May 29 Day 5

Where are Tom and Lennie Now? - Click here for our current location !

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Day 5 brings a major change of plans to our trip.  We originally planned to head along the Gulf coast today to Wakulla FL, then on through Jacksonville to Savannah and Charleston on Wednesday and Thursday.  One little issue, this pesky tropical storm Beryl was in our way.  The storm came ashore near Jacksonville on Tuesday.  It moved inland for a while and is now heading back to the Northeast and eventually will go back out to sea.  However, while hanging out over Jacksonville, it dumped 12-14 inches of rain, knocked out power to a large area, and created some pretty nasty smaller storms over the Southeast.

With the forecasted path of Beryl heading right over Savannah and Charleston, we made a choice to reroute the remainder of our trip.  So, we'll have to visit Savannah another time  :(

Our new trip plans are to spend today heading to Atlanta GA, then travel to the Deals Gap area on Wednesday.  We will then spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday around Deals Gap (The Tail of the Dragon), the Blue Ridge Parkway, Boone NC, Blowing Rock, etc.   That will leave us Sunday and Monday to head home through Marietta OH.  

So, we said goodbye to the Gulf and headed Northeast toward Atlanta.

Another reminder that this area serves as home to the Blue Angels.

As we passed through Alabama, we ran across two more auto plants.  This Hyundai plant...

And this Kia plant.  I did not have time to look at which vehicles are made at these plants, but I am pretty sure that the Kia Sorrento is built here.

The "Big Rim Syndrome" that we saw earlier in Mississippi appears to have caught on in Alabama as well.  This guy sat waiting at a stop light with us, sporting some bright chrome 23 inchers with teeny tiny rubber on his Honda Accord :)  I think the rims must have cost more than the car (imagine me shaking my head in amusement).

Back into the eastern time zone as we cross the border from Alabama to Georgia.

As the day falls behind us, and the shadows get longer, Lennie gets bored !!

Tomorrow we will spend most of our time on back roads heading toward Robbinsville NC.  Then we'll take a ride across the Cherohala Skyway and up to Lenoir City TN for the night.  Hopefully the weather will be cooler and dry up that way.

As a wrap for today - we traveled 333 miles from Pensacola Beach FL to Atlanta GA.  This brings our trip total to 1618 miles.  Below is a map of today's route.