Can You Hear Me Now?

November 10, 2023 – Day 43

We woke pretty early and broke camp. Not super early, but early we thought. It was so gorgeous outside! Here’s the view from our “dining room” window.

Campsites always have that something like that hanging thing. We’re not sure what they are for but they are useful, we’ve hung our water from it so it could filter into our water bladders, run some paracord for drying towels, etc. We finally figured out what they are for. To hang the coax for the ham radio antenna, of course!

The view outside the door was equally impressive.

We really liked Daisy Hill State Park and plan on coming back. It’s pretty late in the season so it was mostly empty. But even if it was full the sites are far enough apart from each other that it would still spacious.

You can just barely see the next campsite over to the left. We would have liked to stay a bit longer but the road calls. Today’s drive is about 350 miles to Natchez Trace State Park in Wildersville, TN. The park is named for Natchez Trace, an important wilderness highway in the late 18th and into 19th centuries.

It was a long drive of back roads before we could hook up with the highway again. Paul enjoys these winding backroads more than Susan does. But neither of us enjoy them when they barely have a shoulder. This stretch of road had a “generous” amount of shoulder.

There are some back roads where there’s a white fog line and then only a few inches of pavement. Clifford is a heck of a lot wider than a car so there’s little room for error. Somewhere on the road out we saw an Eagle. Most likely it was an immature Bald Eagle. We’d have liked it to be a Golden Eagle but it isn’t likely.

We crossed the David D Terry Lake just east of Little Rock, Arkansas. They call it a lake but it’s really just a section of the Arkansas River. It reminded us of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. Lake Dave may be the smaller of the two but it’s still big.

When we made our first cross country earlier this year we saw fields where cotton was growing. On this trip we saw fields of harvested cotton. Finally, we saw some bales of cotton and they’re just as big as the ones made of hay.

Once again we crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis. Paul remembered from the last trip that the right lane was an exit only and moved over before he got on the bridge. We both are getting pretty good at lane changes, you check both the flat and curved mirror, and check the rear camera to make sure the Jeep has cleared cars in the neighboring lane, pop the blinker on and go.

(susan here: We’ve also learned that down here right lanes appear (exits) and disappear (merge). Sometimes they’re marked. Sometimes they don’t give you any warning, they just end. Phoenix is great for that trick. But we’re onto that game now and don’t get caught too often.)

We got off the highway and drove for what seemed like forever down a narrow twisty forest road. We knew we were in the right spot. There had been signs directing us to the campground but that was about 15 minutes before we got there.

Remember how open Daisy was? Natchez Trace packs you in like sardines. Were were on an oval with no trees inside the oval. At least we were on the outer part of the oval where the sites were ever so slightly more spacious plus they backed onto the woods. This is an improvement over being tail to tail with your neighbor.

Paul went to setup the radio and found his phone had no signal thus no internet. Susan’s phone was marginally better with 1 bar of LTE. (note: this is why we each have a different wireless provider) Why does internet matter to radio? I need to be able to tell people what Maidenhead grid I am in when using a digital mode. We’ve had poor cell service before, but this place really took first prize. We’re all so used to having cell service now that it’s a shock when it’s not there.

We ate dinner, settled in for the night and turned in early. We had a big push the next day., 500 miles. We’ve never done a 500 mile day. The goal was to leave early. It’s nice to have goals.

Daily: 362

Return Total: 1,842

Return Overall Miles/Day: 307

Return Driving Miles/Day: 184

Overall Total: 4,978

Total Driving Miles/Day: 332

mpg: 6.6