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)