Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here, checking in with you tonight from Lake Point Resort State Park in Eufaula, Alabama near the shores of the Walter F George Reservoir which some people refer to as Lake Eufaula. We nearly escaped Alabama today. We are so close that Alabama is here at the campground, and Georgia is right across the lake.
So, not much to share today. A long drive... 374 miles, Google calls it 5:37 driving time but it drives much longer), intense rain with interstate traffic doing about 40 mph at one point, two significant cities of the south (Birmingham and Montgomery), a pass within 5 miles of "the shrine of Tupelo" (the Elvis birth shack). One noteworthy sign I saw not long after we left Holly Springs read Little Tallahatchie River. I was looking for "the bridge" and Billie Joe McAllister, but it turns out they were (both past tense) farther downstream in Money, Mississippi. Perhaps most memorable for me will be the last hour of the drive. After we left urbanity and the interstates we were on state roads... mostly two lane... through eastern Alabama. As residents of the Florida peninsula, I don't consider us "southern". The South (it's a specific place and therefore a proper noun and therefore capitalized in this context) runs from Virginia to the Florida panhandle (but not Jacksonville in my opinion) and west to include Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana. Others may disagree and say stupid things like "Being southern is in your heart and not about where the dirt in your boots came from". They're wrong. There is a word that is used more -- or at least used with different intonation and meaning -- in the south than in the north. That word is "land". Southerners refer to their region as "the southland". The phrase "southern land" comes up in rock-a-billy songs and elsewhere. That last hour of our drive today was through true southern land in rural Alabama. It was beautiful in a way that gave insight into why boys in grey fought as far north as Pennsylvania to protect what they had. Fortunately, they didn't get to keep all they had built on the land, but they did keep the land itself and it's still here to be seen and to inspire. It was green, lush, tranquil, largely undeveloped and seemingly undisturbed. Occasional small towns like Union Springs (how did that name stick here?) and Midway slowed our passage, but that was it.
Tomorrow we plan to complete the trip. It's been 6 + weeks since we left home. Time to get back and see what it looks like now. It'll be 7+ hours of driving, but I think the trusty Tundra and the Cliche' herself can handle it if we and the dogs can.
It's been quite a trip. I hope you enjoyed coming along with us. We had a chance to catch up with some family we haven't seen I a while. That, alone, would have made the trip worthwhile as it has on other trips when we've stopped to see family or friends and taken advantage of a barn yard or driveway parking spot for a few nights. Beyond that we saw five national parks (Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Arches and Mesa Verde), a few monuments and recreation areas (Glen Canyon and Navajo) at least four major rivers (the Mississippi, Colorado, Rio Grande and Arkansas), two major cities (New Orleans and Dallas), too many state parks to mention, too many small towns to count and odds and ends including a plantation in Louisiana, a food court made of Airstreams in Florida and a snow filled basin at 11,000 feet in the Rockies. The best parts are still out there on Flickr if you want to step through them again.
By the time we get home tomorrow I think I'll be spent. Let me close out this trip tonight by saying "thanks" to those of you who helped and encouraged us along the way. It helps on long days like today knowing that you are riding along with us in spirit.
We'll be home almost a month getting our lives back in order and the Cliche' road-ready again (she needs a good cleaning and even some repairs... for example, today somewhere on the rough Mississippi roads a drawer flew out of the wardrobe in the bedroom and broke. That takes some shaking!). Look for an email from me around Independence Day titled "Silver Cliche' hitting the road!" and ride along to Maryland then Massachusetts and home along Shenandoah Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway through Virginia and North Carolina.
Until then...
SC'
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