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Wednesday, July 31, 2019

BACK EAST TRIP, PART 3 ~~ DAY 5, JUNE 02 & DAY 6, JUNE 03

BACK EAST TRIP, PART 3


DAY 5, JUNE 02

We are getting so close to our destination that we can almost taste it. On Day 5 we travelled from New Braunfels, TX (which is close to San Antonio) to Mobile, AL. We rode over a huge body of water in Louisiana called the Atchafalaya River Basin (click on the name for link). Traffic was stopped on this bridge going over that swampland, so we got some good pictures of it out the window. The bridge went on for what seemed like forever. Later, looking at a map (click here), we could understand why as it covers a wide area. There's lots of water in the South!

Atchafalaya River Basin

Pushing on through the state of Louisiana we eventually came to another huge body of water, the Mississippi River. We crossed over this river near Baton Rouge (click here for map), about halfway through the part of Louisiana that I-10 traverses. Once we left Louisiana, we found ourselves in the state of Mississippi.

Mississippi River Bridge

It didn't take us too long to go through Mississippi and then not too far over the border we entered into Mobile, AL, our stop for the night. The next day, a short day of driving, we would reach our goal!

Mobile, AL

DAY 6, JUNE 03


We departed Mobile the next morning, excited to have our journey almost over. I could not believe I was actually going to see my sister that day, since it had been about 16 years when we last saw each other!

Leaving Mobile, we came upon the ‎⁨USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park⁩ (click on the name for link), which was parked right beside the Interstate. I could not resist taking a picture of this huge battleship.

USS Alabama

Photo opportunities on this day of driving were few and far between. The scenery for the most part consisted of the Interstate highway with tall pine trees on either side. It seemed like no time before we entered into Florida and found ourselves crossing the Escambia Bay Bridge over the Gulf of Mexico (click here for link). More water! We could also see evidence of where Hurricane Michael passed through this area last October. Large areas of trees were down on the ground, completely uprooted, or else snapped off. I can only imagine how scary that must have been for the people living there.

Crossing over into Florida

After stopping for lunch we pressed on towards Jacksonville. After much anticipation, we arrived in Jacksonville mid-afternoon. The most wonderful sight of the entire trip was when I saw my sister coming out of her front door! I couldn't believe we had made it!

Me (left) and my sister (right)

As we were standing around in the driveway talking, I asked, "What is that noise?"



"Cicadas," was the answer. Oh, how I have missed hearing this sound since we moved to Washington State, because there are no cicadas in Yakima. I've often told Linda that I always called it "the sound of summer" due to the fact that they only start up once it gets hot, so you know that summer has arrived for sure. However, I do not remember them being quite this loud! It was almost deafening, making it hard to carry on a conversation. We soon convened to inside the house, where it was cooler and quieter, and Linda and I were introduced to Summer Girl's cousin, Indigo (AKA Indy). Later we were treated to a very welcome Gin & Tonic after all those evenings of having beer. Our driving was done for now and we would get down to the business of having a couple of weeks vacation in Florida.

Indigo


I have had some inquiries as to why Summer Girl is not on the blog for now. I thought it best to leave her out of the trip blog because she was back at home in Yakima, doing her thing with no one there to take pictures of her. Rest assured, she will be back once the Back East Trip blogs are done. She has not been too happy about being left out, but understands the reason why.

I hope you can join us again next week as I try to condense our two-week stay in Jacksonville into one blog. Let's see if I can do it! See you then!






Wednesday, July 24, 2019

BACK EAST TRIP, PART 2 ~~ DAY 3, MAY 31 ~~ DAY 4, JUNE 01

BACK EAST TRIP, PART 2


Last week's blog took us through the first two days of our journey back East. Join us in today's blog as we continue on our trip from Washington to Florida.


DAY 3 -- MAY 31


On this day we travelled from Kingman, AZ to El Paso, TX. The day before we had said goodbye to the high desert of Nevada, passing over the High Desert Summit at 6,280 feet. Having driven southward through the entire length of Nevada, then turning eastward in Arizona, we finally found ourselves in the lower elevations of the Southwest. The terrain here was more like what you think of when you hear the word "desert." The vegetation consisted mostly of various kinds of cacti, and the huge mountains gave way to more rolling hills, similar to what we have around Yakima. Rock formations were everywhere, so I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures out of the window.

Cactus in Arizona



Arizona rock formations

Typical Desert Scenery

Nowhere was it made more clear to us that we were entering the dry desert of the Southwest than at a rest area we stopped at in Arizona. This sign was prominently on display right beside the entrance to the ladies restrooms. I was extra careful after seeing this!

Danger!

At our lunch stop, we were joined by a friend begging for a scrap or two. I threw down a couple of corn thin crackers, but apparently he wasn't interested. From the looks of his large beak, I would guess this fellow was a Raven of some sort.

Raven?

After traveling eastward through Arizona, we came to the tiny bit of New Mexico that drops down between Arizona and Texas. It did not take us long to traverse this area, and we landed for the night in El Paso, TX. As we entered the city, I sang a song that I remembered from my younger days, "El Paso" by Marty Robbins. Luckily for us, our motel had a restaurant right in front of it, so we walked over and had a nice, relaxing dinner, plus a couple of well-deserved beers. Mr. Cardinal joined us.

The road-weary travelers

DAY 4 -- JUNE 01


We hit the road bright and early the next morning, said goodbye to El Paso and continued down the highway. At one point we came upon a strange sight and neither one of us, nor Mr. Cardinal, could figure out what it was. I guessed it was the wing of an airplane, but it didn't really look like that. We passed three of these objects before they exited off and drove across the overpass to the Interstate. I looked down towards where they were headed and it became clear what these things were.





A few miles from the overpass we could see a field of wind turbines. Then it was obvious these things we passed by were blades for a wind turbine. I know those turbines are big, but I never would have guessed the blades would be THAT big!


Linda and I both shared the driving chores on this trip, and believe me, it was a chore. We did have  a lot of fun along the way, but it was a very long haul. Mr. Cardinal did his part by lifting our spirits up whenever he could.



One interesting thing that we encountered in Texas was a border patrol checkpoint. You wouldn't think they would have these on an Interstate, but we ran into one on I-10 near Sierra Blanca, TX. There was a huge shelter across the entire Interstate, with armed guards everywhere. We had to stop our car and state that we were indeed citizens of the United States. Only then were we allowed to continue on. It was a strange feeling.

Mid-afternoon in our trek across Texas we made a pit-stop for gas and restrooms and came upon this cute little fellow below. Mr. Cardinal wanted to stay and visit for a spell, but we were on a mission and so we stayed only long enough to get a picture.



Even though the speed limit in the western part of Texas was 80 MPH, it took us all day to go about two-thirds of the way across the state. We went around San Antonio and stopped for the night in New Braunfels, TX. It was here that I knew for sure I was in the South because I saw my first American Cockroach! I spied him running across the parking lot of our motel, and he was really booking it, too. Thankfully, he was the only one I saw the entire trip, because those things are my nemesis.


At this point we are two-thirds of the way through our trip and are thoroughly tired of driving, but we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Join us again next week, when the blog takes us to our arrival at our first destination.






Wednesday, July 17, 2019

THE RETURN OF THE SOUTHERNER ~~ DAY 1 & DAY 2 - MAY 29 & MAY 30

THE RETURN OF THE SOUTHERNER

After taking a couple of months off, the blog has finally returned! In the ensuing weeks since our hiatus began, Linda and I took a little vacation and made a road trip back East to visit family and friends. We had made the across-country drive twice before, but it was one-way each time because we drove out West and then flew back East on a plane. The first time we made the trip, it was our Truck Trip, when we drove my truck across country and left it at Linda's sister's house in preparation for our moving to Washington. We then flew back home, and a month later we drove Linda's car out West to move to Yakima. So we knew we were in for a long haul. The reason we did not fly back East for this trip is because I absolutely HATE to fly.

We were accompanied on this trip by our friend, Mr. Cardinal. His ancestors were from North Carolina, so we decided to take him with us so he could visit his homeland. He will be your tour guide for parts of this trip.

Our trip spanned the timeline from May 29th through June 28th, a total of 31 days, and we racked up 7252 miles on our car. Our original route was to go along the middle of the country on I-40, but due to increased tornado activity in that area the week before we were set to go, we decided to change and go on a more southerly route, driving down to I-10 and going across from there.

Along with us on our trip we took 5 devices that take pictures & video: 2 cameras, 2 iPads, and 1 cellphone. This amounted to a HUGE amount of media to wade through. And since we shared pictures back and forth between our iPads, I came across a lot of duplications. In the following weeks I will be sorting through this massive amount of data and trying to put it into some kind of order, as well as edit the videos and pictures.

Our days usually consisted of 8-9 hours driving. Some days were shorter, some days were longer. We had to plan our trip so that we could land in a city with a decent motel to stay in overnight. And so we began our journey...


DAY 1 & DAY 2 - MAY 29 & MAY 30

Our first day we drove from Yakima, WA, to Jackpot, NV, driving in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada. As soon as we left Yakima and got on the Interstate, I remarked to Linda that the steering wheel on her car was not on straight. Since she had gotten all new tires about a month earlier, I didn't think anything of it. Hmmm...

Our first night we stayed in the Cactus Pete Casino in Jackpot, NV. To say that we were two tired puppies would be the understatement of the year.


We arose the next morning to a beautiful Nevada sunrise.


On our second day, we drove through the entire state of Nevada and into Arizona. Let me tell you, there are some gorgeous mountains in Nevada. And that's just about all there was in the part of the state that we passed through. We drove for hours on a mostly two-lane road, passing through only a couple of small communities, without seeing much traffic.


However, the scenery was absolutely beautiful and our trip through was uneventful...until we came upon something that was taking up both lanes of the road ahead of us. It was only when we got to a passing zone that we could see what it was.


Finally we reached civilization...Las Vegas. Not really sure how civilized it is, but we did manage to find the freeway and I took this video of part of Vegas as we drove through. There is no sound on this video because the road noise was very loud.


While going through this area, we saw a Stealth Plane coming in for a landing at Nellis Air Force Base. I managed to get a hazy shot of the Las Vegas Strip, and also a view of Lake Mead (the lake formed behind the Hoover Dam).

Lake Mead at top, Stealth Plane lower right,
Las Vegas lower left

After we left Las Vegas we traveled through some rocky areas. The formations of rocks, all across the western part of the country, never ceases to amaze me. We stopped for lunch at a truck stop along the way and ate in the shade of a beautiful, old gnarly tree.


Our stop for the second night was in Kingman, AZ. Our motel was situated right on the old Route 66, and Mr. Cardinal posed for us. He was too short to reach the sign, so Linda gave him a boost up.



We walked across the street and had dinner at a funky restaurant decorated in old 50's style.



We had two days under our belt, only four more to go before we reached our first destination, Jacksonville, FL. It had been a long two days, but we had enjoyed seeing parts of the country that were new to us. And the best part of each day was when we relaxed with a couple of beers as a reward for all that driving!



Join us again next week, as we continue on our journey across the southern part of the United States.