We were certainly blessed to be able to visit family and friends across this nation. The terrain, colors, climate certainly do greatly. Even the sheer vastness of Utah and the central plains was awesome.
Our adventure was not overly planned, and did not expect to visit every national park, memorial, or sight. We had originally attempted to look for waterfalls in each state... and found some. A few states are gravely lacking in waterfalls, but then they must have little height for water to fall.
We seldom traveled the interstate highways until we departed the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. By then our sights were set on home. Tolls were avoided as well, as written about in an earlier post. US Highways, state routes, and county roads varied greatly. In some areas even the two lane state routes were posted at 70mph!
Small farm towns, larger metropolitan areas, and all between... we never felt threatened or unsafe... maybe a more than a bit unnerved by the highway systems and other drivers. We didn't try to avoid the inner cities or industrial sections of cities, and even with this, we seldom saw graffiti or even the amount of homeless we have grown accustomed to here in the west.
The south proved to present its own set of challenges. Ice tea? Sweet or unsweetened. Sometimes sweet tea came without being asked for preference. The rich history was diverse... rich land owners and plantations and the slaves. We did have a great history tour in Natchez with 'The Rev', a black pastor, who gave some insightful history of the area.
The hospitality in the south is not a rumor. Now we do need to admit that we did shop in several Wal Marts. In some of the small towns we didn't take the time to track down our few needs, but went lazy. But... even the checkers and employees were friendly and helpful!
Then in West Virginia the man that helped us back out from the ice cream store parking while a long train was creeping through town. Many, many examples for us to ponder.
Other than the gas we bought on the side trip with family to New York City, the most expensive gas we saw was right here in Klamath Falls. We paid as little as $3.82/gallon on the trip. There weren't any shortages or long gas lines, a plus, as we were hoping to avoid these types of issues.
We relied heavily on the navigation program on our cell phones, along with GPS satellites. They did well most of the time... but then there were those times that utter failure took us 'somewhere else'. But those were the interesting times where we experienced unplanned adventures.
Thank you all for following us... for your encouragement and prayers, and covering our duties and responsibilities here at home while we traveled.
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| Generalized route of our adventure |