Continuing South

We are on our next-to-last leg of our journey southward. Today we'll settle in Summerdale, AL at Rainbow Plantation for a few days before finally arriving at our winter home in Bonifay, FL.
 
It's been a fairly uneventful trip thus far. I say “fairly” because we did have a bit of excitement Saturday evening. We had planned for a long driving day as we had about 18 hours and 3 days of driving in front of us to get to Summerdale. So, we figured we'd do a long day the first day and have a couple of easy days. Good plan, right?
 
And you all know I love a plan. :) We were right on schedule, too. We stopped six and a half hours in for to fuel up – both the truck and us – in Russellville, AR at a Flying J. Then, we were back on the road, heading to MM198 on I-40E for an overnight at that rest stop. As my FB friends know, that's where things took a different turn.
 
There was road work going on right before our stop and, of course, this construction closed the rest stop at MM198!! Now, couldn't “they” have put up a sign stating that the rest stop was closed? No, that would be too easy. So, the scramble was on to find another place to overnight. At this point, it was after 6pm and we'd been traveling for about 9 hours. Randy was pretty much done. Thankfully, at MM233, there was a Love's Truck Stop. YAY! We found a spot, pulled in and heaved a sigh of relief. We could rest now. 
 
Or could we?
 
We are not boondockers and do not have a generator. So, when we overnight somewhere “off the grid,” we rely on our RV batteries to provide light and heat, if needed. And they do a fine job of that for one night. Until Saturday night. For some reason, I checked the battery gauge – I never do that! I'm glad I did, though, because the batteries were showing only 10v and normally it's 12v. Needless to say, we didn't have much battery power, but hoped it would be enough to keep frig operating on propane. 
 
We went to bed. I got up about midnight and checked the frig and it was still on. YAY. Seems like we'd squeak by. 
 
Or would we?
 
Out of a sound sleep, I sat up in bed at 3:30am. No sound woke me, but I knew I should get up. So, I did. (I've learned those “unexplained” nudges are usually God telling me to do something.) I checked the frig and the display read “C.” I've never seen that before! I figured we'd run out of battery juice. I debated whether to wake Randy or not, but it didn't take me long to decide. I woke him up about 3:45 and told him what was going on.
 
With both of us wide awake now, we figured we might as well get some coffee from the truck stop and hit the road. That would charge the batteries and we'd keep the frig on propane for awhile to get it cold again. And it worked.
Sure, we were moving very early, but it was kinda nice actually. We'd gotten about five hours of sleep so we were awake. And at that time of day, there was hardly anyone else on the road! Very peaceful drive. We stopped about 6:30am at Cracker Barrel for a nice breakfast and then continued on our way to our next stop in Florence, MS.
 
We arrived at Wendy Oaks RV Resort just past 10:30am – probably our earliest arrival ever! Thankfully, we were able to get our site right away. 
 
Always an adventure! Grateful for God's provision and grace out here on the road. 
 
Until the next time . . .