MYRTLE BEACH OR BUST!!!!

We head for Myrtle Beach at last!!!  What a beautiful day for traveling!!!!  Started out a little cool but was in the 60's by the end of the day!!!    It was windy but the sun was shining through the clouds .. a beautiful beautiful day!!!   We could not have squeezed much more into that car ... LOL!!!

Ken's  goal was to hit the road by 7:00 .. we missed it by 1 minute ... LOL!!!   Takeoff at 7:01 am .. there's a quarter sized splat of bird poop on MY side of the front window and a Jimmy Buffet CD playing through the radio .. Oh Boy!!!!

Leaving  Festus behind ... it wasn't easy but I managed to miss the bird poop ..

 8:11 am .. First stop .. Breakfast at Mc Donalds in Cape Girardeau ..my favorite McDonalds's sandwich .. Sausage and Egg McMuffin and Coffee!!! 

9:39 am 

Crossing into Kentucky .. 

Whoops .. there's that bird poop ... LOL!!

 Welcome Center in Paducah ... 10:26 am ..

How about a selfie????? 

  
 12:00 .. Stopped at a gas station in Grover, KY to fill up ... $1.99 a gallon .. Woooo Hooooo!!!  We had been seeing signs of $2.29 ... $2.49 ... Kenny was HAPPY!!!  He even cleaned the bird poop off the front window ... and Liz was HAPPY too!!! 

 

2:02 pm .. Welcome Center in Tennessee ... we sat in the sun at a picnic table here and had enjoyed a picnic lunch before traveling on!!!  

Finally starting to see something worth taking  pictures of ... LOL!!!   

 Somewhere along here there was a sign that we were now in the Eastern time zone .. this was at 3:16 our time .. so time took a big jump to 4:16!!!! 

AH .. finally got a decent picture of the mountains ahead!!!

The Smoky Mountains!!! 

We  had planned to spend the night in Knoxville but we arrived there around 3:30 and felt that was too early to get off the road.  We had picked up a hotel discount booklet at the welcome Center and saw that the Quality Inn in Newport, TN was close to a Cracker Barrel and a Wal Mart and decided that would be  our destination for a night's rest!!!   We arrived at the hotel about 6:00 .. and headed for Cracker Barrel AND Wal Mart shortly after we got settled in!!!  

The Clabber Girl sign I have hanging on my kitchen wall was given to me my son Billy and it is one of my "treasures" .. Ken and I always look for the Clabber Girl sign when we got into a Cracker Barrel .. so far in all our travels we have only come across 2 of them that did NOT have a Clabber Girl sign!!!!   

There was not a lot of excitement in this day or a lot of beauty to see and capture with my camera but it was a GREAT day anyway .. and we are now just a night's sleep and a few hours of driving away from our destination .. and who knows ..maybe we'll see something exciting tomorrow .. you never know .. LOL!!!  

Milage on the car when we started out this morning was 23,530 .. milage at the end of our day .. 24,065.   Kenny drove 535 miles today!!!  Thank You Lord for the beautiful day and for giving us safe travels!!! 

HEADING FOR MYRTLE BEACH !!!!

I'm finally starting to get excited!!!  The preparations for this year's journey to Myrtle Beach have begun .. 6 weeks of pill containers have been filled for each of us .. suitcases .. coolers .. laptop case .. plastic container for kitchen stuff  have been carried up and scattered all around the computer room ..  tomorrow morning packing starts!!!  Monday  all will be loaded in the car .. Tuesday morning  we hit the road .. Wooooo Hoooooo!!! 

We will be staying at  the Caravelle Resort again this year but in a different building this time .. the St. Clements building .. it is also Oceanfront and in fact is right beside the building we stayed in the last 2 years.  The building we normally stay in was badly damaged in one of the  huge storms  that came through Myrtle Beach a few months ago and they are   working on it but it isn't finished yet!!!  I hope we like the suite  there as well as we liked the one we had before .. cross your fingers .. LOL!!!     We will be in Myrtle Beach the month of February and head for Port St. Lucie, Florida to visit with my sonTim and family  March 1st ..  arriving there the evening of  the 3rd  .. if the Good Lord's willing and the creeks don't rise as the saying goes .. LOL!!! 

  Ken's  buddies and their wives  that we go there to meet up with live in Buffalo, New York .. they are forecasting 2 to 3 FEET of snow for them this weekend!!!  I think if I was them I would have taken off TODAY and got the heck out of there before the snow arrives .. LOL!!! 

 Needless to say my laptop  will be with us .. and the IPAD .. and the Kindle .. and then of course we also have our cell phones .. so we will be able to keep in touch .. LOL!!!  And now it is time to  head for bed so I'll be ready for a busy day tomorrow!!!  Good Night .. Sleep Tight .. and all that stuff!!!  

 5:50 PM .. 

Yep ... we've been packing!!!  Hanging clothes are already loaded in the car .. doing laundry tomorrow so may have more to put in these suitcases or they would be in the car too!!!   I'm thinking our poor little Equinox is going to be very very full when we  back out of the garage Tuesday morning .. LOL!!!     

Tomorrow will be cleaning day once we get the laundry done and finish up the packing of whatever is in the laundry that's going with us.  And then we're meeting up with some of the Bread Company Bunch at a Restaurant named "Bonefish" ... it will be a smaller group than  normal as Bill and Shirley left for "The Villages" in Florida this morning and Pat and Rich  are leaving tomorrow morning for Fort Myers, Florida!!!      

SUNDAY ..Yep .. Laundry and cleaning day today .. laundry is done .. most of the packing is finished .. dust bunnies have been rounded up .. bathrooms and kitchen  swept and mopped .. bedroom and computer room floors vacuumed .. living room .. breakfast area .. and dining room area floors cleaned (Ken's job) microwaved cleaned AND refrigerator cleaned (Ken again .. bless his heart!!)!!!  Computer room is once again a computer room .. LOL!!  All that's left to contend with is the "bathroom suitcase"  and the laptop case ..  Wooooo Hooooo!!! 

              

 The meeting with the Bread Company Bunch tonight at "Bonefish" was called off .. couldn't get a reservation .. busy place on  a Sunday night I guess!!!   Oh well .. now we have the whole evening to rest up from our toils of the day!!!  

Ken got a letter in the mail yesterday that his drivers license is expiring .. so he will be going to the Drivers License Office to take care of that tomorrow ..  and we need to go to the pharmacy at Schnuck's and let them know we will be gone until the second week of March so will not be picking up any prescriptions ..  then I THINK we will have everything done that we need to do before hitting the road ... I hope!!!