Just a bed in my brother's house.
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Just a bit under 1/2 way leaving San Antonio at 0005 in the morning.
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USS Alabama in Mobile, Alabama. Really pretty drive across the Bay. No time to stop and take a look, but those guns....
Pulled from the webz.
A large, heavily armored and gunned ship. The USS ALABAMA was armed with:
9 × 16 in (406 mm) guns
20 × 5 in (127 mm)DP guns
6 × quadruple 40 mm (1.6 in) AA guns
35 × single 20 mm (0.8 in) AA guns
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I woke up too early again in San Antonio, but had gotten some sleep. I was out the door and on the road at 0000. I wanted to get home in the 3 days, but I was still 24 hrs out and nobody to trade off with. My wife wanted to fly in and drive back with me, but that wasn't really an option with the kids in school and spending money on a flight ahead of my travels, so we talked on the phone a lot as she was tracking my progress. lol
I sailed through San Antonio and miles and miles of construction, battling the 18 wheelers in the narrow sections with concrete barriers on either side, mere inches from the door, on uneven and bumpy roads while there were trying to not hit the other side. Felt like I was racing NASCAR with way more at stake. Scary as hell!
I still hadn't really left total civilization like in New Mexico and needed a stop at 0330 and Buc-ees was on my list to stop at. We don't have these in S. Florida and I missed my chance to stop at one during a lacrosse tournament last season up north. It was everything that everyone had said. If you know what I'm talking about then you know. If not, go look it up. The size of the fuel stops in Texas have so many pumps, it is crazy. Fuel prices were in the low to mid $3/gallon 87/89 and diesel was under $4/gallon the entire state and into Louisiana. The Florida panhandle would start ticking up and S. Florida was higher, but not as bad as the $7/gallon in California I saw comparatively.
I was pretty tired, so I put my sunshade up and next thing I know, I had slept/rustled for about an hour and decided to get back on the road at 0445. Ready to do battle with Houston, at least I had avoided the dreaded rush hour standstill and got through to the other side in good time, but battled the concrete barriers forever. Even had to get off on the frontage road due to construction and the police waving us through. Finally I spit out onto the open road and gotta love the 80mph speed limit in Texas. I could feel the effects of not enough sleep on top of the exhaustion setting in. I crossed into Louisiana a little after sunrise, hit up a fuel stop and got another 30 minutes of rest, but couldn't seem to get any more.
My wife was calling often to see how I was doing, plus my brother and I had many calls talking about administrative stuff and I always had tunes going. I cruised through Mississippi and Alabama with Tallahassee being my plan before sunset. The rest area stops were more often and the fatigue was real. I saw a Suburban facing the wrong way across the interstate and their caravan had broken free and was upside down and flat as a pancake. You could see the bedding and bikes like a nice piece of cake sitting there. The traffic was backed up as EMS was on the scene, but didn't look like anybody had been hurt due to the Chevy still being on 4 wheels.
Traffic was never a problem as there were no holidays to contend with. This was just a long day and pushing too hard. No issues, the car ran well. The fuel tank when full showed in the upper 400 miles to empty. The DIC fuel calculations showed 30mpg and average speed of 70mph as I just set the cruise control and kicked back watching the landscape go by.
Getting to Tallahassee was rough. I finally got into town. Thankfully FSU was playing at Clemson so the town was not full of fans. I fueled up, cleaned the bugs off the windshield and noticed a nail in the passenger rear tire. Very close to the sidewall. MFkr!! I had noticed the TPMS was low even when I was with my dad the first time. When I first arrived one side was at 41psi and the low tire was showing 26psi. The tires were all over the place. When I took it in for the service before I left AZ, I had mentioned it to them, asked again on payment and they said they couldn't see anything. Maybe I picked it up later or they missed it? Don't know, but there was one there and I still had 450 miles to Ft. Lauderdale to go.
I grabbed some food, saw a tire shop and stopped in at 1745, just before they closed and he said nope. Too close to the sidewall. I asked them to air me up so all 4 corners were the same and found a motel that had a good review online and that was an outright lie!
It was a POS, well used and abused typical big college town, brand name, next to many others near I-10. It was rough, but I got a hot shower, ate my food, watched some college football, made some calls and sacked out. The Day 4 final push was in the morning.
There were some very noisy guests outside my door and up and down the stairs that would wake me up in a few hours, but I managed to fall back asleep, then again at 0230. Half asleep, I called the front desk and nicely told them about the noise and said I had just driven in from San Antonio for 18 hours the day before (yep left at 12midnight and arrived at 1800 the same day) and I was up in a few hours and to please get them to STFU!!!
I was on the road by 0500 wanting to wake those noisy guests up, but was grateful the tire still had the same air as the night before and never wavered during the travels down south. I ran into the first rain I had seen in 2.5 weeks and it hammered down. I arrived home a little before 12noon shattered and glad to be there. Not much time to waste, we had a BBQ with some long term friends that I thought was just a small thing, but it was loud and 20 people or more. I tapped out quickly as I was too tired to socialize. It would be the first night in a loooong time that I actually slept 8 hours without staring at the ceiling or getting up. I felt very groggy, but grateful the next morning.
Found it in a small Buick suv. Oem, and it's heavy duty rubber.
