Time to go. While this whole trip was great fun, we are both really ready to be home. So we said our goodbyes, and pulled out about 8:40 on Friday morning. We had talked about some of the stops we "could" make (San Antonio Riverwalk, Historic Austin, Texas, and West Monroe, Louisiana to see Duck Dynasty), but once Joe got behind the wheel, we just booked! We took I-75 up to Gainesville, then angled across on U.S. 27 to the Florida Panhandle. We considered driving the coastline again, but decided to take Florida 20 to Freeport and then hook up with I-10. We crossed the Alabama state line at 6:20 (5:20 local time), then through the tunnel in Mobile, and across the Mississippi state line an hour later.
We finally stopped in Gulfport, Mississippi for the night at 8:20 EST, basically 12 hours in the saddle today. 595 miles. Two tanks of gas, totalling 103 gallons. We did find out our RV lights are not overly bright! We stayed at the Island View Casino parking lot in Gulfport, MS, and gambled just a little, shared a chef salad, and called it a night. But we came out $15 ahead, so it was all a plus.
We were up early and on the road at 8:00 a.m. It was 61 degrees when I got up, and the beautiful Gulf coastline was just on the other side of the casino. I walked over and got some beignets from the casino for breakfast, and Joe washed the Florida (and Louisiana and Mississippi) bugs off the windshield. He thought he requested "bug-proof" windshields, but obviously that didn't happen! But he did have to put a jacket on to do his morning chores. There was an opossum sharing the casino parking lot with me when I walked back with the beignets, but he stayed one aisle over, so that was good.
We crossed the Mississippi River at 10:40 at the Port of Baton Rouge, then got into the Louisiana swampland. LSU has a big football game tonight, and we saw lots of cars heading into Baton Rouge with their LSU flags flying.
This "canal" is right between the two lanes of the highway!
And another bridge!
We hit Texas at 1:15 CST and just kept moving. Joe found a Whataburger for lunch, so he was a happy camper. Texas, across I-10, is 880 miles long! We buzzed through Houston, which is a crazy traffic city. We were glad to be going through on Saturday evening, but traffic was still awful, and there are lanes going off the freeway to the left onto toll roads, and lanes going off to the right onto other highways or streets, so Joe really had to watch his p's and q's through here. But, thankfully, we made it. Houston seemed to go on forever, with at least 3 separate "downtowns."
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| Houston, Texas |
Joe made a pitstop just about dusk and a grassfire had just broken out between the medium of the freeway. We just got through it but it was spreading quickly, and several miles down the road we saw the emergency vehicles heading that way. We were lucky to not get held up by that.
We made it all the way to San Antonio, actually we went around San Antonio, and stopped for the night in Boerne, Texas, at 8:05 p.m. 612 miles today! Another 12-hour day, 73 gallons of gas today. Fortunately, we found cheap gas -- $1.829 and $1.809.
And so now it's Sunday. We are more than half-way across Texas. We got another early start, 8:10. I even relieved him behind the wheel for an hour today so he could sit in a different position for a while. We had a pretty good side wind for most of the day, but eventually it moved around to a tailwind which hopefully helped the fuel mileage. Today we fueled 3 times!!! And the price started moving upwards. $1.869, $2.109, and $2.039. We just drove and drove. We crossed the New Mexico state line at 5:30 (4:30 local time), which was sort of our goal for the day -- getting through El Paso. but it was now only 4:30, way too early to call it a day. We made it all the way to Deming, and actually stopped before dark. We decided to get something to eat before heading to the campground, so we did end up camping in the dark, but we were basically off the road at 6:00 local time. Last night we just pulled into a Walmart, but tonight we decided we needed electricity, since our inverter doesn't seem to last through the night for his sleep machine and the fan. We stayed at a very nice campground in Deming, Lo-Hi RV Ranch. And a new driving record -- 620 miles today. But we are within smelling distance of home, so it's all been good.
And now it's Monday. I was up before the sun, and we were on the road at 7:30, crossed the Arizona state line at 9:30 (8:30 local time). YEAH!!!
It had rained here during the night, but it was sunny now. We cut up out of Lordsburg on U.S. 70 to Globe, going through lots of small towns but that is the route we prefer. We talked to Dave and Mazie and found out that they had gone back to Sierra Vista from the lake this weekend and were driving back up today, along this same route, so we arranged to meet for lunch at the casino in Globe. We got there about 30 minutes ahead of them, and had a nice visit with them (and I won $50) before our last leg home. We probably spent 2 1/2 hours there, but we still pulled into the house at 2:55. 274 miles today.
Home Sweet Home!!!
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