Day 12 - Huntsville, AL - Conway, AR

We had a great stay at our Huntsville hotel, just across the interstate from the U.S. Space Center and Space Camp.  After getting up and going in record time for us (we were on vacation time remember) we drove around the Space Center.  Franklin will be at camp here in November, so he feels like he has a leg up on his classmates now!  Following that, we made a stop at the local REI as I needed/wanted a few items, grabbed some donuts (again...vacation), and headed back east to Scottsboro.

Everyone found at least a little something back at the Unclaimed Baggage Center and we considered it a success returning.  After a quick bite to eat, we were headed back west and beginning our final leg home.  We did make a very brief stop at Toyota Field in Madison, AL (really just a suburb of Huntsville) to see the home of the Trash Pandas baseball team.  Jason and Franklin had hoped to be able to get some photos of the stadium itself up close, but an afternoon game was just beginning so we weren't able to get up to the field.

The remainder of the day was spent cruising home.  I drove from Scottsboro to Memphis where we picked up some Commissary BBQ and Huey's for dinner (very yummy!).  Jason took the reins the rest of the way home and we arrived at about 10:30 pm.  My own bed and shower were quite lovely for sure.  And we even brought some cooler weather and storms to our friends in Arkansas today.

It was a fantastic trip, even with the COVID modifications we had to make.  And we were so grateful to have done it in Vansen!  Here's to more road trips to come!

Day 11 - Augusta, GA - Huntsville, AL

Our longest driving day of the whole trip was today.  We headed out of Augusta mid-morning bound for an auto museum we accidentally missed last week on our journey east.  Along the way, we saw a "brown sign" at our exit for the Laurel and Hardy Museum.  We decided to made a quick, unplanned detour south and were treated to a great local museum in Harlem, GA.  Oliver Hardy was born there and the town has a festival for its famous comedian yearly.  The museum is housed in a really nicely preserved old downtown theatre building.  We took a few moments to look at the artifacts and watch a movie clip or two before loading back up and heading north.

We grabbed some of the best fast-food chicken ever at a local chain called Guthrie's.  They only serve chicken strips, but the flavor is what you normally get with homemade fried chicken.  Delicious!  We soon arrived in Clarkesville, GA at the Miles Through Time Automotive Museum only to find a CLOSED sign on the door.  A check of Facebook showed they had staffing problems and weren't going to be able to open (they posted it 1 hr before our arrival).  Sigh.  So...we took a 90 minute jaunt off the main road for nothing, except a lovely drive through a surprisingly pretty north Georgia.

Our next stop was the Unclaimed Baggage Store in Scottsboro, AL and we dodged a few pop-up summer storms along the way.  We arrived about 45 minutes before closing and were surprised at the inventory.  So much so we are returning tomorrow just to have a bit more time to look around.  The store is quite a big "department" store with items that were lost mostly due to airlines misplacing luggage or passengers leaving items on the plane.  Additionally, the store has some of its more unusual finds hung up on the walls:  a McDonalds sign, a large unicycle, antique typewriters, etc.

We soon turned west and headed for Huntsville, our final stop for the night.  A severe storm blew up right over us so we pulled off and hung out under a bank awning.  Vansen doesn't handle high winds very well!  Once the storm moved on, we entered the highway again and were soon at a outdoor shopping complex near our hotel.  We wanted to visit the Rocket City Trash Pandas store!  The Trash Pandas are a new minor league baseball team in Huntsville.  Their first season was to have been in 2020, but COVID sunk that, so this is their inaugural season.  The team began selling merchandise in 2018 and by the next year, they'd already sold over $2 million, all without a pitch even being thrown.

Our Drury Hotel was our final stop (after snagging some Mexican food for dinner in the room).  We can see the U.S. Space and Rocket Center from our room, which Franklin will visit later this year for Space Camp.  We even got to witness a pretty good lightning storm as another round of unsettled weather moved through.  One more day on the road tomorrow as we wind this whirlwind trip down.

**Thanks to my travel buddy, Jason Hansen, for most of the photos today!

Day 6 - Columbia - Pawleys Island, SC

We didn't spend any time in Columbia, but rather hit the road after breakfast to head southeast to a unique national park I didn't even know existed prior to my planning this trip:  Congaree National Park.  Congaree is the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States.  Its 26,000+ acres became a National Park in 2003, yet remains one of the least visited in the system.

It was lush, verdant, muggy, but not buggy so we enjoyed our 2.6 mile hike on the Boardwalk Loop Trail.  We encountered many different types of trees including bald cypress and tupelo trees in the lowest elevations and loblolly pines, oaks, maples and palmettos in other parts.  We even saw wildlife:  numerous spiders, squirrels, snakes, alligator gar, and an armadillo.  This was a great park and I'd encourage anyone coming through central South Carolina to take a jaunt off the main roads and go see it!

After Congaree, we continued east and grabbed a quick lunch at Sumter before turning Vansen southeast for our main destination of our trip:  Pawleys Island.  We arrived at the Hampton Inn before dinner for once.  We got our many bags unloaded and Jason, Franklin, and I hopped back in Vansen for Myrtle Beach.  Jason and Franklin had tickets to see the Myrtle Beach Pelicans play (the lower-A baseball farm team for the Chicago Cubs).  After dropping them off, I headed back to the hotel where the rest of us learned that many restaurants here are closed on Sunday.  Additionally, during "peak" season many restaurants stop doing take-out/to-go orders because their dining rooms are too busy.  Good for the economy, but bad for us when we aren't eating inside a restaurant.  Fortunately we did find an amazing local spot and we enjoyed yet another great meal, back at the hotel room.  A short time later I drove back up to Myrtle Beach to pick up the guys.

We're hear for several days now and beach time is on the agenda for tomorrow.

Day 2 - Florence, AL - Chattanooga, TN

After a good first night in Florence, we headed east through northern Alabama and southern Tennessee.  The clouds were really pretty during our drive and I was surprised with how hilly the area is.  We always take a look at our Roadside America app to find neat little stops along the way, and it didn't disappoint today.  Shortly before lunch we rolled into Cowen, TN where someone has restored a 1936 Texaco gas station.  Unfortunately it's only open Thursday-Sunday, but we were able to walk around and peek in the windows.  Cowen also still has its original 1904 train depot which is now a museum (also only open Thursday-Sunday).

Next up was Sewanee, and the University of the South.  I had never visited before and was impressed with the campus.  Leaded glass windows, sandstone building exteriors, and All Saint's Chapel were just some of the highlights.  The town itself was small, but very verdant with old, full trees everywhere.

We arrived in Monteagle, TN around lunchtime and after placing an online order at Mountain Goat Market, a great looking lunch spot, we popped into Mountain Outfitters to kill time (and shop) while our lunch was being prepared.  Everyone but Caroline found something to buy.  A short time later we were lunching in Vansen on amazingly good sandwiches followed up by some homemade desserts.  Yum!

An hour down the road, and into the Eastern Time Zone, we soon arrived at our hotel in downtown Chattanooga.  We're at a Springhill Suites right along the river and while it's busy, folks here are still keeping their distance.  While Jason and Franklin headed off to the local minor league baseball game (the Chattanooga Lookouts), Caroline, the girls, and I rented bikes right at our hotel for an evening ride along the Tennessee River and into the downtown area.  Along the way we noticed a yacht parked in the river and approaching it were swimmers with brightly colored buoys attached to them.  Turns out there is a club here called C.O.W.S (Chattanooga Open Water Swimmers) that swim the Tennessee River every Wednesday evening.  There's also a subset of kayakers that paddle along with them.  Most of the swimmers were truly swimming, some were floating with the current.  Turns out they went 3.85 miles tonight and we saw them at the end.  Wow!

After returning to the hotel, we retrieved dinner from a local chain called Puckett's and enjoyed dinner in our room.  Another great meal for sure!  After a few games of Catchphrase and Hangman the girls were soon scrapbooking and the boys returned from the game.  We don't have far to drive tomorrow which affords us an opportunity to stop often and maybe even hike!