Daily Archive for April 10th, 2008

Iron butt 2, the long drive home

After my insane two-day, 30 hours of driving to Arizona, I decided the return would be a little different. I decided to take a different, more southern route over three days.

In hind site, and looking at the coverage of weather, I am so glad I made a change to my return route.

I have never driven the southern route to or from my Mom’s house. So, after a breakfast on Tuesday, I packed up the car and left Mesa, via US 60 headed east to Globe. Then US 70 to connect with I-10 in New Mexico and through El Paso, Texas.

Travels home, Mesa, AZ to South Lebanon, Ohio.
View of I-10 from Rest Area, Las Cruces, New Mexico.

After El Paso, I continued on I-10, and then I-20 towards Dallas. I stopped in Midland, Texas, for the night and spent 30 minutes looking for a motel with an available room. At 11 p.m., and my third stop, I found America’s Best Inn to be clean and affordable. I only wish I had slept better for the next day’s drive.

Wednesday started out in drizzle and continued until about noon when I neared Dallas. It was evident there had been plenty of rain recently. In Arkansas, it was even more evident–flooded farm fields and some side roads visible near the interstate. I stopped in Memphis for the night, anticipating a shorter drive the next day.

Travels home, Mesa, AZ to South Lebanon, Ohio.
I-71/75, Covington, Kentucky, approaching the Ohio River and Cincinnati.

Today, after checking the weather, I loaded into the car and drove home. It’s great to be home again. There were no weather issues–I seemed to be in front of all that stormy weather.

Just the facts:

  • Tuesday–11.5 hours, 693 miles
  • Wednesday–13 hours, 822 miles
  • Thursday–8 hours, 505 miles

In hind site, I luckily missed a lot of stormy weather in Texas and Arkansas. Had I taken the northern route, I would have been driving through all of that storm in Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana!

The Hill Country of Texas sure was pretty. That would be a great route for the motorcycle. Gee! Isn’t that what I planned originally?–DBrent