March 31, 2023 – Day 44 Day 44, can you believe that? We both ready to be home. We’re close, under 1,000 miles now, which, 44 days ago would have seemed like a huge distance. But now? Hey, we can do that with our eyes closed. We headed out from Twisted Oaks with some haste, the forecast was good, but very, very bad behind us. We wanted to get ahead of it. Today was a bit off-highway, which turned out to be both faster and shorter. It was pretty in the country. Then it was I-40 all the way through Knoxville and then down into some twisty bits to get…

March 30, 2023 – Day 43 Not much to say today. We got up, packed up the trailer and drove easterly. We’re at the Twisted Oaks Restaurant, which is a Harvest Host. Before we left last night’s campground I did get to tell our left side neighbors from the old campground about Harvest Hosts, they’ll be checking it out. We also passed our right side neighbors on the highway a couple times, that was fun, never did that before. We waved. They waved back Twisted Oaks in Dowelltown, TN, is lively tonight probably because it’s Trivia night. Great food inside but the parking lot could be noisy tonight. We’re right…

March 29, 2023 – Day 42 It is here, the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life. No, not really, but I’ve wanted to visit Graceland for a long time. I’m not sure why, I’m not a huge Elvis fan, I’m more a fan of the fandom, the phenomena, the Elvis God. I used to have a fairly substantial, but eclectic, collection Elvis memorabilia. It just sort of happened, I’m not sure how. But it may have been when my friend Russell house sat for me and I found a velvet Elvis hanging in my living room when I got home! And when Articulate Systems downsized, we converted my…

March 28, 2023 – Day 41 I was planning on titling this with a lyric from Paul Simon’s Graceland, something like this: [Verse 1]The Mississippi DeltaWas shining like a National guitarI am following the river down the highwayThrough the cradle of the Civil War [Chorus]I’m going to Graceland, GracelandMemphis, Tennessee, I’m going to GracelandPoor boys and pilgrims with familiesAnd we are going to Graceland But that’s way too long and then the Chevy showed up, but now we have to back up all the way to the morning. We had a great pack out and hit the road pretty early, early for us. Looking at a 1:15pm arrival time, before…

March 27, 2023 – Day 40 We never made it to Holla Bend this morning. I had had a bad nights sleep and wasn’t in a mood to get up at 6AM. So we just lounged around the trailer for much of the day doing planning things. We’ve booked our Graceland tickets, found a Cracker Barrel in Nashville, we couldn’t find any Harvest Hosts, and found a great campsite in the Great Smoky Mountains and booked that. Then it was afternoon and time to go do something, but what? I had a found a short, 0.5 mile, hike with killer views. It was about an hours drive away and it…

March 26, 2023 — Day 39 We stayed up late playing board games last night. I came in second in both of them. Susan was second to last, so I think it was a good evening. We headed over to the Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge around mid-day to see what we could see. We knew it wasn’t a good birding time, but I wanted to get a lay of the land for tomorrow’s adventure. The fertile bottoms along the Arkansas River have long provided a home for man. The Osage and Cherokee Indians called this area along the Arkansas River home. Holly Bend was named after an early settler…

March 25, 2023 — Day 38 Ha! You didn’t expect a blog, did you today? Today was a down day. We hung around the campground doing life things, only some of which involved poo and we found ourselves at liberty in the afternoon. I figured we’d drive over to Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge. Instead I found a short, 0.2mile hike that had only 50ft of elevation gain and a spectacular waterfall if there had been recent rains. And it was near Holla. And as our loyal readers already now, we had rain yesterday. I figured we could do the hike first, because birding at Holla would be better in…

March 24, 2023 – Day 37 Today was going to be a good day. (Obligatory Ominous Music). I had a nice, concerned, email from Joan: Heard there were a lot of tornado warnings up for the south today….wondering if they will effect you in your routing? Joan I checked the weather for Tyler, Texas and Little Rock, Arkansas and it was nothing but wind. And we were leaving the wind behind. It’s looking good down here. We’re heading to Little Rock today, no warnings aside from the wind, and it looks like we leave that behind today Paul In the interest of time and not having to deal with pans…

March 23, 2023 – Day 36 Lucinda Williams? Not The Rolling Stones? Yeah, you see, you can’t always get what you want, that’s the theme today. We woke up this morning in Luling Texas, had a quick breakfast. We’re not even sure what time our bodies are on, partly we’re still on Arizona Time which doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time. We wanted to do some birding, Gavelston TX and Lake Charles Louisiana are both great for birding. The plan was to stay overnight 3 days, a vacation from our vacation if you will but also just to “stop and smell the roses” (or look for birds). But… the weather is…

March 23, 2023 – Day 35 Cotton. Who knew that Texas was a big source of cotton? Neither of us did. Over dinner last night we asked Clinton, the owner of the Fillin’ Station “So what do you all do for work here?” He told us that the main source of employment in the area was farming cotton and cattle or oil & gas jobs. We saw fields of cotton, not planted, but with remains of last years crop still visible. We drove through the fields for a bit, eventually stopping for gas in the little town of Eden TX and found this awesome mural. Soon the terrain was replaced…