heard was that of a 2 year old girl who was picked up and found 10 MILES AWAY from her home in a field!! I wondered how that was possible until I saw another story about a bus that had been picked up and flung across a parking lot into the side of a building. The news story said that the child was found alive, but badly injured. I haven’t heard whether she ultimately survived. It really makes you think about how much we are at the mercy of elements totally beyond our control.


Mar. 7th, and we have crossed another border into Meridian, Mississippi, where surprisingly, we found the best place for gas prices since we left home. Regular was $3.48 last night when we filled up (to the tune of 30 gallons, so you do the math). For that we get about 300 miles, which is what we have been doing each day so far. That works out to about 10 miles per gallon, or 11-12, if we set the cruise control to 55. (It really does improve your mileage, but you kind of have to stay in the right lane all the time, because you are going so much slower than everybody else, even when the speed limit is 55.) There is a Bob Dylan song with a lyric where he says he “stayed in Mississippi a day too long”. I don’t think we are going to find out what that would be like, since the section of the state that we are passing through on our trajectory is pretty narrow. We will be crossing the Mississippi into Louisiana later today.
We are settling into our road routine of waking around 9:30 or so, having breakfast in the RV (we have a refrigerator and a propane stove so we can cook eggs or whatever), and then getting on the road a little before noon. We usually drive for about 6 hours, with breaks to stop to walk the dog, get a coffee, etc. Around the time that it is getting dark, we begin to look for a place to park for the night. As I said previously, “Cracker Barrel” restaurants allow overnight “guests” as do Wal-Marts, which is where we stayed last night. When the weather warms up, then staying in a state park where you can get out and hike is preferred, and that may happen as early as today. Yesterday it was sunny, and in the high 60’s. I think the plan this morning is to get on the road a little earlier (read: 10:30) and find a “Waffle House” rather than having breakfast in the RV, so I’ll have to end for now.