Day 52 (The Final Dash!)  Pine grove, PA - South Easton, MA 381.4 miles, Final Total = 10,669.3 miles.
Left the Hampton Inn in Pine Grove, PA just before 7:30 AM and headed North again on I75.  The air was cool and the fog was heavy.  As we headed up into the mountains the fog increased and I was forced to back off the throttle.

 I81 continues to be a better alternative to the Wash, D.C./NJ/NYC corridor, but PA needs to accelerate their road maintenance program as many sections of road are much in need.  Traveling in a car might be comfortable, but in an RV with stiff suspension it can be bone jarring. Made the transition to I84 outside Scranton without incident despite traffic & construction.  As is normal, the deer roadkill in PA is always sadly excessive. Traffic through NY and Conn. was a little heavy but only one slowdown.  Stopped for lunch at the Blue Colony Diner @ exit 10 in CN (always a good meal) and then a stop for gas on the MA Tpke. in Charlton and we reached South Easton at about 2:30 PM.

The (2) Captains & their "steeds" 

 52 days, 31 States and 10,669.3 miles.  As we drove the last mile, we turned to each other a simultaneously asked "Do we really want to go home?"  The hard part would be choosing which place to go.  This country has so many special places, and we saw so many special things!  We both had seen Yellowstone & Grand Canyon before, so some of the awe was taken away, but we both agreed that Bryce & Zion National Parks were very, very beautiful.  The Cascades, the Wash./Oregon coast,  the Redwoods, the Painted Desert/Monument Valley, Colorado's Mountains, the Louisiana Swamps, the beaches of Mississippi all special!

Day 51 ( Definitely a Travel day!)  Statesville, NC - Pine Grove, PA 476.3 miles, New total = 10,287.9 miles
We left the campground just after 7 AM and onto Rte 77 heading North to VA.  There was some color in the foliage as we went through the mountains in NW NC, but much was hidden by morning fog.

 We knew we needed to minimize our stops today as we had a long drive ahead, so other than a planned lunch at a roadside rest area, our only other planned stops was for gas.  As we merged onto Rte I81 in VA, the truckers were everywhere.  Yesterdays impression of heaviest traffic had not proved as such but this morning with a count of 87 trucks heading South in a 10 minute period of time, this converted to over 1000 trucks passing this point in one hour!! This truly was a record.  I do have to say though, that as a class of drivers, truckers are by far better drivers than auto drivers.  That is not to say that there aren't exceptions on both sides.  As the day progressed, the day never brightened and I ended up driving almost all day with my lights on. The fog/haze never really lifted and at 2 o'clock in the afternoon it seemed like 7PM it was so overcast.  

We did see some interesting farmland. 

With an early start, we were able to reach our destination by 3:30PM. (The Hampton Inn)  My first action when I got into the room was to kick off my shoes and flop onto the queen sized bed.  My first real bed in 50 days!  Boy, did it feel nice.
After relaxing for an hour or so and a nice shower, we walked across the street to a nice diner for an early supper. It looks like we'll beat both storms and be home tomorrow afternoon.  While eating our meal, we realized this was our last night and the trip was almost over.  51 days, 10,000+ miles, over half the states in the country and only one more day to go.

Day 50 ( A Travel day ) Decatur, GA - Statesville, NC 269.2 miles, New Total =  9,811.6 miles
Left the church parking lot about 9 AM and headed North.  Traveled on city streets until we reached I85 just outside Atlanta.  Traffic was still typical commuting, but luckily we were traveling the opposite way of most of the traffic.  But still after avoiding major highways on most of our trip, 6-8 lanes one way can be very intimidating!  Gassed up in Commerce, GA and continued North on I85 all the way to Charlotte.  The drive was typical interstate with only minor construction slowdowns, and Jan was at her truck counting again as it appeared to be the heaviest we had seen on the whole trip. We received a text message early this AM from my cousin Charlie in FL about Hurricane Sandy, but after some discussion we decided to stick to our earlier plan of 4 days to home from GA.  We'll check the weather channel tonight for latest updates and make any adjustments then.  We made no stops except for gas and lunch
( at Cracker Barrel again) and we arrived in our KOA in Statesville about 3:30 PM.  After completing our hookups and breaking out our camp chairs, we settled down with a cold one to review the latest weather and make our plan for the next day so we could book our reservation....wherever we were going.  It now looked like another complicating factor to the hurricane, needed to be considered.  A cold front coming in from the West & North was threatening to dump snow on the PA, NJ & NY area sometime in the late Sat. and early Sunday. So what started as a leisurely trip must end with a sprint to the finish.  We changed our plan to a (2) day completion from here to MA.  So we'll need to do just about 850 miles in (2) days. Tomorrows objective has become Pine Grove, PA and our only night in a hotel in the whole trip.  Sorry, no pictures again today.

Day 49 (A Travel & Visiting Day) Elko, GA - Decatur, GA 123.0 miles, New total = 9,550.3
Got up a little later than usual as we had a short travel day planned.  Again the truck traffic on I75 was really heavy.  We traveled to Decatur in a little under 2 hours and arrived just before noon. After n enthusiastic greeting by my sister Kathy

Jan & Kathy

 (her husband Paul was working) we parked the motorhomes in the church parking lot across the street and went into the house to catch up on things. Kathy & Paul had just arrived home the night before from a 2 week trip to MA where they stayed in our house while we were gone.  We caught up on what was going on in MA and their day trips while there.  Also a few stories about our lonely cats.  For lunch, we walked to a nearby restaurant specializing in barbecue.  Dave and I had a greta bowl of Brunswick Stew while some others had pulled pork sandwiches.  I forgot, Kathy's oldest daughter Kate was with us also with her new 8 week old baby boy Ian.  He was a cheerful little chub! When we got back to the house, Kath's youngest daughter Lauren & Kate's husband David had arrived.  Lauren is in pre-med school and lives just North of Atlanta currently.

Laren & Ian

  A high level of chatter ensued until all the ladies

...the ladies in discussion

left to go to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and Dave and I stayed to enjoy the peace and quiet.  Paul came home from work about 4:30 and we quickly got into discussions about all the changes that they had made to the house since our last visit about 3 years ago and the current projects in planning.  When the ladies returned, Paul got out the grill and cooked burgers and dogs and we all chowed down on these and salad.  Discussions after dinner lasted until about 9-9:30 when the girls left and the (4) campers retired to our homes across the street in the church parking lot. Sleep was a little difficult due to the combination of an unlevel parking lot, heartburn from the Brunswick Stew and acorns intermittently falling all night long from the tree we were parked under.

Day 48 ( A Travel day ) Jacksonville, FL - Elko, GA  250.4 miles, New Total = 9,427.3 miles
Our campground in Jacksonville was located in the NW corner of the city, just off the 295 outside loop.  The road to GA was right outside the camp.  We started out on Rte 1 NW to Waycross ( formerly the "speed trap capital of the US").  NE FL & SE GA is primarily agricultural, a combination of private residential plots, commercial forests, and cotton fields.

The land is extremely flat and barely above the water table as the evidence of swampland is always close by. Our route takes us off of Rte 1 in Waycross onto SR 182 which goes a little more West to Tifton, GA on Rte I75. Once you move onto the Interstate the density & type of traffic changes.  Jan got into the routine on the interstates of counting   trucks because there were so many.  On I10 in FL a 10 minute count of trucks moving along the opposite lanes from us showed 80 trucks.  Multiply this by (6) to get 1 hour and by (2) to account for both lanes, and you get 960 trucks passing this point on the road in (1) hour.  A ten minute count in GA on I75 increased to 67 trucks.  Using the same multipliers, the hourly total traffic of 18 wheelers increases to 804. We arrived at our campground, just off of I75 in Elko, GA shortly after noon.  We checked in, Dave set up his RV and then we went to Perry ( in my PW), about 8 miles North, to get some lunch and do a little sightseeing.  ( Jan and I lived in Perry back in 1994 when my job transferred me there on a temporary assignment)  We had lunch at our favorite Perry chain restaurant (Cracker Barrel) and then took a cruise through the downtown and out by the apartment complex where we lived.  I then took Dave and Jean by the old Northrop plant just off I75.  Sadly, the plant appears to be totally vacant.  400,000 sq.ft. of building and 400 acres of land sitting idle.   Such is competition in the Defense industry.  The plant was originally built to assemble, fuel and arm and ship drones such as those in regular use today in most off our theaters of operation around the world.
We then visited Houston Lake CC in N. Perry where I used to play golf.  I wanted to show Dave the 18th hole ( the course's signature hole).  We watched a foursome play the hole.  We wished it was us!
We also visited the dam on Houston Lake that was washed out the summer I was there.  It was built prior to the Civil War and after over 150 years, was destroyed by Mother Nature in a freak storm that dumped over 19" of rain in one day in July 1994.  The old dam was made of wood pilings while its replacement is steel & concrete.  I wonder if it will last 150 years?

                                              The day ended with a beautiful sunset!

Tomorrow we're off to Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta, where my sister lives.

Day 47 ( Another zero day, but with Golf! )  Total miles still = 9,176.9
Dave and I arose early, took Charlie's truck and drove to pick him up at his house.  Charlie took us to Bent Creek, an 18 hole older venue with a challenging layout.  The wives stayed at the campground (really, it was their choice!) to have a day to themselves.  We got a 9:37 tee time.  Charlie hadn't played in about (2) months, Dave hadn't played since before our trip, and I hadn't played since I separated my elbow in August, so it was a real rusty start to the day.  The front nine saw no scores under 50. Yuck! The second nine saw everyone shave 10 strokes off their score except me..only 9 stokes off for me.  The temp was in the high 70's with unusually low humidity. An after the round beer and some pizza at Uncle Charlie's ( who originally came from Whitman, MA.) ended the masculine afternoon, and we returned to the campground.  We then spent about 2-3 hours sitting out in the sun and exchanging stories.  Charlie left about 7 PM and we did some last minute planning and then retired to our RV's for some solo R & R.
(Sorry I didn't have the camera on the course, so no pictures today!)

Tomorrow we begin our journey North!

Day 46 ( A zero day (that's a hiking term for no miles)in Jacksonville)  Total Miles still = 9,176.9
With the luxury of no miles planned for the day, we slept in until 8.
After cleaning up and breakfast, I tried a little fishing in the pond.  Unlike my previous attempt at worm dipping, this time was not successful. I tried (3) different kind of lures and no takers.  Dave wasn't to be outdone this time, so he went up to the camp store and bought a complete fishing outfit.  We rigged up the line, but we agreed that we might have better luck if we waited until the evening to try again. We told Charlie we'd see him after lunch and the wives would cook us all a supper at his house.  We did some planning for the week and talked reservations for the next few days.  At thus time our tentative plan is to be home in about a week from today.
We got to Charlie's about 3 and while the ladies cooked we all watched some tapes from the Carolina Opry.

Glued to the Tube!

 ( a vaudeville type entertainment troupe we had seen in Myrtle Beach during some of the years we went there golfing in the Spring). They have a comedian named Eric Gumm who is absolutely hilarious.
Jan & Jean worked together on a meal for the 7 of us which included a version of American Chop Suey, Egg Noodles,  Cole Slaw and garlic bread.  Oh yeah, we had strawberries & whipped cream on individual cakes that Jean baked in the microwave.  (ask her for her recipe, they're quick & taste great)
After dinner we all played Cosmic Whimpout, a dice game, and we all laughed, kibitzed and had a great time.

The Cosmic Whimpout Game.

At the end of the night Charlie gave me the keys to his truck again and we drove back to the campground. (We're scheduled to play golf with him in the morning)

Day 45 (A Travel day) ( ...and my Birthday!) Milton, FL - Jacksonville, FL 349.7 miles, New Total = 9.176.9 miles
Left Milton @ just after 7AM and headed East on I10.  This was scheduled to be an Interstate Day as we had to cover roughly 350 miles and we wanted to arrive in a decent hour of the afternoon to make contact with my cousin Charlie.  Our plan was to stop at a Cracker Barrel close to Tallahassee.  It was really crowded there at 9:45 AM.  Nobody must have a job  in that city!  Had my favorite, Eggs-in-a-basket, sausage patties & hash-brown casserole. Back on the road again in cruise control we motored on.  I think we only took (2) pictures all day.  Driving through a tree lined asphalt/concrete tunnel doesn't inspire much photographic creativity!

With no stop for lunch we arrived at the campground just after 2:30 PM.  We were in the process of setting up our water & electric when I heard that unmistakable voice of Charlie! He had anticipated our arrival and got to the campground right after us.  We finished setting up, sat around and swapped stories & insults for a while and then Charlie drove us all to his house in his truck. His brother-in-law D.J. and his girlfriend were there when we arrived. After an hour or so of all of us sharing more stories and getting to know each other, we all went to Olive Garden for a great dinner.  At the end of the evening Charlie threw me the keys to his truck and said to come back in the morning when we were ready.  Charlie has a 2011 Ford F150 extra cab with all the bells & whistles. We made it back to the campground OK, but couldn't find our way to our site as their where just too darn many one way streets.  Finally we found the security guard and he explained the layout of the park and we found our way home! I guess that's what happens when you turn 70!

Day 44 ( A Travel Day) Denham Springs, LA - Milton, FL  260.3 miles, New Total = 8827.2 miles

Today our travels would take us through (2) new states and into a third.  We left Louisiana behind as we crossed the Pearl River.  To avoid Interstate coma we decided to travel on Rte 90 through Mississippi and Alabama as much as possible.  This took us as close to the shore as possible. In fact in Mississippi we drove along the open beach for 10-15 miles where most of the homes are on stilts to protect them from storms.

....even the Lighthouse was on stilts!

Before lunch we stopped at Davis Bayou Visitor Center of The Gulf Islands National Seashore in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. This National Park was established in 1971 to protect the wildlife, barrier islands, salt marshes, historic structures and archeological sites along the Gulf of Mexico. We spent an hour or so listening to the history of the islands including the story of Fort Massachusetts on Ships Island which was started in 1859 and not completed due to the ending of the Civil War.

As we approached Biloxi there were casinos galore.

Alabama had even less shoreline than Mississippi.  We traveled through Mobile, a good sized city,

and just before we crossed the bridge into Florida, we saw the SS Alabama Battleship.










Our trip ended early in Milton where Dave's brother Bryant lived.  Later that afternoon we went out to the Texas Roadhouse for Dinner and ended the evening with stories of the "Smith Brothers" youth in Franklin, ME.

Day 43 (A Sightseeing day @ Cajun Encounters Swamp Tours) 176.3 miles, New Total = 8,566.9 miles

As I spoke of yesterday, we traded a day on Bourbon Street for a 2 hour trip into the swamp.  Our reservation was for 12 Noon and the ride was about 80 miles from our campground to Slidell, LA, which is at the East end of Lake Ponchatrain.  It was soon obvious that the noontime trip was the most popular as 2 small full tour buses showed up.  We soon found out each boat held 22 people and we would soon fill 3 boats.  Jan's last minute trip to the Ladies Room turned into an opportunity as we ended up in the end seats in the front of the boat.

 The 2 hour tour was broken into 2 segments.  First a trip down one of the tributaries of the Pearl  River to see some alligators, and the second hour was a trip deep into the Honey Island Swamp.

After cruising a short distance from the dock we turned on the gas and took a high speed (about 35 MPH) cruise down river and into a smaller side channel.  We were quickly confronted with small fish (10-12") jumping out of the water randomly around the boat.  I thought they were catching something airborne, but the guide, Captain Mike, told us they were striped mullet. They are basically bottom feeders and spend a lot of time in the mud and they race to the surface and jump into the air (1-2') to flush the mud from their gills.  Unfortunately I wasn't fast enough with my camera, and not smart enough to use the video mode to catch any shots of them. But it was entertaining.  It took only a few minutes of cruising (at a very slow speed) before we spotted our first gator.

It wasn't too large (3-4') but we were just as excited as if it were 10.  Captain Mike tried to lure him closer to the boat by throwing marshmallows into the water.  He didn't seem interested, but very quickly a second approached us from the rear and proved to be quite hungry and ate 3 or 4.  We spent about 1/2 hour cruising up this channel and saw no less than a dozen and maybe close to 2 dozen gators, in the water and basking on the shore along the route.  The largest was probably about 6 or 7 feet.

A trip up another channel continued this adventure with almost as many sightings. Unexpectedly we also saw some remnants of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina (piles of dock debris and overturned boats).

Down this new channel we baited the gators with pieces of hotdog on a stick as they approached the boat ad Captain Mike was able to get 2 of them to jump out of the water almost 3 feet to retrieve the hotdog or marshmallow  This was very cool!

Sightings continued as we retraced our steps out of this channel and we then motored ( at high speed again) back toward the dock to begin our second part of the tour.

Day 43 Cont'd (Part 2 of our Swamp Cruise)
Like the start of the first part of the Tour, we began with a high speed jaunt for about 5-10 minutes upriver and then we slowed and slowly slid into Maple Slough a little (just barely wide enough for the boat) side channel with overhanging branches and undergrowth.

Captain Mike had to work to keep us  off the brush and not get slapped by outstretched branches.  He explained some of the Flora and insects (like the 3" garden spider we saw) This was an old Cypress swamp that had been harvested about 100 years ago, and they had left a channel winding through the stumps.  They had also replanted much of the forest at that time, but there was much evidence of the original stumps, as Cypress almost never rots.

We quickly  saw some marshmallows floating and this time we knew what that meant and we quickly scanned for gators and almost always found one sunning himself or lurking along the weeds of the banks.

We wound through this swamp until we met a another boat returning from their trip into the swamp. No one could believe we could both fit by each other but the two Captains accomplished it without even touching.

On our return to the main river, we came upon "Big Al".  He was a 10' Alligator in all his glory.  He came out from the bank to greet us and refused a few marshmallows, but was a little more interested in hot dog pieces,  He wasn't about to jump for them like the smaller gators.
Our return to the dock was again only after a high speed run back down the river, and all in all everyone agreed that this was a very enjoyable day and much better than shopping or sightseeing in New Orleans.  I guess that's just the kind of folks we are!

Day 42 ( A Short Travel Day) Lafayette, LA - Denham Springs, LA (Baton Rouge) 74.3 miles, New Total miles = 8,390.6 miles
Our schedule was planned to be short today as we were moving to a campground near New Orleans.
I thought I wanted to see New Orleans for its festive atmosphere.  Our first choice was fully booked so we ended up at a KOA just outside of Baton Rouge.  This is only about 130 miles from Lafayette so only about 2 hours driving.

Given the lack of urgency in our schedule, we kind of hung around our campground and enjoyed the atmosphere and the pond.

Our campsite in Lafayette, LA

 As we were looking across we spotted what looked like an Anhinga back home (I'm not sure if that is right down here) sitting on a branch near the edge of the water.  I got my camera, took a picture, but before I could take a second picture, 6 more popped up out of the water around  the branch.

There was (1)

....and then there were (7)

Again the route was basically an Interstate.  When we began reading the descriptions of attractions in the area, we found references to Antebellum Mansions and Swamp Tours, etc..  This made me think about whether going to downtown New Orleans was really all that important to me.  I wasn't looking forward to Cajun food, and Dave and I kind of liked the idea of a Swamp Tour.  That's tomorrow, so let me get back to today.

Our route on I10 took us through Achafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.  As we drove along, we saw the sign for the visitors center and then we saw a sign saying Trucks restricted to Right Lane Only next 18 miles.  It was not obvious why.  We soon found out when we came on to a concrete elevated bridge on concrete legs over what appeared to be a river and its flood plain.

 It turned out to be an 18 mile bridge (yes continuous for 18 solid miles) (The internet says it is the 14th longest bridge in the world) over a very large swamp/river/bayou area.

Most all of the 18 miles, the feet of the bridge were in water. It was very impressive, and I can't imagine the issues that were confronted during its construction.



Our campground turned out to be next to a new Bass Pro Shops, so we stopped there to check it out as we were a bit too early to check in. So far the campground has been nice and we have made our reservations for the Swamp Tour tomorrow.  I should get some good critter pictures.

Day 41 (A Travel Day) Texarkana, TX - Lafayette, LA 300.8 miles, New Total = 8,316.5 miles
Growth (tree & shrub) along the Highway continued to increase in  size.  The land seemed to be more rural with exits leading into unpopulated areas more than towns.  Over 200 miles of our trip were on one pretty straight concrete road increasingly through wetland areas.  There were only two significant sized communities along this 200 mile stretch.  Clearly we were traveling through the rural part of this state.
We did note as we traveled South that the presence of "nodding donkeys" (oil pumps) in the pastures increased.  It's quite evident that cattle and horses aren't bothered by this machinery at all. Also  we noted a few more cotton fields as we moved further South.

Those are bales of cotton in the background

 We arrived early to a pleasant campground surrounding a small private lake.  Our sites turned out to be on the lake, and after a team discussion and online work we firmed up our reservations for the next 4 or 5 days.  This gave me a little daylight freedom to take out my ultralight fishing rod and have a few casts in the lake. It was advertised as a good Bass lake so given the hour of the day I put on a medium sized surface lure and gave it a go.  It seemed that all I was attracting were a bunch of turtles, a few ducks and a small kitten that came near to see what was going on. As i was about to quit, I tried one last cast along the shore and got a hit after about 2-3 feet into my retrieval.  I quickly landed a nice fat 14-15" Smallmouth Bass.

 After a quick picture, he was back in the lake, and he gave a great jump after swimming a few feet as if to say "and goodbye to you !".

Day 40 ( A Travel Day) Oklahoma City, OK - Texarkana, TX  miles, New Total = miles
Left the worst campsite I had stayed at during the trip. But, hey it's only one night. Headed east on I40 for about an hour before we turned South toward Eastern Texas on The Indian Nation Turnpike.  Before we made this turn we noticed a number of roadside signs denoting the boundaries of various Indian tribe reservations.  Not just 1 or 2 but at least 6 or 7.  So I asked Jan to look up on the web (on my smart phone) the number of Tribal Nations in Oklahoma. There are 38 Federally recognized Tribal nations in Oklahoma. Remembering a little of our nations history brings to mind that Oklahoma was the state/area that many of the nations tribes were relocated to when they were displaced for various reasons from their original tribal grounds (Including the Seminole from Florida).  The terrain was rolling with no steep grades and the farmland was made up of much smaller parcels than we had see in the Texas panhandle and western Oklahoma.  The trees were also taller and we started to see some color reminding us of New England as some maples were mixed in with oaks and the various conifers.

Just before we stopped for lunch, ( a little late because we couldn't find any roadside rest areas) we crossed the Red River (which forms the Southern border of Oklahoma for everything but the panhandle of the state).

Before and after this we encountered much larger stretches of farmland.  This was all bottomland in the floodplain area of the river. Beautiful dark, rich soil.  The downside of this rich land was bugs!  ...and many found their demise on my windshield! This was the first day in the trip when I had to wash my windshield both in the morning and at lunch.

Also we saw 2 large wood product mills.  One of International Paper (by the smell it was a pulp mill), and Weyerhaeuser (no smell or visibility to determine the type) and many logging trucks passed us heading to the mills.

Day 39 ( Another Travel Day) Amarillo TX - Oklahoma City, OK 280.7 miles, New Total = 7719.1 miles
The day began cool & windy.  We decided to have a treat and eat breakfast out. (I think this was only our 3rd time for breakfast).  Found our way to a local Cracker Barrel and had a good meal! Then back onto I40 toward Oklahoma.  Again the wind was strong & gusty, but the direction had shifted to the NNW and we were constantly fighting to stay in our lane. We tried to maintain 70 in the 75 speed limit but had to drop down to 65 to be comfortable. The Texas farmland was immense, with plowed fields sometimes stretching a mile or more along the highway, and almost as far as you could see running out from there.

Texas farm

 Another common sight in both TX & OK were abandoned businesses.  Many exits along the interstate were populated by closed and scavenged buildings of previous gas stations and restaurants. Also we saw many abandoned silos and grain elevators.

Abandoned grain elevator!

 There also have been many abandoned homes throughout the SW, just sitting there with no windows, partial roofs and rusted out cars, trailers and other metal scrap. I can't say they look newly abandoned, but rather signs of many years gone by.
Wind turbines are another familiar sight in TX & OK.  Sometimes there are groups as large as 30-40 grouped together along a ridge line.

A sight I remembered from a trip I took in 2001, with my son Craig, was the largest cross, I believe the sign said in the world, alongside I40 in TX.  The sign is not there anymore.

Largest cross in the world!(?)

Speaking of Texas special things, we also saw the "leaning tower of texas"!

Just before arriving at our campground, on the east side of the city, we passed Tinker AFB a large logistics center for the Air Force.  I never visited there, but remember Northrop doing much spare parts business with them.  I'm sitting at the picnic table in our campground typing and the wind has finally stopped. It's a pleasant afternoon with the temperature in the low 70's and predicted to be in the low 50's tonight.