BYE ALABAMA, HELLO TENNESSEE.
Day 68 – Well, it seems we have no internet connection here. We are in Tennessee after driving from Alabama. I am not sure when this post will go through. I will write as if it’s going through daily.
233 miles, (5:20), 36027-36260
We had cold temperatures this morning at 7 a.m. – 33 degrees, but it was sunny. We left Joe Wheeler State Park in Alabama at 9:40 a.m., 44 degrees and sunny. We thought we’d be driving from Alabama to Tennessee, so we were surprised when we discovered the border we’d crossed was into Mississippi! It turned out, when stopping to look at the DeLorme Map book, we found that there are MANY States that border Tennessee: North Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, and Virginia!
Once leaving Joe Wheeler in AL it promptly flattened out – lots of farmlands as far as you could see. Immediately upon entering MS we found the road to be much rougher – less State funding? Because it was flat, not hilly, we did see some flooding of the farmlands from the various creeks & rivers. We stopped at Lowe’s parking lot for lunch in the RV; the temperature was rising – 65 degrees and partly cloudy.
We saw as we progressed that there was a lot of farm land & that Spring was not as evident, flowering trees & plants. When we entered TN it clouded up, the roads got better, but temperatures began dropping, the wind picked up, and there was more flooding, sometimes into people’s yards & property.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
We were headed to Reelfoot Lake State Park in northwestern Tennessee. This State Park has two campgrounds. The south, bigger, more popular campground was closed due to flooding. We drove to the north campground, a fairly primitive area compared to the other site, hoping that they wouldn’t be closed, too. We’d stayed there a year ago. It was closer in proximity to the Wildlife Refuge than the south campground. We were happy to find that, though wet, the campground was open. Only two other campsites were occupied. Our kind of place.
We chose site #11, which just happened to be the same site we stayed in last year. We arrived at 3 p.m. It was raining & 54 degrees. We called the main campground to check availability & promised to visit tomorrow morning with our payment. That would give us time to check to see if the Wildlife Refuge would even be open with all this flooding. If not, we wouldn’t need to reserve more than the initial two nights at the north campground.
We had Chili for dinner & crashed early. We were exhausted and so were the cats. Hopefully the River won’t have risen over its banks by tomorrow morning.