In Little Rock, Arkansas (Day 6)

We traveled 371 miles today from Nashville to Little Rock on I-40, the same route we followed in the spring when we made our cross-country trip.  I prefer to travel different roads, but I-40 is the easiest and the most direct route to Flagstaff, Arizona, where our grandchildren, Ethan and Eleni, are waiting for us.  

Tonight we are comfortably situated at the Family Camp at Little Rock Air Force Base.  As I’ve mentioned before, one of the benefits of military retirement is the privilege to use Navy, Marine, Army and Air Force campgrounds and recreational areas around the world.  We have stayed at a good many in the USA over the past six years.  This is our first visit to the FamCamp at Little Rock.  If all goes well tomorrow we’ll be at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma by mid-afternoon.

I received  a “dash cam” as a birthday gift and we can now video our travel down the highways and byways.  I’ve tried for the past two days to share a video or two on FB, but without success.  I’ll keep trying and perhaps you’ll soon be able to sit with me in Odysseus’ cockpit and travel through the Shenandoah Valley in VA and see the skylines of Nashville and Memphis.  These 3 minute videos also record sound—so you might even hear “my music” playing and perhaps even hear me singing along, or perhaps you might hear me saying other things!  I guess I better do a careful edit before posting them.

I-40 is a major truck route with thousands upon thousands of 18-wheelers hauling all the stuff we need and use everyday.  Typically, the truck driver is the most courteous of all other drivers on the road.  There are a few outlaws as there are in every “grouping” we know, whether clergy, physician, police or any other basket of apples.  During much of today’s drive, I felt like Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields must have felt in the movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”  I was caught in a convoy the whole day long!  The experience made me aware of how much our society depends on the truckers—they are a lifeline for all of us!

The Batman Building in
Nashville (or AT&T)