Off To A Slow Start

Day 1 - Summerville SC to Lake City Fl. - 300 miles

We left home right on schedule, which is a huge accomplishment for me...not Jim, he's always early. This time we did NOT forget our dogs like last year. You only do that once. Then again, they were watching us from the front door.

The weather was perfect, making traveling a pleasure. We were making great time..for a while.Just before noon we decided to pull into a WalMart for some groceries, lunch and gas, just north Savannah. As we got off the Interstate and crossed the overpass we noticed thick, black smoke just a little south of us. By the way, we were heading south.

Note to Self: In the future, when thick, black smoke is noticed between present location and future destination, get back in the RV and drive until the smoke is in the rear view mirror.

We shopped, ate and fueled for about 45 minutes then got back on the highway. The smoke was all gone. As we crested a small hill we saw a wall of traffic, stopped. Crap.

I did a crossword, a Numbrix puzzle, read a magazine, peed... (ha! you can DO that in a RV) and watched in disbelief as some fools drove north in the southbound breakdown lanes to get off the highway! Yikes!

Finally, 90 minutes and three miles later we were moving again. We drove by the accident scene, a semi had blown a tire, crossed from the middle to the left lane and into the guardrail, then rode atop of it, shredding his fuel tank and bursting in flames. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Makes one think...we were only about five minutes behind this wreck. How many little chores did I do this morning that took me five minutes? We could have left a little earlier. I stopped to take a few pictures, I planted a perennial that I'd forgotten about, I vacuumed a floor that really didn't need it. Jim should have taken the front exit of the subdivision, but forgot and went out the back exit making our route several minutes longer. Any one of those things, not done, could have put us in a different location on that highway. We could have been right beside that semi when he careened off into the median...one never knows.

The rest of the day was uneventful, thank goodness, and we pulled off the road around five o'clock, exhausted. Not from the drive, but all the preparations. We are in the middle of nowhere, very rural and quiet, which is a good thing.

We must be getting old. The most important criteria for choosing this campground (other than it being well rated) was that it have CABLE TV so we could watch American Idol.

Now, I'd like everyone to meet *Norman*

He is our traveling mascot on the trip. Jim and I walked around the campground and spotted another 'Norman' We let our little mascot visit....the cat wasn't happy.

Tomorrow we head to Tallassee, get I10 and head south toward the gulf coast. We'll be spending a few days on the there at the beaches. Gotta get a tan before we head north and north and north...