Tuesday, November 2nd: Navy Base Benefits
As predicted, it started raining. Glad we did Memphis yesterday in the sun. Today was a good workday, time to realign our ducks. First stop was the base pharmacy to get all prescriptions filled. With Don being retired Navy, if you can get your prescriptions filled on base (they don't have all drugs), there is no co-pay. We did get paper scripts from our doctors before leaving home, as we knew the pills would run out while on the road, but we did not expect/thought we'd have the luxury of being on a base. Bonus!
While the prescriptions were being filled, we went to the base barbershop. One challenge of being on the road is that you can't bop home to your favorite hairdresser (or barber) to get your six-week trim. Six weeks had long come and gone, and we were shaggy. My choice seemed Walmart or the base. Naturally, Don isn't that fussy. The barbers were doing lots of regulation haircuts, essentially buzz cuts. I was a little nervous. I got one of the women barbers and she seems thrilled to cut a woman's hair. She was a Southern sweetie and gave me a decent haircut for $10. Don's cut was $8.50. Now we are a fine looking couple again.
We picked up our drugs and decided to go off base and find a bookstore. I was hoping to get the next book that my book club at home is reading. Maybe the switch to downloading books onto Kindles and Nooks has really taken off or people are not reading down here, but finding a bookstore has been challenging. We found a charming used bookstore, but they didn't have the book I needed. WalMart did not have the book either, so we came back home, settled in on this rainy evening and watched another episode or two of Lost.
Wednesday, November 3rd - More Rain
The morning was spent planning the next leg of our journey to Chattanooga, as we are leaving tomorrow. Part of the planning process, besides selecting and reserving the next campsite, is finding out how long the drive is according to Google Maps and adding more time. You go slower pulling the trailer. Tomorrow will be one of our longest drives of the trip.
It has turned unseasonably cold again, even hitting 28 degrees last night. We considered going further south and abandoning Chattanooga, but weather reports further south gained us nothing and even looked colder. So in planning what to do today, we knew come early evening that we needed to do some camp breakdown prep work, as we needed to get on the road earlier than our usual 10/11 o'clock.
Don declared it was "Flu Shot Day." Ugh. The base only had shots for active duty personnel, so they sent us to Walgreen's pharmacy. It was nice, after it was over, to get these shots out of the way.
From here we went to a fabric store and bought some clear, heavy vinyl to make storm windows for our camper's screen door. It is so nice to have the screen door open to let in the light, but the cold breezes force you to close the door. A lady at another campground gave us this idea, and when asked where she bought the clear windbreaks, she told us she made them. We now have storm windows that stick with velcro on the screen door! Works like a charm. Wonder if Camper's World has caught on to this idea yet?
Returning home, the rain let up and Don went outside to empty the tanks, etc. Off to bed early to get on the road at the crack of dawn!
Thursday, November 4th: Pardon Me Boys, It's Off to Chattanooga
Okay, "crack of dawn" was a slight exaggeration, but we were rolling out of the campground by 8:30. This was one of our quickest and easiest exits. Also, the sun was shining and it looked like a calm and clear travel day. We've learned that with Don doing all the driving and the extra care/attention with pulling the camper, a four hour drive seems like enough. Today was going to be seven or eight hours on the road.
We made sure we had a good book-on-tape, John Grisham's Ford County (Mississippi) Short Stories, to keep us entertained. The two-lane road was good, traffic was light and the scenery beautiful. I had made our gourmet PB&J sandwiches and thought a state park might be a good place for a picnic lunch. Lo and behold, as we looked for a gas station, we passed David Crockett State Park. After gassing up, we returned to the park for lunch. Had we known this beautiful park was about at a mid-way point and had a campground, we would have stayed for the night. We saw 3 really nice houses for the park rangers and their families on site. We drove up a winding hill and parked near a stream. Don found a bench in the sun looking down on the little waterfall and we had a nice respite.
We pulled into Best Holiday Trav-L Park at 4:30 (3:30 Memphis time) and were happy that the long trip to Chattanooga had been so pleasant and stress-free. This campground was quite full, which was surprising, as most have been somewhat empty. People are heading to Florida and warmer places, or maybe here for the winter?
We settled in quickly and went out to a recommended restaurant for dinner, Portafino's. It was Thursday and the restaurant was packed! We found out this was Greek Night and the locals love it. Had we not been so tired and felt more adventuresome, we would have gone the Greek route. Instead we had comfort Italian food with a carafe of Chianti. Another good day on the road and glad to be settled for a few days.
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