Note to self: never stay at a motel that has airport shuttle service unless you’re taking the plane. This place, which shall remain unnamed, was nice enough, but man was it noisy. People were coming and going at all hours, and they all must have arrived at the airport in open biplanes or cropdusters, their hearing shot, because they were all talking REALLY REALLY LOUD. Plus, our room was next to the elevator shaft, an enormous ice maker, and the laundry, which ran most of the night. On the plus side, we know they have clean sheets there.
We planned to be on the road about 7:30, but we finally gave up and just left at 5:30 AM, as soon as we were able to get a cup of coffee from the breakfast bar. Lesson learned. Moving on …
Stopped at Jonesville NC for breakfast at – wait for it – Cracker Barrel! There was a huge diesel RV idling in the parking lot with the curtains drawn when we pulled in around 7:00 AM. Once we got inside, I asked the manager about their policy regarding RVs spending the night. According to him, as long as there’s adequate parking available for RV’s, ususally around the back or the side, most CB’s don’t mind at if you spend the night, but they like it if you come in for breakfast in the morning. He even gave us a map with the locations of all the Cracker Barrels in the US on it. There weren’t many customers there that early, so we got to chat with all the ladies working in the store. The conversation started with how unusual the weather has been this winter. We’ve been hearing that a lot. One lady said she’d gotten more snow this winter at her house in Jonesville NC than her daughter had gotten at her house in Alaska. There was no snow on the ground today, but she said they’d had snow on the ground from December 18th until just a day ago. They had a huge fire going in the fireplace, and the manager kept throwing more logs on the fire, we had some nice friendly conversation going, so we really wanted to just settle in for a while in front of the hearth. But we tore ourselves away and hit the road.
Flurries started not too much farther north of there, and once we started climbing the mountains, there were a few inches on the ground, and flurries off and on. Temps dropped from the mid 30s to the mid 20′s, and stayed that way until we got well out of the mountains and into southern Ohio. Roads were OK, but there were high wind warnings in parts of the mountains. The pod behaved OK, but you could feel the effect of the wind. The truck was struggling a little at times, like being on the boat on Saginaw Bay going into 6 footers. Plus we both thought the mountainous stretch of the trip lasted much longer going north on I-77 than it did coming south on I-75. I expect our gas mileage will be worse than on the way down.
After 8 hours on the road, we stopped just north of Canton OH for the night. It will be a short four hour drive for home tomorrow.
No photos today.
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