July 2013. Road Trip Journal 1

Road Trip. July 2013 It's been several years since we have made a car trip to Indiana from Florida and our new, in 2012, Prius C has never had a good road test so we decided to drive to the Guitar convention in Winchester Indiana.

First of all was how long would we be gone and who would be here for Betty? Sister Shirley called to say that she would fly in to visit her family in Florida and be there to help Betty if needed. With her in Florida we decided to leave on July 8th and be back home before Shirley was to leave on the 24th. Best laid plans do not always work out. Just before she was to leave Shirley fell and broke several ribs among other things... Her trip was off...now what to do

First of all we shortened the time that we would be gone. Goal of this trip would be to attend the last Aloha International Steel Guitar Club convention that would ever be held in Indiana. The club has plans to relocate to Las Vegas during 2014. Also to visit our newest Great Grandson William Robert Brown, Jessica and Chris son. Our good friends Jane and Don offered their help with Betty if it was needed while we were gone.

July 8 at 7:40 AM we left Palmetto with 7682 miles on our car. First stop for gas 302 miles later said that we were getting 52 MPG out on the road. With regular stops and driver changes we made it to Warner Robbins Georgia by 4 PM.... Soon Ken was home from work and he took us out to dinner at the local Olive Garden. Spent a great evening visiting with Ken then went to bed early as our plans for Tuesday included getting to the other side of Atlanta before the heavy traffic got really bad. Oh yes during our drive today we realized that we had forgotten to pick up Phil's new insulin bottle as we left home. Good thing that I had packed extra bottles of his NPH (which he is no longer using) as backup, just in case a bottle got broken.

July 9th...up at 4:30 and on the road by 5 AM. Trip through downtown Atlanta went smooth. Stopped for breakfast at 7:30. At 10:30 we made our second stop for gas. 284 miles at 53 MPG. We ate our lunch from items we had brought with us. Directions from the AAA map book and what Gertie (our GPS) were totally different so, because we were not n a hurry today, we decided to be adventurous and follow Gertie. So glad we did as she took us up thru the hills of Tennessee and Kentucky . The road had to be designed by a snake. Beautiful countryside and lots of neat things to look at as we held our breaths on hairpin curves and explored old country stores. Most of the time we were on US 127. Drove across a huge dam at Cumberland Lake and saw many places we could have stopped to explore the life of the war hero Stg Alvin York.

Arrived at Judy's in Campbellsville KY by 3:50 PM miles on the car 8560 which makes 878 miles traveled so far. A good visit with Judy and BJ. For dinner she made a great rice and shrimp meal. After watching the newest Bruce Willis DVD , which none of us had seen, it was off to bed with today's rerun of the tour DeFrance bike race.

Think that I will post this now and write more this afternoon.