The Jello has the last laugh......

6:37 am - Friday - January 11th - Slidell, LA - 36º F, 77% humidity, wind 4 mph out of the northeast....clear skies again today with a forecast high of 60º F.

It was very, very cold overnight in Quincy, FL, and I was up by 6 am to turn on our three Suburban gas heaters to take the chill off the coach.  It was 39º F outside, and 55º F inside....a nice differential considering we didn't turn the heaters on at all the night before.  Although we had no plans to drive more than 200 miles Thursday we were on the road before 8 am.....wait, what?  We never get on the road that early!  

The day began with kind of wispy clouds and finished with clear blue skies, and virtually no wind.  The road was flat, and straight as we cruised at 60 mph westward on I-10 at 100-200' above sea level, then as we approached the Alabama border just feet above sea level......

 A lot of trees blown down by the hurricane back in October....the cleanup continues

 Leaving Florida.....very few states thank you for visiting

 Almost at sea level!

.....our Jello plan had us ending our driving day in Daphne, AL, just before Mobile Bay, but as we approached Daphne I just could not see myself stopping so early (11 am, because we gained an hour back when we reentered the Central Time Zone), and so we set a new goal......Moss Point, AL....another 40 miles.  But, as we approached Moss Point I still could not see myself stopping for the day so early on a day when the driving was just magical.  At this point we had driven some 230 miles, a typical driving day for us, but I asked TLE to see how far Slidell, LA was. She quickly reported it was another 100 miles.....that sounded about right, so I reset the Garmin Truck GPS to Slidell, LA and we continued on our way westward.....

 Entering the Mobile Tunnel

......soon we were entering Mississippi.........

.....and just a few miles later we entered the state of Louisiana......wow four states in one day......Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana! 

Our original plan at the beginning of the day was to drive another 200+ miles to Daphne, AL which would give us just 200+ more into Gonzales, LA.  When the driving is as good as it was on Thursday and there are a plethora of Rest Areas to choose from (we stopped at three this day including a 1 mile walk in the 3rd one of the day....it was finally warm enough!) why not drive 333 miles, right?  By the time we pulled into the Walmart Supercenter Parking lot in Slidell, LA it was just coming up on 3 pm......perfect!

We spent some time relaxing before walking into the Walmart to do some shopping.  About 5 pm we walked over to the Cracker Barrel to have 'breakfast for dinner'.  The parking lot in which we are parked has a Walmart, Lowe's, Murphy Gas USA, and a Cracker Barrel.....how much better does it get?  Almost 7 years ago when we had just begun our full time journey we overnighted in this same parking lot on our way to Florida for the first time.  I have to be honest.....it does not seem like 7 years.

So, as I write this morning we find ourselves just 88 miles from our destination today where we will spend 2, or 3 days planning our trip to Alaska with our good friends Forest and Cindy.  The weather today, Friday, is the same as Thursday.....clear with blue skies.  We are now less than 5 months from the date we will enter British Columbia and begin our journey to our 49th State (49th in our Newell, as well).

Thanks for stopping by!

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