Tuesday December 15, 2020- Sweet Home Alabama!!!

Welcome to Sweet Home Alabama!  🎵🎵Where the sky's are so blue!!!  You know it!!!  We are at Desoto State Park AL.   I am so excited to explore this place!!  Pinterest said it is a must see:)))

Now for the details of our horrific drive!!!  

Did I get your attention??  

The drive today was. . . . well, I'll say it was our test to see how good we are at driving our huge trailer on the worst mountainous roads.  

Here's what happened:

Last night when I was planning our drive today, I re-read my email from this campground.  I noticed that it said, "Do not use your GPS when coming here.  Use our directions".  Easy!  I got on their website and downloaded their directions.  Scotty and I have done this many times.  It's not anything new for us to follow the campground directions and not our GPS. In fact, we are grateful when the campgrounds give directions.  They know the best ways to get into their sites.   

We set off around 11:00ish and drove north  through Atlanta and then we kept going north west.  The campground instructions said to go north until you find the 20 West.  Eventually I found the 20 West and got off the freeway to follow the 20.  It was easy to follow the 20 for about 5 miles.  Then, the road kept splitting and turning into other roads.  The signs called the road the 411 and other names.  We were so confused.  After about 15 miles, I had to pull into a parking lot to make a U-turn because we missed a turn off that was supposedly the 20.  Usually when you follow a road, the road stays the same name, right?  It doesn't merge into other roads without changing its name. This road kept merging and changing names and we were SO confused.  Finally, we were so lost that we just had to follow our GPS.  You know what that means.  Yup, we got stuck going up skinny roads that were severely  unmanaged mountainous roads with our huge 44 foot trailer. There were pot holes a plenty and no room for our trailer to fit in our lane.  We had to drive half way into the other lane to make sure that we didn't go off of the road.  It was crazy I tell you!!

We missed our turn offs 3 times.  Our worst fear with this trailer has been to get into a tight situation and not be able to get out of it.  Well, today we got into not just one, but three sticky situations that we had to back out of.  It was NUTS!!! Scotty and I would just look at each other and all we could do was take a deep breathe.  After our third time that we had to back out of the wrong turn, we found our campground and checked in.  It was a relief to drop the trailer off of the truck. 

We were seriously exhausted from the stress of the drive. The silver lining is that we got to see how much we have learned over the last 6 months about how to maneuver our trailer.  Scotty and I have developed a system to back up the trailer.  Scotty drives and I get outside on the phone and direct him.  I am the eyes and he is the muscle:))). We've gotten pretty good.  In fact, when we were in Fort Lauderdale FL, the guy that watched us back into that site came over and said how impressed he was with our team work:)). Today we were able to get out of every spot that we got stuck in. We did it!!!  We both now have confidence in our abilities to maneuver Homie. Finally!! It's only been 6 months Hahahah.  After the horrible drive, we found ourselves in an amazing campground.  Our site is a pull-through (which means we don't have to back into it, we can drive in and out).  It is a huge site.  We have plenty of room.  I love it.  The kids jumped out and immediately found stuff to play in. . . like dirty water :))))   Taj got drenched in about 5 minutes.  

Scotty had to jump on a call so the kids helped me set up.  They worked fast.  I so appreciate them.  Then after we all ate food, we did school.  Asher finished his last two finals.  He is officially done with school until January.  Graham, Taj and Pepper are almost done.  I have stuff for them until this Friday, then they get their Christmas Break!!!