ON THE ROAD AGAIN

We said a sad farewell to Michell, Anthony and David this morning around 830am and are on the road again. We had a wonderful visit and the weekend went much too fast. Mother's Day ended up being a cloudy, cool day, - big change from Saturday. Michelle, David and I went to church in the morning, while Robert and Anthony continued to try to solve computer and political problems. Thanks to Anthony, I can now print from my computer - yea! We took a little tour around Maumelle, stopped to pick up meat and vegetables at Fresh Market as a treat (similar to AJ's) for dinner. Anthony grilled steak, a fillet kabob and ribs and pocket new potatoes (cut up with seasonings and-wrapped in foil) that Michelle and I had fixed. We had each picked something different - so poor Anthony had his work cut out for him trying to have everything done at the same time. We also had fresh asparagus - everything was delicious! Robert and I drove around doing some last minute errands in the afternoon. We filled the truck with diesel at Kroger's ($2.85/gal - that was the cheapest we have found diesel since leaving Arizona. We also stopped and picked up a few grocery supplies. It was a very nice relaxing afternoon and evening.
It rained last night and of course, we found that the back window on the curb slide was leaking again - just another nuisance - one of those things that you don't find out about until you leave the desert. Oh, well... It is still sprinkling off and on this morning and chilly. We are back to long pants and sweatshirts.
We popped into the house around 7:00am this morning and found David just getting out of the shower and bundled up in his towel drying off. He headed back to his bedroom with his mom shortly after this to get dressed for the day. He is testing for school today before going to his "day care" school. He came over to the trailer after he got dressed - wearing is cow rubber boots to watch us get the 5th wheel ready to go. He wanted to ride with us in the "big white truck with the hot wheel on". Hugs all around and he and his mom and dad were off and we finished up hooking up the 5th wheel. We took one last picture of their home - without the car and 5th wheel in the drive way and were off. We hit Interstate 40 and headed east. Sections of the interstate reminded me of roads in the north east. There were large trees growing on both sides of the interstate with farm land behind the trees. We noticed that some of the fields had berms to retain the water and most of the crops coming up looked like rice (?). I know it sounds crazy. The rows were not straight but curvy - very different. Around 1030 it started to rain very hard again and I was glad that Robert was driving because the visibility dropped down to practically zero. We decided to pull off at the nearest exit and wait it out - after all we are retired and have no time constraints! Around 10:50, the rain let up a little and we headed back on I-40 again. We took I-240 bypass south around Memphis and within minutes of getting on traffic came to a dead stop. We creeped along while the "professional" Tennessee drivers were making u turns and driving 'off' the 'on' ramp near us - sometimes with the police in hot pursuit. Some also tried backing down the on ramp - unbelievable! After about 5 more miles and passing around 8 more accidents, traffic started moving again and we finally got around Memphis and back on I-40. Memphis has the worst drivers we've ever seen!! We had rain off and on the rest of the day. We saw more Armadillos dead along the side of the road both in Arkansas and so far in Tennessee. We decided they must be some of the dumbest animals trying to cross the interstates. We called it a day around 4pm and pulled into a Flying J truck stop just east of Nashville for the night. We lucked out and found a spot in a far corner so we could put out one slide. This is a huge Flying J and - can you believe it - some trucker parked right next to us, even though practically the whole parking area of more than probably 250 spaces was empty. Go figure...... got to go.