Monday April 1st we said our farewells at Lemon Tree in Mission and headed to Bay City TX. On the way we stopped near Edinburg to pick up an 18 lb bag of ruby red grapefruit for $9. (So sweet and delicious.) Driving along Hwy 77 that day we saw a variety of spring flowers
carpeting the sides of the road. Blue Bonnets, yellow daisies, etc. A
nice time of year to cross through Texas!
We stayed that night at the 60 North RV Park in Bay City which was a lovely, well maintained campground. We used our Passport America membership to get a 50% discount. Cost $20/night
The following day we drove to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana to stay at Poche's RV Park and Fish-n-Camp. We stayed at Poche's in November on our way south. It was even nicer at this time of year. Spring had sprung and there were multitudes of dragonflies, baby turtles crawling across the seaweed, fish jumping and frogs in chorus! We arrived early enough in the afternoon to put out our chairs and enjoy the ambience. We heard our first cardinal singing since we left home in the fall!
 |
| Relaxing beside the pond at Poche's |
On Wednesday we drove from Breaux Bridge to Baton Rouge on I-10 and from there we took Scenic Rte 90 which takes you along the coast to Mobile Alabama. Beautiful scenery, especially the white, white sand along the Gulf coast. We parked that night at a Walmart in Daphne, Alabama.
Thursday we drove from Daphne to Valley, Alabama. Once again there were spring flowers along the road side and water lily with white blooms in the ponds. Many homes along the way had tall snowball bushes covered in bloom.
Friday morning started off poorly. We were delayed with a toilet plumbing issue, a broken visor/blind on the passenger side of the windshield and repair required to the trim above the windshield of the motorhome. Valley was just 2 minutes from the Georgia border where the time zone changed from Central to Eastern meaning loss of an hour. 3 1/2 hours later we crossed into South Carolina. We stopped for the night at the Walmart at Gaffney.
Parked beside us were the rigs of 2 Sprint car racers. We discovered they were participating in races the next night just 4 miles north at the Cherokee Speedway.
 |
| Quite the rigs to haul the Sprint cars! |
Saturday we moved to the parking lot of the Cherokee Speedway. Shortly after we arrived another motorhome parked beside us. The couple were from Alaska and we exchanged tales of our travels. They had traveled 700 miles on the Friday -- not stopping until midnight! That's too many hours on the road for us!
The racing started at 7 pm. There were 8 classes of cars in the various heats. We headed for bed shortly after midnight and there were still 3 more races to be run!
We left Cherokee Speedway Sun April 7th to head to Raleigh, North Carolina. Along the highways we saw lots of Wisteria growing wild. Apparently it is an invasive species.
 |
| Wisteria |
We are staying at the NC Fairgrounds Campground in Raleigh including water, electricity, sewer, and good internet...for 2 nights at the cost of $30/night. Monday we visited the NC Museum of Natural Science in downtown Raleigh. Unbelievable that is was free admission! Parking cost us only $6 for 3 hours there. Cheap compared to Toronto!
We'll fill our water tank and dump our sewage at the campground here in Raleigh in preparation of spending 5 or 6 days boondocking at the Richmond Raceway. The next stop on our journey will be home, with a Walmart somewhere in between.
