#7: Adventures in RV Travel – January 17, 2017

Whew! Remember last night’s post, when I said that I was going to sleep late this morning, linger over several cups of tea, yadda yadda yadda? SILLY ME!!! Just let me tell you what happened this morning at the RV Park in Ringgold, Georgia we hurriedly pulled into last night! Before 7 a.m., I heard beeping outside the RV. Then the sound of big trucks. Then heavy equipment. Right outside our RV! I drug myself out of bed and peeped out the window. As I looked, a crew of men dropped a telephone pole on the bank right above our RV! The crash woke up my husband and he comes roaring out of bed and I do mean roaring. We stood there in incredulous silence (because we couldn’t hear each other). Why had they parked us in that particular spot?

I drank a cup of tea and he drank a cup of coffee. We pulled out of there before 8 a.m. but not before getting our money back. Unbelievable. This did not start the day off particularly well. We were approximately at the northern border of Georgia at that point.

We had not had showers. We had not fed the dog or ourselves. We had done nothing that we normally do in the mornings. Plus the RV needed gas. I needed to stop losing my mind. We drove a little way and pulled off in Calhoun, Georgia at a Flying J. We decided, since we didn’t get much sleep the night before, that the driver needed to sleep and I needed to rest. I, you see, seldom sleep much. So my husband got a few hours sleep while I did chores around the RV, did some computer work, and took care of Betsy (my dog). I tried to sleep, really I did. It just was not going to happen. About 4 p.m., we pulled out of the Flying J and decided to drive at night. I knew that we would go through Atlanta right at rush hour. “Oh well,” I thought, “why not make a really bad day worse.” That it did.

It’s not far from Calhoun to Atlanta and the heavy traffic started as soon as we got on I75. It was wall-to-wall 18-wheelers from Atlanta to way past Macon. In Atlanta, the rush hour traffic was not to be believed. My cousin, Liza, lives in Atlanta and works downtown. So, I decided to call her and let her join me in my misery. Except Liza was not in Atlanta that day. A business trip had taken her out of town. She got my message and called me back and laughed at ME sitting in rush hour Atlanta traffic. That was just not fair. I’m sure she still finds it amusing! It took hours to get from the north to the south side of that city.

We finally got past Macon and it is still many miles to Valdosta, Georgia, which was our goal for the day. We arrived at the Flying J there at 12:40 a.m.

Just about the only thing that had not gone wrong today was something mechanical with the RV……knock on wood!

After eating a bite, doing some RV chores like washing dishes (no dishwasher), setting up WiFi, and sending husband, dog, and cat off to bed, here I am! It’s only 3 a.m. and I am just now winding down. But, we are literally in shouting distance of the Florida state line! It’s 58 degrees at 3 a.m. in very southern Georgia. Not bad. We have 357 (approximately) more miles to go to reach our destination. I am so very ready to get there! It might be tomorrow!

More from “Adventures” tomorrow evening when I am more coherent and when we just might have arrived! For your viewing pleasure, perhaps, below is Betsy, a very good traveler: