QC01-01 Into the cold south

January 3, 2010 (Sun) Home to Franklin, VA (405/405 miles) - From the middle of the Chesapeake Bay with water all around,we could see bridge lights converging in the distance meeting a seemingly endless and diminishing roadway. The silhouettes of sea gulls soared against a backdrop of a brilliant red sky over Norfolk, VA. Beautiful! This and the quiet of only a few cars crossing the bay at the time made the trip here worth the discomfort and gave us needed fortification to navigate the tangled spaghetti of the interstates through Norfolk. That task is a challenge in daylight when road signs are relatively easy to find but in the dark it's a nightmare. Hildene, in her new incarnation as a Garmin nuvi 225W, did a great job of guiding us through it all and back to sanity.

It was 20° and very windy this morning, as we loaded the last items into Q for our next three months. They say the wind chill was in the single digits. Easily! Luckily there was no snow on the ground although there had been last week and more is expected. We got off at about 9:20 and headed for route 18 and south. Gas at Costco was $2.45/gal. We suspect that if we'd been a few minutes later we'd have save 2¢ a gallon because they were changing the posted price as our tank filled. There was a fine misting of snow in the air as we drove across I-195 and down I-295, just enough to make the landscape hazy without the danger of accumulation. We could see what appeared to be the front just above the horizon, a bright band below the gray of the overcast, but it seemed to come no closer as we drove south.  We did watch the temperature climb out of the 20s into the low 30s - not much but it gave us hope.

We had planned to stop and spend the night in the rest area just north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel but decided to go on so as to avoid commuter traffic through Norfolk in the morning. We were rewarded with that beautiful sunset.

Q056329 Camp Walmart Franklin, VA
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January 4, 2010 (Mon) Franklin, VA to Savannah, GA (450/895miles) - It was so cold when we converted Q into a bedroom that our memory foam pad forgot. It wouldn't unroll! During the night the temperature got down to 18° outside, 21° inside. We have a furnace but we don't use it at night. As long as we have plenty of warm blankets we don't really need it. We haven't yet any way. It's noisy and we expect it will choose to come on just as we are about to drop off to sleep - throughout the night!. Speaking of noisy, the local Franklin, VA youth chose this Walmart parking lot to conduct a contest, it seemed, to determine whose unmuffled exhaust system was the loudest. It woke us up and went on for some time. In spite of it and the cold we slept well, uncommon for our first night out, and woke refreshed. After scraping the frost off the inside of the windshield, a McDonald's, sausage/egg mcmuffin saved us from having to fix our own breakfast in the cold. We were under way again at 8:00.

There are lots of cotton fields along the road through Virginia and North Carolina. A surprising number of them  were unharvested. It made us wonder when the harvest season really is. Usually the plants are bare at this time of year. Again we watched the temperature rise through the 20s and into the 30s as the day progressed. It even reached 35° at on point. Wow!

We weren't able to take on water before we left because the faucet was frozen closed on the side of the house. Nor was water available at the Flying J station just north of the Delaware Memorial Bridge in New Jersey - no surprise - but it should have been available in North Carolina. The lady at the Flying J who came to fill our propane tank said the water was on in the taps but none came out. Frozen presumably. We finally got it in South Carolina. Now we could use the bath room facilities and wash the accumulating dishes. By that time, mid afternoon,  the temperature was up to 40°. We're getting there - maybe.

We picked up some chicken from Zaxsby's, as fast food chain we had never tried, and took it across the street to the Walmart that would be our port for the night. 43° at 6:40.

Q056783 Camp Walmart Savannah, GA
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January 5, 2010 (Tue) Savannah, GA to Alexander Springs CG, FL (263/1122 miles) - It wasn't as cold last night and was a lot quieter, although we could hear traffic on the nearby highway. It was a bit warmer also - 25° when we got up. We were totally shocked when we rolled over in our nice warm bed to see that it was after 7:00. We got under way at 8:50 after stopping to pick up coffee at McDonald's. Breakfast was our usual, Quaker Granola, in the Darien discount mall parking lot. The store were not yet open so the lot was empty except for a few cars here and there. We were gone before the first store opened, no one the wiser.

The drive through the rest of Georgia and into Florida was relatively uneventful. The traffic along I-95 was fairly light making the road construction activity in GA a near non-event for us. The narrow lanes made driving a bit more adventurous but not bad. Down US 301 in Florida we counted speed trap towns - they balance their budgets from unsuspecting tourists. No one got caught that we saw. Most people are wise and it helps to have billboard signs 4 miles or so outside of town warning of the speed traps.

Alexander Springs Campground is almost completely empty of campers. We drove around before we settled in and counted maybe 10 other units. We look forward to a quiet and warmer night and showers in the morning.

Q057046 Alexander Springs CG, Ocala National Forest.