England Bound - The Adventure Begins!

 Finally - after 2 Covid cancelled years, and a third almost ended due to a knee injury,

we are on the road headed east.

Our destination is Brooklyn, NY where we will rendezvous with the Queen Mary2 on

Sunday May 15 and set sail once again.

The past few weeks have been a mix of packing, then downsizing our packing, and packing again.

Come hell or high water we've decided to pack much lighter this trip and I'm happy to say

Mission accomplished!

The dogs stuff actually take up more room than ours.

Other tasks included clearing the back yard of furniture etc that might blow around 

in the summer storms, and basically getting the house ready 

for being empty the next 7 months.

10 Trips to Physical Therapy later, and lots of stretching and strengthening at home, 

we packed up the bus and this past Sunday - April 24 - we hit the road.

The trip map below is taken from this blog - right side - "where are we today" link.

I've noted the 3 stops covered in this post.

You can always click on that link to see where we are or where we've been.

It defaults to the past few days but you can also select a longer time period to see more .

Loading the bus

Our first day was about 4 1/2 hrs east on I-10 to Las Cruces, NM

Entering New Mexico

Hacienda RV Park is easy in and out.   

I grabbed one of the super long pull-thru sites so as to make for an easy arrival and departure.

When in "Trucker Mode" like this - I only hook up the electric.

Hacienda site 177

Monday we headed north east up US 54 to connect with I-40 which we will take

all the way to Memphis.

Entering Texas

After an 8 hr drive, we spent the night in Amarillo at the Oasis RV Park.

The roads are getting sort of beat up in the park, and the prices are too high IMO, but there

is a Loves Truckstop right at the exit so you can fuel up before you stop,

 and be ready to hit the road first thing in the morning.

And next - Oklahoma

Tuesday - our third day on the road - saw us leave Texas behind and cross thru Oklahoma

and into Arkansas.

This is the day when you leave the dry sagebrush west behind and enter into the humidity 

and green deciduous trees of the east.

Western OK.   Dry Sagebrush Country

Eastern OK, 2 hrs later its green!

And finally we are in Arkansas.

The roads get a bit more crowded as the population increases.

Entering Arkansas

Our destination for Tues and Weds nights is Aux Arc Park, in Ozark, Arkansas.

It is an Army Corp of Engineers Park and we've stayed here a number of times.

Army Corp Parks are usually associated with a large body of water and are very nice.

This one is on the Arkansas River at the Aux Arc Dam and power plant.

There is a lock at the dam so watching the river traffic move thru the lock is an

added attraction of staying here.

Aux Arc Army Corps Park

We've stayed here a number of times over the years.

A mix of Water and W/E sites.   I even think there are some

FHU sites further down in the trees but be prefer to stay in this newer section with

its better sunshine and satellite reception.

The view across the street

View of the dam and lock 

It was nice to wake up listening to the birds singing.
I even saw morning dew on the truck.   It's been a while since I've seen that.

View from our side window

We've accidentally seemed to have picked a perfect travel weather window.

A slow moving high pressure bubble is pretty much parked over - and moving with - us

across country.  It looks like it may stay with us for the next 3 or 4 days as well.

So today is a rest day and then tomorrow we'll head about 6 hrs south east to

Red Bay, Al.   Where our bus was built.

Friday morning at 0700 I have an appointment to replace our windshield which took a

big rock several years ago on the Alaska Highway.   The cracks never traveled across the

windshield, and its not in my field of view - so I was able to defer the replacement till now.

After the windshield is replaced we will immediately hit the road.

Our next stop after Red Bay will be a farm in Tennessee for the night as we start working our

way northeast along the west side of the Appalachians.

Because we will need to take Covid tests to board the ship - we are being extra careful

and pretty much remaining in self-quarantine till then.

No visits with any east coast friends until we get back in the fall.

Stay tuned - its gonna get exciting!