On the road to Nashville!

We are finally on our third night out of Plano! The first day we covered a screaming, no doubt record setting 171 miles and ended up in Halls, TX at the Hitchin' Post RV Park. Had a chance to "break-in" our memory of campground life and what is necessary when you land somewhere! Worked out well!

After the necessary morning chores of undoing the connections and leaving the Hitchin' Post, we spent quite a bit of time in Marshall, TX visiting the Marshall Pottery and the local WallyWorld to stock the food provisioning for the run home! Also picked up some 4 inch mattress pads to assist the normal cushioning of the View's convertable seating beds! Helped tremendously! By the next night, we had covered an astounding 76 miles as we screamed along through the east Texas countryside! In the middle of that, we fueled in the little town of Jefferson, TX and experienced one of the downsides to having an '07 or newer diesel vehicle. They require Ultra Low Sulphur Diesel fuel that contains less than 15 PPM of lead. All stations are required to stock this by 2010, but now, although many stations have converted, many do not! In large population areas and on the Interstates, this is usually not a problem, BUT in a town of 5000 or so, it CAN be a bit difficult! Had to make one or more stops to get the right stuff! There are conponents in the '07 vehicles that can be ruined by using the older, higher sulphur fuels. The cheap one is over $1500, so you can see that a "just this once" approach is NOT a viable risk to take. Thank you, EPA, for taking such good care of us! [;(] Glad we're being taken care of so well!!!

Our second night was spend at the Circle W campground in Atlanta! Circle W is a pseudonym for WalMart parking lots! Oh, and by the way, that was Atlanta TEXAS not the one that popped into your mind. We were lucky in that we chose the outside of edge of the parking lot as we soon were surrounded by 18-wheelers that were bedding down for the night! Closed the door and when we got up, all but two free-standing flatbeds that had lost their cabs were gone. Neither of us heard a thing! You’d think we’d have been aware enough that the one next to us would have shaken us out of bed when he fired that big thing up! Not a whimper!!! We had run the generator so we could use our CPAP’s but it wasn’t THAT noisy!!

We stopped in Texarkana, TX to have lunch (breakfast?) with Carole Say, one of our geocaching friends! We actually met her when we headed to GeoWoodstock IV in ’06, but she and Sharon had been corresponding for some time prior to that! Now, we’re old friends! Well, none of us are that old, but we feel like friends for some time!! [:D]

Tonight finds us in the Miner’s Camping & Rock Shop RV park just out of Murfreesboro, Arkansas. We plan to go to the Crater of Diamonds State Park Mine in the morning and dig up our fortune! If you have heard the news in the last couple of weeks, there have been two diamond larger than two carets found here within the last month. I believe the last one was just over 4 carets uncut that was found last week. Previously, about three weeks ago, there was one found that was 2.8 carets. Actually, we’re here because there is an EarthCache here that involves doing some of the mining yourself. That’s going to be one fun cache! Best I can tell after dropping by there today, it’s gonna’ get REALLY messy!

That pretty well brings us up to date for the trip, except for mentioning the few caching stops we made. Have found an average of 6 caches a day so far. Certainly not a record breaking pace, but that’s what we had decided to do before we left!

Oh, yes, Sharon is making the trip just fine! We’re stopping often enough that she can stretch her legs and not get to uncomfortable. Each day is getting better! She may make it after all!

Until our next connection (or home, whichever occurs first!),

Cheers