Interstates Suck

On The Oregon Trail – Day #2

Started in one state (Alabama), crossed a whole second state (Mississippi) and ended in the third state (Louisiana.) Today’s drive was entirely Interstate free, we did cross over or under a couple though. Through out Alabama and Mississippi the state and county roads were mostly nicely maintained and smooth. As soon as we got to Louisiana we were greeted by the thud, thud, thud, of roads made from concrete segments. This annoying, constant, repetitive bumping is especially prevalent here because the soft underground allows the 100′ x 12′ segments to slowly over time shift up and down in comparison to it’s neighbors. So while Interstates in general suck, those in the Pelican State suck more.

On The Oregon Trail – Day #1

I set my phone’s alarm for 5:00 AM, to get an early start. I woke up at 4:45 on my own, so we just got going. All the stuff we are carrying seemed like an awful lot while it was sitting on the floor inside the AirBnB. It seemed like a lot when making 5 trips from room to car too. But with the back seats folded down flat the Mini swallowed it right up.

I don’t know it was just one of those days or was it because the both of us are so frazzled from the whirlwind last two weeks, but we had a very eventful day. Here are the Top Five:

  1. On one of the trips back into the AirBnB from the car I walked into the glass of the sliding door. Fortunately I was moving slow enough that no damage was done to me or it.
  2. During final cargo arrangement inside the car I accidentally bumped the horn button with my butt. Fortunately it was a short duration contact so that it didn’t disturb the pre-dawn neighborhood quiet.
  3. We were too early getting to the south side Dunkin’ Donuts, they don’t open until 6:00 on Saturday’s. There is another Dunkin’ on the other side of town, basically on the way, so that became our next stop. We were still too early. But only by a few minutes, so we waited.
  4. We were meeting a friend at the Cracker Barrel in Augusta for breakfast on our way west. We didn’t see her car and we didn’t see her in the dining room when we got there, so we sat on a couple of rocking chairs to wait. After a few minutes we realized that she is not a late arrival person, Donna was about to text her to see where she was when her phone buzzed with a text from Carol, “I’m inside.” We forgot to check the store part…
  5. Spurred by a conversation at a farewell gathering about road trips, I thought it would be cool to take a photo of the “Welcome To” sign of each state we pass through, naturally I remembered well after we were already deep into Georgia to get one. I rationalized that crossing the Georgia border didn’t really count as it no major milestone because it is only 15 miles into the journey. We managed to traverse nearly all of the Peach State on two lane back roads before having to get on the dreaded Interstate. This worked out perfectly for me to get the Alabama sign in the Welcome Center. I cruised slowly through looking, but unfortunately there wasn’t one. Dang it, the only opportunity was a mile or so back on the side of the Interstate.

To the best of my guessing ability, either late today or maybe early tomorrow the Mini reached the 35,000 mile plateau.