Miiiississippi...You Are On My Mind

Remember this ABBA song? It sure popped up in my mind today as we travelled through this state. And just before we enter Louisiana we cross the Ole-Man-River.

We started real early again at 6:45am and made headway through Alabama, Mississippi and now Louisiana. 

The town of Minden,LA has its namesake in Germany and also in Canada. German heritage marked the beginning, but today I think there is very, very little German culture left in this place. Bea was reading off from the city stats, and the poverty rate sits at a remarkable 35%. 

But I guess that is a development cherished by the GOP, cause poor people are more easily manipulated.

But let's not go there today.

After all we had an efficient travel day, making the most of daylight hours.

Vicksburg Bridge

This guy seemed to have suicidal thoughts and his protective gear is a flimsy shirt, but he does have a helmet..

The Adventure Rig Made It To Alabama (without a banjo on my knee)

Thanks to switching our clocks back to Standard Time last Sunday, daylight is now coming earlier. For us campers and adventure-seekers, this means we can start our driving day at around 6-6:30am. I know, this doesn't sound like vacation time, but we either do that or find ourselves on the road for 2 weeks. We rarely take sightseeing stops while we are enroute to our destination. You see, it's the pull to find "our spot" and our friends a.s.a.p. We feel a little different under our return trip as "home" in April means still nasty weather and carrying firewood into the house. So a stay in any place with southern exposure in April is welcome.

So today we left Camp Walmart in Smithfield, NC at exactly 6:35am. 

We truly enjoy rolling down the I-95 as it gets us south quickly. Now, we already had 26C (78.8F) yesterday, but today we topped out at 28C (82F). For the first time our AC would be blowing cool air down the cabin. Dixie was very appreciative that, I think.

We were in the right lane and nearing a highway exit, when a car from the left lane cut in front of the car we were behind at to get into the exit lane. Avoiding a collision, the car in front of us hit the brakes real hard. When I saw those brake lights coming on, my foot went for a full emergency brake-up. At the same time I had to swerve to the right avoiding rear-ending the car in front of me. This maneuver caused our trailer to start responding with some violent moves left and right. and I heard squealing tires and Bea was using a German expletive.

I managed to control the rig to an almost full stop before the trailer could tip over, then got back into our original lane. Vehicles behind us had left a huge space for us to move over.

That was stress at the top level!

At Florence, SC we entered the I-20 and now the motto was "Go West young man - Go west!

First we passed Columbia, SC, then Augusta,GA and finally we were approaching Atlanta, one of the biggest cities in the U.S. Naturally, we were apprehensive about what traffic chaos would wait for us there.

Our experience with Atlanta goes back a few years and we never accessed the bypass, but rather were heading straight through the city. (I-20 does not actually go directly through the city center) Our calculation proved right. Even though traffic was partially tight, we didn't go into a jam. With other words: Smooth riding all the way through.

However, the other side of the way into the city showed at least a 10mile line-up of mixed traffic. Lucky us!

Now Bea was busy in her seat plotting a place for an overnight stay. The drive west had brought us into Central Time Zone and we figured the later sunset would allow us to continue today into Alabama. At Anniston,AL Bea found a Sam's Club which allows for overnight parking. And that's where we ended today's adventure

   

You Know You Have Reached The South When You See Cotton Fields Along The Road

Today's adventure started at the Lewes,DE Ferry Terminal. After doing an early Dixie walk in the dark, (oh we saw a deer) we could actually see first daylight out east. A quick breakfast followed and then we nose-dived into the traffic machine. Now, Lewes is not a big city, but the morning traffic....oh-my....it's worthy of any huge American city.

We finally crossed the state line into Virginia and reached Cape Charles just around 11am. 

When you see cotton fields like this you are in the south

Before we went through the Toll station, we stopped at the Welcome Center. A great feature there is a beautiful nature trail. We took Dixie down there and she had a great time sniffing around all the unknown plants.

From here the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel starts. It's actually a combination of bridges and 2 tunnels stretching 17.6 miles (28.3km) across the Chesapeake Bay. It is a marvel of engineering technology, and we just love to drive it.

 

The lighthouse resemble our "Sparkplug" in the Lubec channel

But today, we had an even more outstanding experience. While we were in the 2. tunnel a huge Hapag Lloyd Containership went across, over top of us! 

Hapag Lloyd Containership

From the rearview mirror...

Arriving on the Virginia Beach side we were eaten up by a brutal traffic machine. 3 cities are making up a huge urban area. Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Suffolk have grown out of bounds and are producing a daily traffic chaos of sorts.

But once we had gotten on Hwy 58 towards the city of Emporia, traffic became manageable. From there we got back south-bound on the I-95. and rain

The sun was approaching the horizon as we got into Smithfield, NC. We went to the same Walmart we had been at earlier and set up camp on the outskirts of their huge parking lot.

Temps today reached 26C (78.8F). From back home we hear about 45mph wind and rain. Shudder.....

Our travel route today

Gas prices fell in time for our trip

Mighty forests along the southern route

The Ferry Signaled Twice

 What a crazy, yet lucky day! We were up early as the plan was to make calls to auto repair shops. After giving it a lot of thoughts I decided to try the local Chevy dealer who was the first to open its service dept. at 7:30.

Naturally, you can't get through right away, because people are either not yet on their job, or they have gone to frequent the company coffee maker. But I was promised a call back.

Well, my patience is not of the most desirable, so I quickly decided to hop into the van and drive the 0.6miles to the dealer's place. At the service dept. I told my story and was allowed right in. That was a good beginning. Other places would have said, Yeahhh, but we are already fully booked for today. Not this one, Sir!

I went to the waiting area and pulled out my Smart Phone.

After watching funny cartoons for an hour, the service guy comes around telling that they have sourced the parts for the cable with another dealership, and sent a driver to pick them up. Later, I learned that that guy drove 20 miles to another town for it. That took some time, but we would get the parts. 2 hours later I started wandering around outside in the sunshine when I came into the back yard of the dealership. There I saw my van parked and from underneath I saw 2 legs protruding, just as I had done Sunday morning. 

????

But only moments later the man emerged from underneath and drove the van out for pickup. WOW, he seemed to be finished.

Back inside I got my bill which was so low that I almost got a shock. $242 bucks seemed nothing for this job, especially when one remembers that some guy spent at least 90 minutes to get the parts from that other dealership. Parts was only a little more than $50, rest was a standard fee they use for diagnosing a vehicle.

The name of that dealership is Lester Glenn Chevrolet in Freehold, NJ. These guys go the extra mile for you! Thank you!

Getting back to Camp Walmart and Bea was all smiles and we got a quick lunch ready before hitting the road again.

Our immediate destination was Cape May, 2.5hrs. away.

I quickly booked the 6pm departure, as it seemed a bit too tight with the earlier 2:30pm departure.

We got onto the Jersey Garden State Parkway (which is full of toll stations) and we made it to the Cape May Ferry Terminal 5 minutes before the 2:30pm departure. We told the friendly ticket lady we wouldn't mind to wait until 6pm but she got on some intercom with the ferry and was given clear signal for us to come onboard. 

Before we were allowed to enter, a police officer rounded the rig with a drug dog. Then the ticket guy had to take a look into the van and into the trailer. It was then that I heard the ferry leaving signal..... What?

But crew members were now directing us to the ramp and ...lo and behold - there was just enough space for our 54ft rig. The gate behind us was closed and now I heard the leaving signal of the ferry once more! Seconds later the ferry was moving out from the harbour. People had been watching us from the upper deck. They must have thought "why are these people coming that late?" But we hadn't been late, we were 4hrs early!!

90 minutes of a ferry passage was flying by, when I had gotten a coffee from upstairs and broken out the cookies we had gotten from our neighbours back home. I felt really good. Life was good again. We were finally moving again and into the right direction. We were south-bound!

On the Delaware side is the town of Lewes, and that's where the ferry lands.

Tomorrow is gonna be a new exciting day, but hopefully without any more delays being part of it.

An evening walk along the boardwalk

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Our day trip today