Before there was much light, I left the church parking lot and continued on the 2 lane highway, which became 4 lanes. Soon, I stopped at the most beautiful rest stop, and it wasn't even on an interstate highway. It was well kept, and had good gardening work, but more importantly, it has recycle bins for glass and plastic bottles. There was even a very short boardwalk to the clean restrooms. The only complaint I have was that the sensors in the bathroom were way too sensitive.
The odd thing about this rest stop is it has a sign for no overnight parking. I suspect this is because of possible crime in the area, and they want to protect the driving public. Nevertheless, a van and a 18-wheeler were resting up, and so did I until around 9 a.m.
With no more money left to gamble, it was all driving from North Carolina towards Texas. I had a few bucks left, but that was necessary for food and possibly one more camping night. The next state was Georgia, which I wanted to avoid as much as possible. Back in 1994 when I passed through here, I stopped at a Wal-mart in a small town in southern Georgia (currently, I was in northern Georgia about 75 miles north of Atlanta), and I ran into a racial incident with 2 young guys at the store. During that road trip, Georgia and Tennessee were the 2 places this occured. So I wasn't very thrilled with driving through Georgia.
For some reason, probably the Potomac water, I still had a slight bit of upset stomach, but tolerable. I stopped at a state park and asked the female attendant if I could drive through and use the restroom, and suprisingly, she said no, and I would have to pay the entrance fee. That took me by suprise because it was the first time I had ever been turned down to enter to use the restrooms. I decided to exit and head off to another park. It would not have been fair of me to think it was racial bias which caused the attendant not to let me enter, she was obeying park rules, but maybe to much too the point.
Amazingly, I came across Angoria State Park, the southern trailhead to the Appalachian Trail, a thru-hike I have wanted to do for the past year, which was why I started purchasing my camping equipment. The lady attendant here was a little nicer because she let me in after I confirmed I would only be in and out quickly. After I exited the park, I waved thank you and good bye to her. One day within the next 3 years, I have a feeling I will be back here, except without a car as I do the thru-hike. If not the Appalachian Trail, there is also the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.
Probably late April and May are when the thru-hikers start their trip from the southern end of the Appalachian Trail. And probably around September and October, those starting from the northern trailhead in Maine will be finishing their journey at Angoria State Park.
Georgia was hot. Very hot. I stopped by a McDonald's to get a Big Mac combo, but I didn't have much of an appetite for the fries.
The next state was Alabama, which was one of the poorer states in this country, although it does have 3 large cities. Mobile is the city in which Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in. Alabama was one of those states where white supremacists and African-Americans clashed. I don't know too much about it nowadays, but it's bothersome to drive through a state with such an infamous reputation.
The first thing which greeted me in Alabama was a state welcome sign vandalized by some punk. What a great way to let everyone know how clean and safe the state was.
I did stop at an army surplus store to check out any camping gear, but they were a bit pricey, so I didn't buy anything. It's cheaper to buy new light weight gear from online or retail stores, but the army products are high quality. But then it probably has to be considering the horror stories we hear about how the government is always getting ripped off by wholesellers.
The sun was setting and the sky filled with red meeting blue. I just thought how appropriate it was the sun was setting as I entered the final state of this road trip (I had already been to Lousiana).
One of the nicest rest stops of all was at the border of Alabama and Mississippi on Interstate 55. Supposedly, they have 24 hour security surveillance, but I think that means cameras because I didn't see any police vehicles or a police cruiser comes by regularly. But then when I think about it, wass the place safe if it needed 24 hour surveillance. I think it was because it was clean and many truckers and a few cars were already there. Surprisingly, it also had a water and dump station for RVs, which was a first for me to see. How accomodating of them.
In town, I could have stayed at a motel for $25, but decided to pass it up for a camp site. That was a mistake. I figured the cost of living here wasn't very high, and if motel rates are so cheap, then the camp sites must be cheap too! After driving for another hour trying to find this state park, I was disappointed they wanted nearly $20 for a primitive site. Of course, I wouldn't pay the jackals at that park, but then I could just go in and set up camp and leave very early in the morning.
I also made the mistake of filling up in the city thinking it would be much cheaper here than at the gas stations in the small towns. It turns out it was the other way around in this area. All the stations in the city had the same gas prices, so it must be some sort of price fixing because it was about 10 cents cheaper in the country. Even the convenience store chains Diamond Shamrock had the same gas prices as the large oil corporations such as Shell and Texaco.
The alternative plan was to sleep along the interstate at a parking area. When I arrived about an hour later, it was pretty full, mostly 18-wheelers. I was able to rest until 4:30 am, about 4 hours of sleep before disaster occured.
