Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Home Stretch Part 2

317 miles to home!  We broke camp early and were off.  I decided to drive the first stretch, it was only about 60 miles.  Yeah, 60 miles of curvy, two-lane State Hwy. 127.  What was I thinking? There are only three towns of any significance between Lake Carlyle and I-55, but there are many crossroad communities with reduced speed.

2010 10 13_Carlyle to home_4588 Hour by hour . . .

I was going at a the speed limit, until the 100 year-old man pulled in front of me with his vintage yellow Chevy pickup.  No he could have waited for me and the line of cars to pass him.  But noooo.  He crept out in front of us then went 10-15 mph slower that the limit for probably was 15 miles (seemed like twice that).  Tom wanted me to flash my lights, which I did, and honk, which I would not do when I caught a glimpse of the old guy.  I didn’t want to be the one to cause him to have an attack of some kind.  Tom wanted me to get closer and “encourage” him to speed up through intimidation—the grill in the back window kind.  I would not because I figured when he turned there would be no warning.  Sure enough, when he turned—no turn signals.  I was glad I wasn’t on his bumper.

2010 10 13_Carlyle to home_4601 Minute by minute . . .

We finally reached I-55 after one hour and twenty minutes. In a short while there was a Rest Area and I pulled in so we could switch.  After Tom took over the wind picked up and we had strong winds the remainder of the way home.

2010 10 13_Carlyle to home_4613 Closer and closer . . .

2010 10 13_Carlyle to home_4614

  . . . to home.

This isn’t all. There will be more postings about this trip and the final stats.

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