It hasn’t been any joy spending day after day in the car, but at least at the end of each day we’ve found a nice spot to spend the night. Last night’s stay in Forrest City TN was surprisingly quiet considering that the little Delta Ridge RV Park was close to I-40. It was the first non-state park night we’ve spent on this trip so far. Normally we are reluctant to stay in the type of RV park that caters to overnighters because they tend to be scuzzy, but this one was just fine.

I particularly liked the check-in process last night. Too many RV parks make you wait in line, then hand over a dozen pieces of identifying information, then hand you a long list of Rules and an insincere wish that you’ll enjoy your stay. After eight or nine hours in the car, I don’t have much patience for people asking me for the age of my child and explaining the bathroom lock code. Last night’s park was more like it: slap a $20 bill on the counter and write down your name, then “go ahead and take any space you like.”

Today’s stop is really wonderful, in a different way. We are in central Tennessee, at the Cumberland Mountains State Park, about six miles south of I-40. This is a large, landscaped, historic, and quiet place with lots of old school amenities, like a restaurant and shady campsites among the trees.

As usual, we didn’t book in advance. It’s Monday and not a holiday weekend, so we know our chances of getting in are excellent. We arrived after 6 PM and the office was closed, but the campground host was happy to direct us to a primo space just vacated by his cousin, level, long, and with full hookups. We don’t really need full hookups but it will be nice to wash the reluctant teenager and get everything else cleaned up too. Tomorrow we move to a campsite with no hookups at all.

That’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park I’m talking about. I did go to the effort of reserving our site there, because the campground seems popular. We’re getting a zero-hookup site because that’s all they offer. That’s OK for three nights with careful conservation of water and electricity. Normally electricity wouldn’t be a concern at all but all of the sites are shady so we may not generate much power from the solar panels.

I have no idea what to expect for cellular connectivity, so if the blog suddenly goes quiet you can assume it’s a lack of signal rather than a sign we’ve been eaten by bears. It should be a good test of the new cellular booster and antenna, at least.

One other thing makes this stop wonderful. We are going to have a short drive tomorrow (about 120 miles) and then spend three nights just relaxing. It’s about time. We’ve covered about 1,800 miles so far, in a short period of time. Starting Tuesday afternoon we get to slow down and reinvigorate before plunging into the craziness that is Alumapalooza.

The long days of driving are already taking a toll on us. It’s not fun spending all day in the car, and as Emma grows into a teenager she is finding the car rides less agreeable. When she was younger we could drop her in the backseat with a few books and not hear a peep for hours. Now she has a Nintendo DS, several books, a bag of snacks, an iPod, and a slew of other distractions, and she’s bored.

I am thinking that we should make some effort to avoid having to do this rush-rush drive next year, by leaving earlier. It won’t be easy because of our schedules, but the alternative is slow torture by concrete Interstate.

Perhaps because of our lack of motivation to do the same thing today that we did yesterday,we got a late start this morning. I woke up at 4:00 for some reason, did a little bit of work on the computer, then went back to bed. We slept until nearly 9, and with a little puttering around and a walk around the campground loops, we managed to not depart Lake Bob Sandlin until noon. This meant a shorter drive day, which was fine with me.

The drive was just as tedious as the other days, with the same sorts of distractions, namely bad signage. There is a serious problem in America with basic punctuation, but anyone who frequents an Internet forum already knows that. I can’t even count the number of signs we’ve seen with superfluous apostrophes (“HOT DOG’S “) over the years, so I have stopped paying attention to those. But today we spotted a few cases where a little extra punctuation probably would have helped:

(at a truck stop) DIESEL FRIED CHICKEN
Mmmm-mmm good!

And in Pleasantville AR: ROMANS USED TIRES
Now, we have serious doubts about that. I’ve seen Ben Hur and I’m pretty sure the Romans used wooden wheels.

Eleanor also reflected on the sign we saw yesterday (“Hell is hot”), noting in the 88-degree temperatures of the morning, “at least it’s not humid!” The thermometer says it’s 10-15 degrees cooler than it was in west Texas, but it certainly feels worse. We have left the desert far behind and I miss it.

The highlight of the drive today was on I-40 somewhere east of Little Rock, where we encountered a 12 mile “construction zone” in which exactly 0.3 miles were actually under active construction. Traffic was weird; stopped dead for 10-15 minutes, then roaring ahead at highway speeds. We went through this for nearly an hour and then finally traffic broke free for a few miles.

But we weren’t out of it. I was about a tenth of a mile behind the next car, fortunately, because traffic suddenly came to a screeching halt just over the crest of a small bridge. I had to lock ’em up, all four trailer tires smoking. With no breakdown lane at that point andthe left lane blocked off by large orange traffic barrels, my avoidance options were poor. For a few seconds it looked like we were going to plow into the back of the stopped Toyota Highlander in front of us.

At the last second I swerved between the orange barrels like a slalom course, as a gambit to buy a little more stopping room. That bought us a few feet only, because just ahead the construction crew had left a few Jersey barriers. But we stopped in time and all was well.

I was impressed that the Airstream handled so well. We’ve spent years tweaking it for just such a circumstance, with disc brakes, the Hensley hitch, and the Michelin tires, but still you never know until the pressure is on. It was nice to feel the rig perform exactly as it should have. It stopped quickly, there was no “Hensley bump” or push from the trailer (which is typically caused by having the brake controller set too low), and at no point did I lose control of the vehicle. It steered right where I wanted even under severe circumstances. So the incident turned out to be nothing but a little smoke.

This whole incident was a little ironic since you know I was bloviating a couple of weeks ago about the importance of having your weight distribution correct because “someday it will matter.” For us, “someday” turned out to be today. Of course, it’s really about more than just the weight. Brakes, tires, hitch, and tow vehicle all enter into the equation. For example, I am certain that without disc brakes on the Airstream and an excellent brake actuator we would have had a front-end collision today.

I stopped at the next exit and checked all the tires carefully, but there was no sign of damage. For the next 25 miles I was a little jumpy about the cars that cut in front of us (a frequent occurrence along I-40) and any hint of vibration from the tires. Even though I can’t see anything wrong with the tires, there may be hidden damage so I’ll be watching them carefully as we continue down the road.

We finally bailed out around 6:30 in Forrest City, AR at a little 18-site campground. Full hookups for $20, and it’s actually a decent spot for an overnight. It looks like we’ll get into Tennessee tomorrow and hit the Smokies sometime Tuesday. One last big push tomorrow and that should be the end of the big mileage days.

Last night as we walked through the Monahans Sand Hills State Park we found that after we arrived somebody had clipped one of the campsite utility pedestals and broken open the water line. Water was gushing from the ground. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to compute that soon the park staff would show up and turn off the water to the entire park. This turned out to be true, a couple of hours later, but fortunately Eleanor had already filled the fresh water tank, so we weren’t inconvenienced.

The folks who clipped the pedestal, on the other hand, had a large headache. Not only would the state parks department be communicating with their insurance company, but their motorhome had a nasty gash along the front driver’s side storage compartment and slide-out. That bit of inaccurate driving is going to cost a chunk. But at least they were responsible about it: they called the park staff to report the accident.

Despite working against time zones every day (causing us to lose an hour on Thursday from Mountain Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time, and then another hour on Friday to Central Time), we got an early enough start to log some serious miles across Texas. It ended up being a rather dull 500-mile day all the way through the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex and out the other side, with little to speak of other than a few interestingly misspelled or inappropriate signs. My favorites:

(an enormous banner seen on the side of a warehouse) CARPET OULET

(a sign tacked to a tree in rural Texas, seen on a 95 degree day) HELL IS HOT

Our original thought was to just drive 420 miles and crash for the night in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, but when we got there I was still feeling OK to drive further, and it was still 92 degrees. We decided we’d rather spend the night in a pleasant Texas state park with power to run the air conditioner, than boondocking in a parking lot by the highway. Lake Bob Sandlin State Park was 80 miles further down the road, and we made that our destination.

This turned out to be a great move. The state park is forested and green, with widely spaced campsites in three loops, and it feels very pleasant. I definitely can’t complain about the 30-amp power either, as it has already turned the Airstream from an Easy-Bake Oven into a comfortable hotel room.

But the big win was Vaughan’s. As we were driving in here I was thinking about another trip through East Texas along I-20, where we discovered a great catfish place. I was thinking, “This is catfish country,” and (note that here I’m giving you a fresh insight into my personal foibles) I really like catfish. As we pulled off I-30 and began the 12 mile drive to Lake Bob Sandlin, I mentioned to Eleanor that the one thing that could make the day end perfectly would be discovering a nice little catfish restaurant.

And just 0.2 miles from the entrance to the state park, there it was. If there was ever a sign from the heavens that I’ve done something right in my life, this was it. After nine hours of drive time, nothing could look better to me that that sign. We found a site in the campground quickly, unhitched in record time, and zipped over to Vaughan’s for what turned out to be a fun meal.

This place is one of those little “finds” that we like. Local, unique, and good. The restaurant is almost devoid of interior decor (think college cafeteria with two big screens showing Major League Baseball) but that just shows that the management knows they have good food. No pretense, just solid meals served family-style, friendly service, and a spectacular view of the sunset over Lake Bob Sandlin. We liked it. The catfish definitely hit the spot for me, with sides of beans, hush puppies, coleslaw, pickled green tomatoes, and a slice of coconut meringue pie for dessert. Now I don’t feel like I just towed a trailer 500 miles.

Our plan for tomorrow is pretty much the same as the plan for today. This is a slog right now. We’ll probably try to cover another 400 miles and get into Tennessee somewhere along I-40, then hit the Smokies by Monday afternoon. At that point we can slow down for a few days, to chill out a bit (and get some work done) before we launch into Ohio for the pre-Alumapalooza prep work.

Yep, amazingly we got out on time yesterday, after weeks of prep.  Well, almost.  We aimed for a late afternoon start, just to get a few miles in before the real push started on Friday, and we got out about 5:30 p.m., which was 90 minutes later than optimum.  But that required only an adjustment to plan, and as you’ll see, everything worked out better than expected.

The Airstream is looking happy to be back on the road. It’s been tweaked, cleaned, painted, washed, lubed, and tested.  It So it was no surprise that our first 150 miles were completely uneventful.  I was particularly happy with the new position of the backup cam. Now that it looks down on traffic, it’s useful after dusk (when previously lights from cars would blind it) and I am getting a much more better picture of the traffic situation behind us.

We weren’t out to accumulate a lot of miles given our late start.  The plan was just to make it to Deming NM and crash for a night at Rock Hound State Park.  Since we were late, we opted to stop in Lordsburg NM instead, which is a small blip along a very lonely stretch of I-10, known mostly for having truck stop and hotels.  There is one campground there.  When we arrived in the dark, the office was closed (no surprise) and there was an after-hours board telling us the usual procedure: pay here, pick out a site.

I looked at that board for a minute.  Three people for a night, $37.  Cash only.  I thought about our three years of full-timing.  And then I thought, “Nah.”  We had just left home 150 miles ago.  We had full fresh water, empty holding tanks, and solar panels.  At 4000 ft elevation the night was forecast to be deliciously comfortable for sleeping. Why did we need, or even want, a campground?

So we went back to a restaurant we had spotted on the way in, which advertised ” RV parking,” went in to ask about dinner (they had just closed) and asked if we could park … Before Eleanor could finish her question, we got a “No problem,” and from there we spent a pleasant night with the windows open and cool breezes floating in.  I slept extremely well and had magnificent dreams, and I awoke thinking, “Being here in this Airstream, in this bed, with this person, is absolutely perfect.” Although we had hundreds of miles to cover, I didn’t want to get out of bed.  That was a bit of roadtrip magic, the kind that I miss from the full-timing days.

We delayed probably more than was ideal, dawdling over (very good) breakfast in the restaurant, puttering a little in the Airstream, but finally got moving and pushed on through New Mexico and west Texas, with a brief stop to pick up barbecue in El Paso.  We ended up, 417 miles later, at Monahans Sand Hills State Park a couple of hours before sunset in 102-degree heat.

I’ve been here once before, with the Caravel, but for Eleanor and Emma it’s the first visit.  After dinner (the barbecue we picked up along the way), they discovered for themselves how beautiful this park gets when the sun is low on the horizon.  Although it was still well into the 90s at that time, we took a walk around the campground loop and everyone went a little nuts with their cameras.

We’re going to be in the “logging miles” mode for a few days, so our stop here will be just one night.  It would have been nice to make our usual leisurely plod across the country, but to do that would have required leaving at least a week ago, and that just wasn’t realistic.  So we’ll bolt across the vastness of Texas, and through Arkansas and beyond before pausing.  Still, a few moments like last night and this evening’s sunset will make the hours of driving feel a lot more worthwhile.