Thursday, July 28, 2011

Checkpoint #1 -- McComb, Mississippi

We have arrived at our first waypoint -- Grandma & Grandpa Boyd's house in McComb, Mississippi. Today's drive was another fairly uneventful, yet long day. I forgot to check the miles driven today, but about 500. Started a bit before 9am and got here a little before 9pm. We had lunch (as posted earlier) at Chad's Family Restaurant. If you're ever driving the Natchez Trace Parkway, consider timing a meal stop at Chad's in Collinwood, TN (southern part of Tennessee on the Trace). Good cheap buffet. Today we had pork chops, mashed potatoes/gravy, fried okra, peas, lima beans, and chocolate cake covered with powdered sugar.

Before we got on the parkway, we did have one brief episode of vapor lock. It wasn't too long after we'd filled up at Hess (which was about 12 cents per gallon cheaper than the other stations all around it). Hmm. The vapor lock occurred as we pulled away from one of the only stoplights that we had. I flipped on my auxiliary fuel pump and that solved the problem immediately. Once we got out of the commercial area and back into open road, I turned off the aux. fuel pump and never had vapor lock again. I filled up again after Chad's in Collinwood. I learned that in McComb there is a station with non-ethanol fuel, so when we got to Jackson, MS I put in 8 gallons so that when we fill up again in McComb it will be a full tank with no ethanol -- but now I'm in McComb and on fumes so our very next stop will be that gas station. Grandpa says it is only half a mile away, and I told him that's good because I think I have three quarters of a mile of gas left. :-)

We've turned off our tracker for the next day because we're relaxing in McComb until our departure scheduled for Saturday morning. We will, however, look at the track of tropical storm Don and see what it looks like for the next few days for our scheduled drive across Texas. If it would do us better to start off earlier to beat the storm across Texas we might leave tomorrow night, but I really hope we get two nights of relaxing here in McComb! If anyone has foresight into what the weather across the I20 corridor across Texas will be for the next couple days, let me know!

We'll post some pics of the four generations tomorrow -- Grandpa Boyd, Grandaddy Boyd, Me, and the boys.
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2 comments:

  1. JTJuly 29, 2011 at 3:12 AM

    WeatherBug is telling me the towns along the I-20 corridor (Shreveport LA, Tyler TX, Dallas, Abilene, Odessa, Juarez Mexico) will be HOT and dry after today. I don't know where you're leaving the I-20 corridor, but I also checked Abilene... also HOT, but not triple digits. Just about the only location I saw with a chance of rain after today was Shreveport LA with a 30% chance of thunderstorms on Sunday.

    Accuweather has a nice website showing all the hurricane info for the season (http://hurricane.accuweather.com/hurricane/index.asp) and they're predicting landfill tonight near Corpus Christie. NOAAs site (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?5-daynl) is showing a predicted path keeping Don well south. So, you can check out the sites yourself, but it looks like you'll be staying dry... well, except for the fact that you'll be sweating a lot in triple digit heat with no AC :)~.

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  2. MattJuly 29, 2011 at 11:40 AM

    JT,

    Thanks for the intel, I also just looked and we appear to be safe even by leaving tomorrow (Saturday) morning. It will be hot (mid-100s) in the heart of Texas and just a bit cooler (low-100s) as we head farther west. Drier west too, I think. In NM, we'll be even cooler (low/mid-90s) as next week progresses.

    Thanks for the comment!

    -Matt

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