Tuscaloosa AL to Kingsport TN

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

We left Tuscaloosa at 8:15 anxious to have this last day of travel behind us. We are listening to a new book and it should last all the way home. The sun is shining and it is 38 degrees – cooler than we are used to but not what we had anticipated. The weather report in Kingsport today was freezing fog – that did not sound too good!

The drive was long – we stopped once for gas and once for a picnic lunch just north of Chattanooga. The rest stop was brand new with the travel pamphlet displays just being set up today. The signage was not even finished with Men and Women signs taped on the walls.

When we got in the Sprinter this morning – Garmin told us we would be home at 2:30 – we made it and found most everything in good shape. We have a couple rather sickly looking plants that badly needed water. We unloaded the refrigerator and brought in a couple loads of things we might need tonight but will leave most of the time consuming work for tomorrow. Ben has to do an inspection on Thursday and Jane has commitments for Friday but for tomorrow – no one will even know we are back! Tomorrow we will get the mail and deal with it; do the laundry; and unpack and clean the Sprinter. Then Thursday we will re-enter our lives…

In retrospect this was a really good trip – a good blend of urban and remote locations to visit. We knew the state of Texas was big and this trip proved it. Our total mileage for the month was 5,828. The only days we drove over 300 miles were those traveling to and from Texas. Most days the driving was between 50 and 150 miles. The state is quite varied in cultures, terrain, and in the types of agriculture, resources, and businesses. We saw some homes that were of lower income families but nowhere did we see overwhelming poverty. Granted we did not see every part of the large cities but we did see many neighborhoods that were far from wealthy. All people we met seemed very proud of their state.

We learned a lot of Texas history, we learned about Tex-Mex, Texas BBQ, and Cajun cusines. Jane was able to cook a wider variety of foods in the Sprinter than on previous trips. The weather was great. We had rain two or three days but the only day it rained all day was one of our travel days home. There were several nights we could have been cold without our heater. There were only 3 nights we did not have electricity and while a couple of them were cool, our sleeping bags did their job. There was nothing we would do differently.

In a couple days I will upload the missing photos and an overview of the trip.