Through Big D and Little Rock

The drive east has continued pretty uneventfully. I have mostly encountered only safe drivers and there has been no weather at all to speak of since the west coast. Just sunny skies and high temperatures. The most drama has been the constant presence of the highway patrol in every state I’ve driven through. I haven’t gotten any tickets yet and don’t plan on it. Using the cruise control I keep my speed no more than 5 mph over and it has been working good. The speed limits are pretty high… from 70 to 80mph depending on the area. Yesterday was driving from where I camped in Texas, about 230 miles west of Dallas, and then I took 20-E all the way to 30-E and now I’m on 40-E. I plan to continue on with 40-E and go through Memphis. I’ll probably stop in Memphis for lunch and drive around for a short while. Looks like 40-E goes through some nice scenery so that’ll be a change from the straight flat and boring drive through most of Texas.

So I got to Little Rock, Arkansas around 8PM last night. It was still a bit light but my goal was to get some food and a couple of drinks. I succeeded in having some food and beers in downtown Little Rock. After that I decided I wanted to drive at least another hour and I made it to a hotel in Brinkley, AR. Hotel rates are pretty cheap here. I got my room for under $50. It’s not a dinky piece of crap place either. It’s fairly nice place especially for the money.

Anyway so I’m basically a 2 day drive from home so I’m a day ahead of schedule. So after looking at the maps I have come up with 3 routes. The first route is keep straight on the interstates and just get home the direct route. I’d probably be home tomorrow night. Another route is to take the Blueridge Parkway up and camp somewhere along that. It’d be a much slower road and I’d take the time to do some light sight seeing. And the final route is to continue all the way to the Atlantic coast and then take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel up and get to see the lower half of the MD/VA eastern shore. If I did that I’d probably camp say somewhere around Assateague or something. I haven’t decided which way I’m going to go yet. I’ll figure it out after I put some significant miles behind me. I should get out of here!