On The Road Again

Saturday night we all went to Sean & Taylor's home for " Pizza in a Box" and to see their Christmas tree.  They had driven up to the mountains and picked out a live tree.  It is a tradition with Taylor's family and they go to the same tree farm each year.  I love tradition like that and it looks like Sean and Taylor will continue on with this one.  They also surprised us with our Christmas gifts from them a little early.  BTW:  Box Pizza is Chef Boyardee pizza.

We visited with Larry, Jane & Grant on Sunday and went out to dinner with them at a local Italian restaurant.  The food was good and the company great.  

Then it was on to Barbara & Henry's to tell them goodbye until next year.  Barbara had to work on Sunday so we didn't get a chance to visit with them again, but I think we may have worn them out with our visits.  It's a case of feast or famine and we prefer the feast part of the visits.

Lowes Motor Speedway is all lit up for Christmas and they have a great light display.  We didn't take the tour due to rain and not enough time, but it looked great from what we saw.  They also had the trailers with NASCAR stuff on year end sale parked near the speedway.  Lots of activity around the track this past weekend.

Shawn (hubby of granddaughter Stephanie) went fishing this past weekend and caught a number of Stripers.  He was kind enough to stop by on Monday morning and drop off enough of them for a nice meal.  Thanks a million Shawn.

We hit the road early on Monday and stopped for diesel fuel in Gaffney, SC to take advantage of fuel for $3.09.  It wound up costing us $300.00 for a tankful and we were happy to pay it.   

We made good time and wound up spending the night at the Tannehill Ironworks State Park west of Birmingham, AL.  The road leading to the park was narrow and windy, plus a lot longer drive than we expected but we finally arrived a little before dark.  That was a good break because it is an old park and the trees are right next to the one lane roads there.  We managed to get setup and then found out the power box was broken.  The maintenance man came quickly and repaired the box, so we were good to go.

In the morning I scoped out getting out of the campsite and decided it would be better to back out of the site rather than pulling out forward.  The narrow road and trees would have made it very difficult to pull out the normal way.

Nice big site.

Small stream running through park

Narrow exit going forward

 It was confusing exiting the park since the exit wasn't clearly marked.  I had to put some air in a front tire.  While there I got directions from a park ranger and we were on our way.

It was another 340 mile drive today and we are presently camped near West Monroe, LA.  Easy drive with a few slow downs due to construction but overall a nice drive.  We arrived here just before dark and we setup in a few minutes.  I knew there was a cold Yuengling as a reward waiting for me, so that made it worth it.

We crossed over the Mississippi river near Vicksburg, MS and it always is a nice site since we know we are heading west and roads less traveled.

Wednesday will be another 380 mile drive to west of Ft. Worth, TX.  We have to get as far west of Ft. Worth since it will be impossible to find a camp site in West Texas until we get to Van Horn.  That will be a 450+ mile drive and I hope we don't run into a lot of wind.

That has been our past few days visiting family and moving on down the road.  It is great seeing them, but very difficult to say our goodbyes.  We know we will be back again next summer and look forward to the visits then.