We're getting warmer...

Today it's Friday and we woke up after a good night's sleep to a fine day. It was partly overcast with a temperature of 18 deg C (65 deg F). We had our usual "luxury" breakfast at the hotel and filled our coffee mugs ready to roll. The hotel is located about 20 miles NE of downtown Cincinnati. We were all prepared for a slow trek along I71 through downtown Cincinnati to meet up with I75. If we would have been back home and tried to get through Toronto via downtown on a weekday during rush hour, we would have taken at least an hour. Much to our surprise, with a few slowdowns, we sailed through Cincinnati at or near near highway speeds. I think Someone must be watching over us!


The day turned out to be very pleasant with about 50/50 overcast and sun. The wind was pretty bad though. Strong SE winds buffeted our trusty Honda and, combined with the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee, caused our mileage to drop quite a bit. We were using an extra 0.6l every 100kms. Yesterday we averaged 8.3l/100km, today it was down to 8.9l/100km. We really enjoyed the scenery in Kentucky and Tennessee. The Fall colours are still very nice and combined with low mountains made for a wonderful trip today. Gas prices are a little cheaper here in south. In Michigan and Ohio we were paying $2.70/gal, here the prices are from $2.45 to $2.55/gal.


When we crossed into Alabama, We noticed this mock up of a Saturn 5 rocket in a rest stop along I65. It brought back fond memories for me when I was a young sergeant in the Air Force. I was stationed twice in Huntsville, AL which is not very far from where we're staying tonight (Decatur). I was stationed on a US Army post called Redstone Arsenal where I went to school to study and train as a maintenance technician for the Nike Hercules anti-aircraft missile system at the US Army Missile Command School. Redstone Arsenal was also the place where NASA developed and test fired the Saturn 5 rocket. Werner Von Braun was stationed there with his team of design engineers. As you may or may not remember, the Saturn 5 rocket was the delivery system for the moon orbiter and lander. I can still vividly remember my time at Redstone Arsenal when they test fired the booster rockets. The test fire stand was about 20 miles from the building we were in but the windows rattled in their frames when they fired those boosters. Anyway, so much for memory lane.

We arrived at our hotel (another La Quinta) in Decatur just before 4pm. We have a lovely room and we'll relax again tonight. Decatur is a nice typical southern small town located on a fair sized lake. The hotel is again quite nice and comfortable. We have small, separate sitting area with a sofa and large computer desk. The usual wireless access allows me to write this blog for you. BTW, when you explore our blog, have a look at some of the links I have included on the left side, you may enjoy the YouTube videos. At the bottom of the blog is a widget that tells you the weather. Just enter the name of the city where we are and you can find out what the weather is like there.


Well, I think that's about it for today. Tomorrow we hope to get to our final destination, Kenner Louisiana and join our fellow workers as well as Tom and Grace.