Here's my last entry. I'm home and adjusting, albeit slowly, to my "normal" life.
Sept 2
I’m on the road east. I’ve got 7 gallons of gas in the back
of the truck just in case I run into areas with power outages from Hurricane Isaac but I doubt it is
necessary from what I read and hear. My goal tonight is a KOA just east of Meridian, Mississippi
and I get there around dusk. I saw very little evidence of Isaac as I drove
east across Louisiana and Mississippi, the rivers and creeks were high with
some standing water in places but no wind damage evidence where I drove thru on
I-20.
Sept 3
Tallahassee
is today’s goal. I plan to go to a KOA east of town and then visit with Steph,
James and Blondie. My first night of this journey was spent in Tallahassee so it’s appropriate I stop here
near the end. I reached the KOA after a long day on the road. The Alabama countryside was
really nice with occasional rolling hills but too many small towns to make good
time on the highway and on top of that I lost an hour coming back into the
Eastern Time Zone for the first time since April 6th. After a late
dinner with Steph and James and a brief visit with Blondie(my grand dog and a
very special friend) I was ready to crash. I’ve decided I’m not going home
tomorrow but will instead make a feeble attempt to put off the inevitable and
go to St. George Island State Park for 3 nights. We’ve camped there before, 3
or 4 years ago, and it’s a good beach place but hot. The park has water and
electric so I’ll have AC as needed. Since Isaac screwed me out of going to the Gulf Islands National Seashore by Pensacola I need to make up for that. The
truck battery is acting up and was dead this morning but it appears to be a
poor connection not allowing it to charge properly.
I have to comment about birds. I’m not sure why but out west
there is a very evident lack of songbirds compared to back east, maybe it has
to do with water or bugs. I’m used to being woke up near dawn when camping as
the birds respond to the rising sun and begin to make noise but the farther
west and north we went they just weren’t there in the numbers we see back east
(on the right coast as my brother would say). So it’s nice to hear them again
as I’m accustomed to.
Sept 4 thru 6
A short drive of about 100 miles and I’m setup at the
campground on St.George
Island. The weather is
iffy with a low pressure area just west of Panama City
and dumping a fair amount of rain on the mainland of Florida with an occasional squall line
passing over the island. The rain is the remnants of Isaac that dropped back
south after soaking the Ohio
valley. In the early morning of the 5th a heavy line of rain passed
over the island and woke me up with its heavy tropical downpour….welcome home.
But later that day I headed off to the beach and enjoyed the breeze, sun and
surf for awhile. I setup my antenna and put the ham gear on the air for the
first time in many months, having the saltwater ¼ mile away enhances the
operation of the antenna so I want to see what I can do. Around 3:30am I
checked my radio on the 20 meter band which is in the area of 14 Mhz. I could
hear numerous South Pacific stations but was unsuccessful in getting them to
hear me. I heard Australia, New Zealand and a gentleman with a French accent
on the island of Moorea
in French Polynesia. My last day was a sleep
in day followed by a trip to the beach and that is when I discovered that the
truck battery gave up and was beyond help. I had planned to go to a pizza place
on the island for dinner tonite but that is out. I’ll have to use the trailer
tongue battery to jump start the truck in the morning when I head for home. I
can’t get to it now with the front bed down or I’d haul it with me and go have
pizza!! There’s a Discount Auto 30 miles from here on the way home where I can
stop and get a new battery. I’m sitting by a campfire typing this and the sun
has just gone down and stars are coming out. Today was mostly sunny and a hot
September beach day but the evening is quite pleasant with mild temps. So this
is it, the final night and its night number 157. That of course is a new high
for me by about 19 weeks….LOL. I think I’ll listen for the South Pacific hams
again tonight. So goodnight from the road for the final time. Tomorrow night I
sleep in my bed in my house. I will miss my hotel room on wheels.
Sept 12
I’ve been home since the 7th and I’m slowly
adjusting to my “normal” lifestyle again. I’m enjoying some of the things I’ve
been without for 5 months but I’m also having to resume home duties like
cutting the grass. Maybe rocks in the yard like folks do in Phoenix isn’t a bad idea!! I'm thankful for
my son Brian who took care of the lawn and house while we were gone and Linda
has done a lot of yard cleanup since she got home. I reflect on the magnitude
of the trip at times and the memories will last a lifetime. I’ve sat and
recounted the days and will continue to do so in order to cement the memories
in my databank but that won’t take a lot of effort, they are quite clear at
this point even given the 5 month timeframe. I think putting some statistics
down is a good way to share just how awesome it was. Last night I was channel
surfing our Dish TV and started watching a show about the folks who work on the
giant windmill generators and they had a segment from Roscoe, Texas(I drove
through there) and showed shots of the largest windmill farm in the world that
just happens to be the windmill farm I posted photos of in my last entry. To
discover it’s the largest in the world was neat. I figured I saw at least 1000
of them but they said there are 780, close enough. It’s a bunch and they said
the blades are about $250K each and there are 3 per windmill, WOW!
- 158 days on the road
- 157 nights with only 6 nights of hotel stays
- 21023 total miles
- Over 90% of the time spent in or west of the Rockies in 11 states.
- 4 trailer tires and 1 truck tire failed and were replaced. (I got pretty good and quick at changing trailer tires and could audition for a NASCAR pit crew).
- One of my favorite stats…..I lost 20 lbs!!!!!! (would have been more without the damn bone spurs in my heels)
- I tracked all my gas expenses and I spent $7405.21 for 1917.6 gallons which averages out to $3.86 a gallon. I budgeted for $4.25 to $4.50 per gallon. However my overall mileage estimate was low by about 50% so my overall gas bill was still a bit higher than I had anticipated.
- Overall mileage was 10.97 miles per gallon which is a little better than I had expected.
So here’s my final campsite and a
photo of my selection for MVP of my trip…LOL. The generator kept our butts warm
repeatedly by recharging the deep cycle batteries that power the inverter
thereby providing us with 120 volts AC to power the mattress heaters in our
beds. Remembering that it was 37 degrees in Oregon on the 4th of July you can
see how often we relied on having those heaters.
I’ve posted just a few new photos
from St. George Island State Park in Florida.
Needless to say the trip was
amazing and rewarding and will be a highlight of my life forever. Blogging it
was fun, challenging, exasperating at times and quite time consuming but I’d do
it again given the opportunity. My favorite part of it was sharing photos and
relating pertinent information on the places we visited. I hope you all enjoyed
it as well and thanks for following us and being so supportive of the blog
efforts. I hope you all get the opportunity to enjoy this beautiful country of
ours like we did. I hope to do something similar in the Northeast someday.
So this is it, I’m signing off
(for now).
Take care………….Dave & Linda
See photos at
https://picasaweb.google.com/103943218564105837637. New album is St. George Island State Park
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