Summer 2009

Another long day... In planning this day I tried to get a lot of miles under our belt so that we could arrive in New Orleans relatively early tomorrow morning. The Birmingham area was the target for the overnight stop but there were only a few campgrounds that got good ratings in the directories. The one we selected was one of the closest to our route, but is still about 20 miles off the route. Fortunately, we are only a few miles off the I-459, which goes around the city of Birmingham. This makes tomorrow's run a little bit easier.

The trip took us through the hills of southern Virginia, the hills of eastern Tennessee and the hills of northeastern Alabama. Having a vehicle that can handle those hills makes the run so much more pleasant. The hills do take their toll in fuel consumption, although this truck gets about 20% better MPGs. Our worst tankful is still above the average for a tankful on the old truck. The other plus is that diesel prices are half of what they were last summer. Diesel fuel was cheaper than regular gas in West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. Our last tankful, here in Alabama, was $2.25 per gallon of diesel, 50 cents cheaper than New York and only a few cents more than regular gasoline.

Yesterday I bragged that, "at least it didn't rain." The weather gods did not like this boast and got even with us today. Like yesterday, the morning was cool with a mist hanging in the air. Soon enough the showers came. Most of these were short lived and were more of a nuisance than a cause for concern. Then we got to Chattanooga, where in the middle of a construction zone with narrow lanes, a strong thunderstorm hit with a torrent of rain. Visibility was down to a couple of hundred feet. To top it off, someone cut in a bit close on a curve causing me to hit the brakes harder than I would normally do under these driving conditions and the result was a skid that I was able to control... scary, but no contact with anyone or anything. We had a few more thunderstorms in Alabama and by the time we got into the campground, the weather cleared and the temperature soared to 85 degrees with high humidity. Tonight is a night for sleeping with the air conditioner on.