Day 1 - Change the trip? Of course

I should know better.  I shouldn't get approval from the co pilot for trip plans, then assume that we will follow those plans.  Never.
Today, we left St Augustine as planned, at 0740, actually 10 minutes ahead of schedule. First stop was supposed to be Wal Mart in Cordele Ga, so I could unhook and then do a circle tour of 2 National Parks, then return to Cordele, so we would have a restful night, blah blah.

Wrong. 

We instead headed directly to Plains, Georgia, and did Jimmy Carter National Historical Site, for the 3rd time, but I now have all the stamps finally from that park, and have officially now visited both of the locations, which we hadn't done before. Score.

Then, we chugged 19 miles up the road to visit Andersonville National Historical Site, again here, for the 3rd time, so I could pick up the 2 stamps I had been missing from this park.  Score. 

By now, its maybe 330, and we decided to go for it all and head to Macon Ga, about 70 miles away, to catch Ocmulgee National memorial, so I could get the missing 25th Anniversary stamp I needed from there.  Got it!  Score. 

By now, it was 5 pm, so we picked out a Wal Mart up I-75, which turned out to be where we are now, McDonough, GA, about 60 miles or so south of Lake Allatoona, and we will now be there tomorrow, a day ahead of schedule, which actually works out better, since we can visit Bill and Dan and family on Sun Afternoon evening, which should work out, and now, I can reschedule and shuffle around my Atlanta visit stuff, and now it looks like I will be able to now get the three North Georgia Trail of Tears spots, which had dropped off earlier, since they are only open Wednesday to Saturday.    Score. 

Tale of the tape today: 

425 Total miles,  7.7 mpg avg., 54 gals of fuel used.  9:45 total travel time, Max speed 70, avg speed moving 52, total avg speed 44.  No coach issues, Fueled up twice, a smidge in Florida at 4.05 a gal, and then a big fill just before McDonough at 3.80. 

We ate dinner out at Denny's, since we were both a little tired- had lunch on the run, and breakfast was a home this morning.  Did a Wal Mart run for provisions after we stopped for the night. 

Tomorrow, we have about 61 miles up to Lake Allatoona just north of brother Bill and Dan north of Atlanta.  Suspect we'll get in around 11ish, then head on down to Bills, since we now have a free day.  Monday will be Metro Atlanta parks, Tuesday the Arabia Mountain sequence, and the Wednesday the Trail of tears stops.  We leave Thursday for Greenwood. 

Weather today was beautiful, High was 80 late in the day, lower 70's for most of the morning, bright sunshine.

Now, we're good, unless Bette decides to change any more of the trip....
We talked at length today about the possibilites of the 2013 trip, which is centered around a big family reunion in south central Missouri over July 4th, Bette has agreed that I should go with the original plan to do the midwest, and places we haven't been to yet, like Michigan, Minnesota, and such.  Glad to get that settled, so now I can go back to real planning again. 

May fly out to Tucson/San Diego in Feb, and do a Florida swing in April including Key West area, which is on the bucket list. 

All is good, Great to be back on the road again and see how much Buster enjoys traveling! 

Saw this at the rest stop at Georgia State line, had to laugh.  FDR knew what a good thing he had down there!!!

Looking forward to seeing the fam tomorrow.