August 30 East Coast geography lesson or "watching the eye of a hurricane'

I never paid much attention to my United States geography in grade school but sure am learning it on this trip. Since our Sunday departure from our RV park north of Allentown, PA, we have been watching the approach and onslaught of the hurricane south of us. Our hearts go out to those who have experienced the direct impact of the storm. What a nightmare for them.

We are currently traveling southeast toward the home of our good friends, Jim and Linda Buckner who live in Fayetteville Arkansas. (Jim was one of the good friends we made on our Vietnam trip this past March.) Spent a good deal of time studying the map and watching the news reports to be certain we would not be driving ourselves and our motor home into any treacherous conditions spinning off the edge of the storm as it moves north.

Last night as we sat at a truck stop just west of Indianapolis, Indiana we watched a parade of power company boom trucks fuel up and head south…we presume to help with recovery efforts. Another parade of tree trimming/branch chipping trucks appeared to be staging themselves to assist with any after affects as well. In Indiana, they were expecting heavy rains and winds up to 25 mph as the day wears on. Our path of travel will take us along the edge of those same storm effects but not into anything worse.

The other effect we observed was the changing of the prices at the truck stop…a full 30 cents from $2.69 to $2.99 per gallon and that was for the middle grade. They did not even have high enough numbers to post for the premium grade. We were pleased that we had already topped off our diesel yesterday at $2.49 a gallon.

We will arrive in Fayetteville on Friday after we have some maintenance work done on our motor home in Springfield Missouri on our way through. Can you imagine we are already over 10,000 miles on our coach? Many people do not put on that many miles in a year or two. We feel so fortunate to be able to do this.

Greetings to all out there reading this. Take care and keep in touch…by the way we are still checking both e-mail addresses…sgtstocker@centurytel.net and our pocketmail address…send us an electronic “howdy” when you get a chance.