Heading for Florida

Left this morning at 7:45.  These pictures are out of order so I am going to caption each and fill in with text as I can.  This is a tug boat on the Ohio River.  Everyone in this part of the country has had lots of rain.  Most of the rivers were out of their banks.

Last night Nashville had two EF3 tornadoes that did a lot of damage to downtown Nashville and other parts of the city.  We stopped at the Welcome Center just inside the Tennessee line.  I-40 was closed along with some other highways around Nashville.  We needed to know how to get around or through Nashville to I-65 South.  We were told to take the Briley Parkway East around Nashville to I65 South.  We did see some houses missing roofs as we drove around the city.  The entrance onto I65 South wasn't well marked so we missed our turn and took a small tour of a part of the city.  Thankfully for GPS and a small rig (Blazer and small U-Haul) we were able to get back on track.

By the time we crossed the Alabama line it was nearly 4:00 p.m. and we had two more hours to drive.  Made it to the Quality Inn in Pelham at 6:30.  We had driven nearly 11 hours.  Keegan was a great passenger.  We hardly knew he was in the back seat.  We unloaded and walked to a nearby Burger King for supper.   We are now in the room, recovering from the 11 hour drive.  I haven't checked the mileage but feel certain that we drove at least 600 miles.  

Here we are:  ready to go with big smiles on our faces.

We stopped at the Metropolis Rest Area and took this picture of Keegan.  He makes a great Superman!

Jason looks especially happy to see us go.  I think he will enjoy his alone time with Frosty.

I took Sandy to the Kennel at 6:30 and this was the sunrise I saw.  It was a great day to drive with sunshine all the way.

This is where Sandy will spend the next six days while we are
away from Illinois.  She is well taken care of here.

It was a long day but we made it to our first destination.  Tomorrow we will be in Winter Haven.  We lose an hour when we cross into EST so it will be another long day.