Day 3 - Across The Mighty Mississippi

After a fairly quick breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we were back on the road. It was a long drive on I-40 through the rest of Tennessee, over the Mississippi River and into the West at Memphis and on to Little Rock, Arkansas.

It always seems a bit strange to cross America at over a mile a minute and I-40 is definitely the road through the middle. It is a long-distance truckers highway and Speedy and all the cars (and a few motorcycles) are bit players on this 70+ mph shipping line.

Aside from Speedy’s oil light coming on during a long downhil, it was another uneventful drive. We had the oil changed just before we left and they put in about a quart too much. This had been done before and we had a warning light about too much oil, so I asked the to remove some. They evidently took a little too much and on the long downhill the oil must have shifted to the front of the pan and gotten too low at the sensor, since the light went out when we got to the bottom of the hill. When we stopped to check it was quite low on the dipstick, so we added a quart and it brought the level back to midway. Just another thng to keep an eye on.

Ellen has started a new regimen for us, three ten-minute quick walks a day, basically whenever we stop at a rest area. She is also taking a few more turns at driving, so we are a bit less tired by the time we stop.

Today we stopped at Maumelle Park, a Corps of Engineers campground on the bank of the Arkansas River just upstream from Little Rock. We have a very nice site right next to the river, with electricity, water and nearby showers. The COE always seem to have great campgrounds...popular ones as well. The campground is nearly full and will be full from Thursday through Dec. 10th. We were pretty lucky to get a site for tonight.

It is still in the 40s and having our electric heater on is a real comfort. Hopefully, we are out of the overnight freezing zone as we have finally filled the fresh water tank.

Tomorrow, it is back onto I-40 to join the trucks on the road to Texas. Our current plan is to stay on the Interstate to Amarillo, then angle to the southwest on a secondary road through Roswell and Almagordo, New Mexico, then getting on I-10 near Las Cruces for the last leg to Tucson. At least that is tonight’s plan...it could change tomorrow.