7 days, 1400 miles

Hello from Wright Patman Lake in Texarkana, TX! The Bettymobile has been on the road for a week already! And we’re doing just fine. For the most part we’re avoiding interstates, and really enjoying the quirky sights of rural towns.

We spent last weekend making tracks to Oxford MS, opting to stay in hotels the first two nights because A) we wanted to keep moving, and B) it was cold at night!! Our route took us through Greensboro and Asheville NC (we had a really hard time not stopping in Asheville to enjoy their beer district!), Waynesville NC (where we accidentally got in with a funeral procession), then Young Harris–>Elljay–>Shannon GA (home of the Frisky Biscuit), landing in Rome GA at a comfy hotel and some Thai takeout.

On Monday we drove across Alabama and landed in Oxford MS. As soon as we crossed the state line into Alabama, the road was literally lined with cotton! (It had come loose from the bales in recent windstorms and got caught in the roadside.) We found an excellent family restaurant in Snead City and had a delicious lunch of BBQ and dirt pudding. YUM. After crossing the Mississippi border, we hopped on the Natchez Trace Parkway – a beautiful scenic drive maintained by the National Park Service – which took us into Tupelo, and then it was just another 45 minutes to Oxford.

Our connection to Oxford is my friend Deb, who I met in the summer of 1995 when we both worked in Grand Teton National Park. She had a remarkable impact on my life that summer; we had a soul-sister type connection. I’ve seen her only once since then – in the fall of 2000 – so it’s pretty amazing that we have stayed connected! It was excellent to see her again, and to meet her delightful family. Oxford is a really interesting town! Deb’s husband Mike is a phenomenal tour guide, and a professor at Ole Miss, so we got the VIP campus tour (in a golf cart!) plus the opportunity to meet a few locals as we enjoyed the downtown square. We were also able to use their driveway/garage to finish a couple of details on the camper and reorganize our packing a little bit, plus I was able to work from their back porch. We are so grateful to them for being the first stop on our shake-down cruise – it was a perfect combination of catching up with friends, learning about a new place, and problem solving.

We left Oxford on Thursday morning, but we couldn’t venture *too* far because I had a spate of meetings starting at 11 am! Matthew’s becoming an expert on the Dyrt app – which helps locate campsites and has a bunch of filters so you can screen for things like cell phone coverage, wifi, bathrooms, and high ratings from other campers. His research led us to a casino near Tunica MS, right on the Mississippi River (although you couldn’t actually see it from there). It was awesome! I found a quiet corner of the casino (it was difficult, but I found it!) where I worked all afternoon and even had a couple of video meetings, while Matthew set us up in the parking lot campsite. We had access to the pool and fitness area (although we ultimately didn’t use them, but what a nice perk!), and we grabbed dinner in a perfect southern diner.

Yesterday we drove all the way across Arkansas and ended up here, just outside of Texarkana. It’s a beautiful campground, and I wish we could stay longer! But I need to wrap this up and grab a shower so we can get on our way. Our ultimate goal is to get to Portal AZ by Monday evening, so there’s still some ground to cover. We’re planning a shorter day today – aiming for a spot north of Decatur TX, which is apparently all grasslands! We’re looking forward to a slower traveling pace, where we’re not on the move so much, but we’re trying to get to warmer weather and meet up with some pals in the western states. So, off we go!