Wallydocking, a visit from my mom and on to Florida!

When we decided that we would be spending the night in Springfield, MO in a WalMart parking lot (which Annie informed me this morning is officially called “Wallydocking”), my mom jumped in her car and drove 1 1/2 hours from her home in Rolla, MO to spend the night with us. We ordered take-out Italian from Digiacinta’s (their dining room was closed due to Covid) and played a few quick rounds of Rumikub last night. This morning we took off in separate directions at 7:45 AM.

It was about 10:30 on a sunny Saturday morning. We were somewhere in Missouri, cruising down a beautiful, curvy, back road 2 lane highway with no shoulder. Just as Bruce said, “wow! This gas gauge dropped from 1/2 to almost empty really quick. We better get gas in the next town,” Harvey (the RV) lost power. Trying not to panic but seeing nothing but curves ahead, I immediately began praying! In God’s awesomeness, He not only provided a little gravel driveway to coast into, but it ended up being a little road that we could drive straight out of and not even have to back out on the highway. Bruce hopped on the cycle and found a gas station barely 2 miles down the road. Being the thrifty guy he is, Bruce wasn’t about to pay $13 a piece for 1 gallon gas cans, so he bought 2 gallon jugs of Fresh Spring Water, filled up a few water bottles for the bikers (motorcycle) hanging outside the Valero and then filled the empty jugs with gas. Ron would be proud! Twenty minutes later we were gassed up and on our way! Thank you to all our prayer warriors! We can totally feel God’s hand on our journey already! So now we know when the gage says half empty, it’s time to fill up!

**Oopsy – now I’ve been told this is against the law. Do not use water jugs for gas!

From Springfield we headed south on Hwy 65 to I-40 into Memphis. We were pretty excited about going to Memphis because we had such fond memories of the last time we were there with the kids. In a car. We had explored Beale St and downtown Memphis and had eaten great barbecue. It was a little different in Harvey. We found a barbecue place on Google that looked good, not too far off I-40. Unfortunately Memphis has a lot of roads that seem to dive under low overpasses. They were all marked with signs telling the heights. Which we assumed meant they were very low. So we chose to avoid them. We were sure wishing we knew how tall Harvey was! We came to one narrow road that seemed high enough that we could attempt to slowly go under rather than back up and turn around. As we were debating this, a UPS truck zipped on under without even slowing down. Surely we were shorter than a UPS truck! Bruce drove slowly under while I watched the roof clearance from outside. We made it under the 12’3” bridge with less than a foot to spare. We decided that we were safe to slowly go under anything over 12′. As long as we were loaded down. And had a full tank of gas. And didn’t bounce.

We went on a couple of wild goose chases following Siri to BBQ joints that had apparently moved or been out of business for a while. We finally decided that Memphis just wasn’t as fun in an RV and headed back to the interstate.

We passed into Alabama on I-22, not sure where we would spend the night, but heading towards Columbus, Georgia.

The further south we got, the more we were reminded that a hurricane was on it’s way. We continued through Birmingham without stopping. I had originally thought we would stop in all these cool cities, but after our not-so-fun-experience in Memphis, we just wanted to keep going. In Montgomery, AL we had dinner at a Chrystal’s Burgers because it looked like a local favorite. Unfortunately their lobby was closed due to Covid, and only the drive-thru was open. Harvey obviously couldn’t attempt a drive-thru, so we ended up knocking on the door to the lobby and begging the manager to let us order there. She begrudgingly agreed, took our order and money and then brought our food to us at the door. I’m pretty sure she was convinced we had Covid. Or were roaming scoundrels up to no good.

We found a place to dump our tanks (that’s RV speak for get rid of the sewage in Harvey’s black & gray tanks) that wasn’t too far from a Walmart that wasn’t too far from our route. The beauty of Wallydocking is that when you stop at 11:45 PM you don’t have to worry about hooking anything up. You just find a flat spot, turn off the key, close the curtains and go to bed.

Sunday morning I called all the RV Parks where we were scheduled to stop the next few days. Ft Clinch and Monticello didn’t expect to be affected by the hurricane at all. Defuniak Springs, Pensacola and Mobile were expecting to be right in Sally’s path. We debated about changing our route and starting further north, but that didn’t seem like it would solve the problem because as we headed west, Sally would be heading north and we could still potentially run in to her. After checking the weather multiple times, we decided to continue to Ft Clinch at Fernandina Beach, Florida and take it day by day, knowing we could be sitting still for a few days waiting out the hurricane.

We realized that it was Sunday right before we finally took off around 11:00 AM. Rats! This would have been a great place to catch some real Southern Baptist preaching.

I was excited to drive through Columbus, Georgia and see the town where I was born. I’m pretty sure I haven’t been back since we moved when I was 2. My mom gave us the address of the house where we lived when I was born. I was a little unsure how to go about taking pictures without being a creeper. We were driving an RV for Pete’s sake! Not to worry. Bruce marched right up and rang the doorbell. He told the girl that answered why we were there and she was happy to let us take a few pictures.

We arrived at Ft Clinch around 7:30 PM. Since it was already dark we weren’t able to see much. It is supposed to be on the beach, but our campsite is kinda in the woods. Guess we’ll find out tomorrow.