The Passage from Arkansas to Southwest Florida

I arrived at my mother's on Friday afternoon after leaving Phoenix just Wednesday night. Despite being on the road so much I actually felt pretty good. There's something romantic about the traveling the American highways, and whatever that magic is hadn't left just because I'd stopped for a few days on my journey.

My mother's boyfriend Larry has built a 3 hole golf course on his property that sprawls across almost 4 acres of land. He hasn't done anything special with the grass on the land, so its fairly rugged and the greens are, if anything, more rugged than the fairways. We had to adopt special rules and scoring since its almost impossible to actually putt on the greens. We played where each hole would score 2 points: 1 point to the person with the closest to pin on the drive, and 1 point to the person closest to pin after 3 shots. Its quite a bit of fun... We must have played 8 matches or so in the few days I was there.

On Monday my mother and I opened a bank account in the nearby town which was one of the main reasons for my dropping by there on the way to Florida. Since I won't really be able to deal with things like paying bills and depositing checks while I'm sailing in some distant ocean my mother will act as my agent. While I'm sure we could have used my Phoenix based accounts via the web, its just simpler for her to deal with a local bank. Once we finished with that business, I got the itch to get back on the road. So I did.

My route from my mothers to Florida was not as simple as the route from Arizona to Arkansas. I needed to go through Memphis, but from there my options grew. I decided to take what appeared to be the straightest course which leads from Memphis to Birmingham to Atlanta, then south past Tampa to Fort Myers. I started the trip by taking small rural highways from Melbourne, AR to Memphis, TN.

I had been warned a couple of times about Memphis. Nobody in Arkansas seems to think very highly of the place. When I got there I had to agree. I found the freeways to be more than a little confusing. Google maps showed an easy connection from I-40 to highway 78 I needed to get to Birmingham, but I never saw a sign for it and ended up going the wrong direction for a while. It really didn't take me more than a couple of minutes to know I was past my connection, but the highways there don't lend themselves well to people who want to turn around.

Instead, Google maps showed me what appeared to be a main road that ran from the 40 to the 78 which ran through town. Let me tell you something if you don't already know... just because Google maps highlights a road doesn't mean its a main thoroughfare. The roads it led me on were tiny, sometimes scarcely wide enough for one car to go through. The navigational hazzards in the area, combined with constantly having to look at my iPhone screen to see if I should be passing certain streets soon, left me feeling rather irritated.

My frustrations didn't end there. When I finally got on "highway" 78 my poor car begain to take a real beating. The road there is absolutely terrible. Potholes every few feet, narrow lanes, huge semis, untimed lights every quarter mile or so... its a nightmare. It stayed a decrepit road until I hit the Mississippi state line where it miraculously polymorphed into something decent people could drive in peace on.

My next waypoint was Tupelo. I'd been told of a good restaurant there so decided to try it out. I took an exit and followed to the signs (I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it has an Italian name and there are signs for it on the highway).

Tupelo is a really nice town. It has a good vibe to it. The people I talked to in the restaurant were really nice (food was pretty good, too). I wanted to stay in town a little longer, so I found out where the theaters were and bought a ticket to see Chuck and Norah's Infinite Playlist. While waiting for the movie to start I chatted with more folks at the Applebee's bar across the parking lot. Everyone was really friendly.

I liked the movie.

Time to get back on the road. It was getting a little late by this time but I decided I wanted to get past Birmingham so I wouldn't have to deal with traffic in the morning. In Birmingham I had to switch from 78 to I20 which wasn't really a challenge, but I did encounter more awful roads. I guess these older American cities just don't care about their highways like the west coast cities do.

The next day I made Atlanta and got on I-75 south, the last highway change I would need to make. About 5 miles south of Atlanta I ran into a massive traffic jam. I can only assume there must have been an earth shattering accident cause we, my fellow travelers and I, were immobile for almost 90 minutes. We finally had some police direct cars off the highway for a detour, which consumed another 45 minutes, before I could get back on I-75 and moving again. I've since heard that this is normal for Atlanta.

The only other semi-noteworthy item was the number of highway patrolmen I saw on I-75. In my entire trip thus far (about 2,300 miles at this point) I could have counted the number of cop cars I'd seen on 1 hand. From the Georgia/Florida border to the first Tampa exit I saw I counted 24 highway patrol cars... and I'm sure there were many I missed camping out in rest stops on the other side of the highway.

Anyhow, I made it safe and sound to my cousin Jimi's house. I've had a few interesting new developments arise in my quest to get on a boat and start voyaging which I'll relate next time.