We’re Traveling Again

Jim and I left Unicoi State Park on Sunday, headed for Wichita, Kansas. Yes, we are still waiting to hear the final word about our jobs at the Grand Canyon, but we can’t sit around waiting until we run out of money, so we arranged to work as temporaries at a campground in Kansas while we wait. Doing this is a win-win situation for everyone involved–the campground needed someone ASAP, we needed to be working, it will put us half-way to Arizona when we do finally get hired, and we will be making a little money while we wait. What a great deal. Oh, yeah, it also gets us halfway there before the price of diesel fuel goes up any more.

When I started planning the trip to Arizona, I figured our travel budget as if we were paying $4.89 per gallon of fuel. It is not that high, yet, so we are way ahead in the budget.

On Saturday, the price of diesel fuel in Helen, Georgia was $4.05 per gallon. When we passed by the same gas station on Sunday when we left there, it was $4.10 per gallon. At the Ingle’s Grocery Store in Cleveland, Georgia, it was $3.96 per gallon if you paid with an Ingle’s gift card (which saves you 3 cents per gallon).

On Sunday, in Douglasville, Georgia, at the station near my mother’s house, diesel was $4.27 per gallon!!! We drove right on by. In Bremen, near the Alabama border, it was $3.99 per gallon. We filled up there.

Today, in Jasper, Alabama, fuel was $3.93 per gallon, and in Olive Branch, Mississippi, it was $3.92 per gallon. While these prices are insane, they are nowhere near the price I figured our budget on. We may just have some money left when we arrive in Wichita.

Sunday was a frantically busy day. We woke up in north Georgia, packed up the trailer, and drove 130 miles to Carrollton to spend the night at a campground there. We took the trailer off the hitch, then drove 35 miles back to Douglasville, where we had to go and check our post office box, go to the bank, get our hair cut at Becky’s shop. Then Jim, Becky and I met Emily, Tommy, and Spencer at Longhorn Steaks for a yummy scrummy dinner. Spencer’s birthday was on April 10th, he turned 6 this year. He has now decided he likes steak, which is a good thing. He posed for me to take some pictures. When he saw this one, he said, “I look like an ice cream cone!” (that’s his Mommy, Emily, my youngest daughter with him). After dinner, we ran by my mother’s to say good bye to her before we left town. We finally got back to the trailer around 10:30 p.m. What a day!

I checked the Weather Channel online before we left to see if the route we planned to take had any flooding, and found that the Mississippi River at Memphis was at 37 feet this morning, and will continue to rise until at least Saturday, if there is no more rain. Flood stage at Memphis is 34 feet. I took a couple of pictures when we crossed over the Mighty Mississippi this afternoon, the water was high, but I-40 is a high road so it was not flooded.

We got as far as Little Rock today, which is a long way for us to go in one day. We’ll arrive in Wichita tomorrow afternoon. I have never been to Kansas, so I can’t wait to see it. Don’t have a clue what to expect, but I will post some pictures tomorrow. See ya later!