Home from the South

Our last campground was in Oak Mountain State Park, about 15 miles south of Birmingham, Alabama. This is a huge park, 10,000 acres, with lots to do.
We hiked, saw Peavine Falls and saw the raptors at the rehabilitation center including a rare white vulture.
The birds live in large cages in the woods along a boardwalk. A description for each bird explains why it can’t be released back into the wild.
The next day we drove over 300 miles to Greenville, South Carolina and spent the night in WalMart. We went inside to get permission, and the assistant manager said with a smile, “We welcome you guys.”

It took us about five hours to get home from there. It was a sunny day in the 70’s. All went well until we got near Charlotte where there was roadwork. The two-lane highway turned into one lane and traffic slowed to a crawl. Once we got through, it was smooth sailing. We needed gas, but the prices were so high, we kept pushing ahead, trying to find a cheaper option. There were none, and by the time we got home, we had only six miles of gas left. Talk about cutting it close. All in all we spent as much money on gas on this trip as everything else combined.
We arrived home April 14th, 49 days after we had left and 6,315 miles. (We were gone 50 days on our previous trip to the Maritimes and drove 6,921 miles.) Check back in June when we head to Alaska.