Louisiana to Illinois

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Yesterday we set the alarm for 4:30 to check the weather. There were differences in the predicted time of arrival of the heavy rains. We reviewed the radar and decided we had to either hurry and get on the road immediately or we would need to wait until 11 am or noon to depart. Heavy rain was on the way. We decided to leave and jumped out of bed and started doing the last minute packing. Joe, Charley, Gary and Abby were real troopers and got up to give us hugs. We pulled out of Francis Asbury campground at 5:34. It was lightly raining at that time. We were very blessed with only light to occasional moderate rain and no storms for the long travel day. We headed out on I-12 and then turned north on I-55 after about 30 minutes. We remained on I-55 crossing into Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and finally into Missouri. After Jackson, MS, we left most of the rain behind and picked up the love bugs. We prefer the rain. We stopped about every two hours for walks in the rest areas and driver change. The interstate was the worst in the Memphis area.

Shortly after crossing into Missouri, we stopped at the Welcome Center in Hayti. This rest area has a short walking trail and lots of sidewalks to walk. When we went inside the Welcome Center they were celebrating tourist information week by giving visitors free hot dogs and cookies. Nice. Also nice, Missouri allows overnight parking in rest areas so we parked, walked, ate and called it a day. We had been listening to a hilarious audio book, Murder Makes Waves by Anne George for he whole trip and only had about an hour left on it when we arrived. So after our walk we finished listening instead of writing a blog entry. The book is part of a Southern Sisters series that is set in and around Birmingham, Alabama. This particular book was mostly about the Destin area. We laughed a lot on our drive yesterday.

We slept well and were on the road again about 7:00 this morning. We continued north on I-55 through St Louis. We noticed yesterday and again today the severe flooding of the MS river. We also learned that Zachary, a community a little north of Baton Rouge was evacuating some people from their homes due to the rain of yesterday. We passed the beautiful arch in St Louis and it was on to Pawnee, IL and Midwest Mission Distribution Center. We will be helping to complete an addition to the warehouse. It was pouring rain when we arrived so we haven’t toured the job site yet, but we did spend the afternoon visiting with our dear friends Richard and Dianne. Thankful for safe travel.