Year 3 Day 255 – “Living the Dream”. Friday, 1/12/2024. Day 1 of 12-day winter 2024 vacation. Drove from Science Hill, KY to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Steve says this morning, “It’s been a long time since we have been on vacation”. He is so funny. Even on vacation we are looking at kitchen cabinet designs.
We are on the quest to step foot in every state. Our drive today took us from Kentucky through Tennessee and Alabama to Mississippi. We are spending the night in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It rained fairly hard for most of the drive.
Our first stop in the morning was at the Tennessee welcome center on Interstate 65. It was pouring and the wind was 23 mph. The desk attendant in the center told Steve to hang onto me so I didn’t blow away. The second stop was for gas and then coffee at a White Bison Coffee shop. Founded in 2017, White Bison Coffee has 15 locations in the middle Tennessee area and four in north Alabama. I had never heard of this coffee chain before. A 12-ounce coffee was $2.69, and you served yourself. Kind of expensive and kind of strong. For lunch we did a drive thru at McDonalds. The McDonalds coffee was $1.39, and it was excellent I did throw the White Bison coffee away.
We drove about 600 miles today.
When we stopped in Hattiesburg at 4pm the sun was shining and it was in the low 60’s, but very very windy. I had never heard of Hattiesburg, Mississippi before this trip. The region around Hattiesburg was involved in testing during the development of weapons in the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. In the 1960s, two nuclear devices were detonated in the salt domes near Lumberton, Mississippi, about 28 miles southwest of Hattiesburg. Extensive follow-up of the area by the EPA has not revealed levels of nuclear contamination in the area that would be harmful to human. I hope that is the truth. Hattiesburg was also one of the areas hit very hard in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Around 10,000 structures in the area received major damage of some type. 80 percent of the city’s roads were blocked by trees, and power was not fully restored in the area for 14 days. That storm killed 24 people in the area. This area is in the Pine Belt area, famous for its abundance of longleaf pine trees. Many miles before entering the town limits, the sides of the highway were Dense on both sides with pine trees. South of Hattiesburg is Camp Shelby, which is the largest US National Guard training base east of the Mississippi River. It hosts around 100,000 National Guardsmen and reservist annually.
We are staying in a Hilton Garden Inn that is pretty old. Very weird the restaurant in the hotel is dark at 6pm and it is Friday night. The person at the front desk said nobody showed up to open the restaurant tonight. She had already called her manager and reported it. Wonder if they will be serving breakfast in the morning? It was an Olive Garden night for us.
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Things to ponder today! Have to leave you thinking.
To view the complete daily diary, click here – This starts at Year 1 Day 1: Living the Dream – Deestimes – Make every step of the journey count