Friday evening a little after 6PM we set sail for our 1000 mile trip to get our next Casita project. Route planning: Rome, GA – Gadsden, AL – Birmingham, AL – Meridian, MS – Baton Rouge, LA – Houston, TX – San Antonio, TX. Weather was nice, coffee mug full, iceless cooler cold and full of Gatorade, traffic was light, bugs aiming for the front and windshield of the Jeep were plentiful, short: a great day for a little road trip.
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Driving through Alabama, I-59 Gadsden – B'ham Friday evening before night fell …
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… and then somewhere on I-10 in Texas on Saturday morning after dawn.
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I told the seller that we will be at his location Saturday morning at 10AM, we entered the storage area after 1,014 miles and 16-ish hours of drive at 9:55, Swiss precision or plain dumb luck.
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The seller was already there, had put all the bits and pieces in the trailer (lots of bits and pieces) and it was (almost ) ready to go – one tire looked a wee tiny little bit low. A tour around the Casita revealed that the seller was pretty honest regarding the condition of the camper, but when my sleep-deprived road-tired mind saw, touched and felt for the first time the extent of the project, the Dierks Bentley song came to my mind: “I know what I was feeling but what was I thinking?”
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Anyhow, money was exchanged for a fiberglass hull on wheels filled with an assortment of fiberglass junk and a title, and we wobbled off to the next gas station for air.
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From there we headed downtown San Antonio, parked our rig, visited the Alamo (I thought that was where Texans fought Mexicans, but apparently the Alamo is under Chinese invasion now) and treated ourselves for a good lunch at the famous Riverwalk (absolutely worth a visit).
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Refreshed, we started our return trip back to Georgia. Back on I-10, a strong headwind caused the Jeep to guzzle fuel any drunken sailor would have been proud of. Our plan was to look for a hotel East of Houston, which we gladly did; our batteries were about as empty as the Jeep's tank.
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Next morning, the world looked a lot better, the project Casita more manageable, the wind shifted to a favorable tail wind and off we sailed East North East.
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The Casita pulled like a dream, fuel mileage dramatically improved over the previous day, hardly noticed that it was there, just over some really bad section of concrete slab interstate in Louisiana, it appeared the trailer is trying to twerk with the Jeep. Really enjoyed the drive through the bayous, which I normally always hit at night and never did not realized how pretty it is.
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In Meridian MS we fueled up with the cheapest gas we found on the way at $3.09, but that Pilot gas station was definitely not secret it appeared that everybody with a motor vehicle or a gas can was there pumping gas, traffic was backed up to almost the interstate. From there last stretch through Birmingham home.
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Around 10PM, 2,033 miles in 33 hours 48 minutes driving time, I parked the Casita #2 (she might have earned herself the name Miley after the twerking incident) in the garage. Now let the real fun begin!
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To be continued ...
