Dec. 30, 2008
We left Mazon at about 7 a.m. in nice weather - temperature about 20 degrees. Lots of tree branches down all the way to at least Forest, presumably from the same ice storm we had. Lots of water standing in the fields to about Effingham. Ate lunch at Bob Evans in Marion (near Carbondale) - temp. about 58 degrees. Just before crossing the Ohio River at Paducah, saw cows in pasture eating green grass (yes, GREEN grass, not the dead brown stuff!). The Ohio was up some, into the trees lining the banks, and looked very muddy and ugly. Highway in KY was very rough - like IL roads! Just north of Nashville, temp. 64 degrees. Nice! Stayed at Murfreesboro, TN, (about 40 miles south of Nashville) at Ramada Express. On TV - U.of I. basketball team beat no.11 Purdue AT Purdue, in overtime. Good game. Now their record is about 12 and 1. Will that get them into top 25? Will this be another year for a good NCAA tournament run?

Dec 31
Nice breakfast at motel, including waffles. Left about 7:30, temp about 30. Pretty cold for them. On the radio, one guy was predicting very cold for New Year’s Eve - all the way down to 25! He doesn’t know cold - no zeros down here. Very sunny day. Lots of traffic through Chattanooga. Just before Chattanooga, get into steep short mountains, winding road, trucks going very slow up, then zooming by on the way down. I like the tree-covered slopes - Linda likes more rolling with pastures and cows. I like that a lot too - much better than the flat lands! Road surface in TN is excellent. Lots of traffic at Atlanta, as always. Ate lunch about 40 miles south of Atlanta at a Cracker Barrel. They had a fire going in the fireplace - temp outside about 52, kind of cool for them. Lots of road work between Macon and Valdosta, our stop for tonight. Lots of 50 - 60 mph speed limits and narrow road with cement dividers about 1 foot away. Almost got hit by a truck changing lanes without looking. About 50 miles north of Valdosta, we saw some fluffy white ’stuff’ on the edge of the road in the grass. Looked like someone lost a lot of stuffing from something. Then we saw a field of cotton, with a ’combine’ picking cotton, and some of it was blowing away. We also saw several farmers tilling up fields, maybe cotton fields already harvested. Of course, there are lots of peaches and pecans for sale. Stopped at about 5 p.m. and the temp was up to 64 again. Stayed at a brand new Wingate, very nice, even complimentary beer and wine from 5 to 6 - very good Merlot and Chardonnay.