Dixie

We drove a long, long, long time...Man, what a great feeling when we hit the northern border of Montana! We tent camped at the entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary's; chilly, but, finally, a NICE campsite! It would actually turn out to be our last one, because it took us to about noon to break camp, and we were looking to make better time than that; we hit Hinton, Montana in the very southeast of the state the next day, but this time we crashed in a KOA Kabin; just a bunkbed and a big bed, but it was great, we got in super late (12:30) and for about $20 extra, no setting up/taking down the tent. Hit the road a few hours early and decided to just see how far we could get. It started to get late (Christina doesn't like driving at night) so I called the Sioux Falls KOA on the Iowa border, but they were all full, so we pushed on an extra 100 miles to Sioux City in the southeast of South Dakota, getting in, again, at 12:30 (but we lost an hour crossing into Central, so it felt like 11:30). We had 850 miles to go until Southaven, MS and Aunt Linda/Uncle Daryl, and we were about sick of driving (had been living in the car for 10 days), so we just pushed it; Christina was even telling me to speed (during the day) so we did 80/85 through Iowa and most of Missouri until it got a little to late and we had to slow down. Finally hit Memphis at midnight, and things got pretty intense. We got on an exit ramp and, oh shit, there's a cement wall on either side of the exit, I about sideswiped it because the wall started on a curve, and then we had to squeeze our Navigator in between the wall, which was right on the side of the road, no shoulder, and between the cars that were zooming past us. Following I-55 S entailed a lot of last-second lane switching, and one time the exit ramp for 55 instantly became an exit ramp for some random street, with 55 two lanes over; had to exit and drive by some hopping nightclub (Golden Oldies or something), turn around half-blind (from all the lights bouncing off the bug splatters on the windshield) and get back on the road...got into Southaven at 1 am! Man, it was nice to visit with family, though, have been relaxing in Mississippi for the past day and a half! Tomorrow we head back to the ole Chapel HIll!