#123 Nomad Diary. 25 February - 3 March 2023. Road Trip Days 4-7. Food Pictures and Final Tallies. Cozy Airbnb in Denton. Darrell's Parents and Sister.

 

I-24 Rest Area on a tiny island in Jasper, Tennessee. Beautiful scenery, picnic area, walking area, clean restrooms.

Saturday. 25. Breakfast and more visiting is compliments of Glenn and Phoebe, Darrell’s youngest brother and his wife, and get us on the road happily. Arrive to Eric and Erin’s for 2 nights. 

Day 4 Road Trip. We drive 335 miles from Kingsport, Tennessee to Athens, Alabama. 

3.54  Stop at TA for 2 complimentary coffees and 2 donuts.

24.59  Lunch at Cracker Barrell.

37.70  Circle K gas fill up in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Dinner at Eric and Erin’s

Stay 2 nights at E&E’s

Erin, Eric and Owen eating a lemon (lol) at Sunday lunch.

Our son Samuel, Owen (1 yr and 5 mos.) and Erin at Tzatiki’s.

Sunday. 26. 

Day 5 Road Trip

Bible class and worship with E&E

46.28 Lunch x4 at Lucia’s Mex 

27.77 Dinner x2 at Tzatziki’s Greek

Owen giving Darrell a big hug! He loves Darrell A LOT! It’s so sweet! We are leaving Monday morning and plan to be back in late July.

Oby’s restaurant in the picture with the Oxford, Mississippi blue water tower in the distance to the right.

Shared Muffaletta at Oby’s

Fruit and strawberry dip is a Side at Oby’s. The dip tastes like a mixture of gelatin, cool whip, strawberries and soft cream cheese.

Cup of Seafood Chowder at Oby’s

A beautiful, tree-lined two lane road we traveled today.

A lot of farm fields we drove by were bright green.

Delfina’s Tex-Mex dinner in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The chicken was spiced and topped with bacon, mushrooms and cheese. Great prices!

I got a vegetarian meal. A mushroom quesadilla that I opened to see the most mushrooms I’ve ever gotten at a Mexican restaurant. I was very pleased!

Monday. 27. 

Day 6 Road Trip. Drive 350 miles Athens, Alabama to Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

Breakfast at E&E’s.

45.65 Gas fill up at 2.99 per gallon.

19.02 Lunch at Oby’s in Oxford, Mississippi. One of our best lunches on this trip! Shared the Muffaletta sandwich with fruit and dip on the side. Darrell got a cup of Seafood Gumbo. Water.

108.10. Overnight stay at Holiday Inn Express.

24.61 at newish and highly rated Delfina’s Mexican.

Our shared lunch plate at Naaman’s BBQ in Texarkana, Texas. Our best meal during this week!!

Driving closer to Dento, it was very dry. The spring green is just beginning. Today is getting to 80 degrees!

Our cozy airbnb by way of gravel drive, is next to the owner’s house with an RV resident parked on the other side of the house. The grassy, treed lot is surrounded by a wooden fence. Outside the fence are newer houses built in standard subdivisions. 

Darrell inside our airbnb. Some of our crates and trunks on either end of the couch.

The bed is comfy. Front door is to the right.

Front door to back door on the living and kitchen side of our airbnb. 

Sunset through the trees looking from our porch.

Tuesday. 28.

Day 7 Road Trip Final Day. Drive 365 miles from Pine Bluff, Arkansas to Denton, Texas. Arrive to our airbnb about 3:30 pm. We check in, unload our truck, go out to dinner (Mexican again! lol) and shop at Kroger for the rest of our grocery list.

Breakfast at Holiday Inn Express.

64.71 Walmart Oil Change for our truck.

54.26 Walmart shopping for our dry pantry items.

21.60 Lunch at Naaman’s BBQ in Texarkana, Texas. Easily the best meal we ate on this road trip! We split a 2 meat and 2 sides lunch, had water to drink, and included a tip.

43.17 Gas fill up at 2.89 per gallon at Circle K west of Texarkana, Texas.

4.21 DQ Blizzard.

Taking Darrell’s Mom to the eye doctor in Dallas. She’s in the front seat and Dad is beside me in the back. (ages 88 and 89)

An embroidery that Mom did decades ago is hanging in their little living room.

Wednesday. 1.

Today we drove Mom with Dad into Dallas for her 4x per year eye appointment. Today it was about 45 minutes driving time one way. We had an address but it was tricky to find. We left early enough to have lunch before her hour long appointment at 12:45. We found the place and had a delicious, fresh-made lunch close by at a casual Mediterranean place. Darrell drove back to Cyndy’s house (where they all live together) and we stayed through the afternoon helping prepare dinner. We drove back to our airbnb and met up with family again at evening Bible class at their congregation located near to our airbnb. We were tired by bedtime! lol.

Dinner prepared and ready for us! Main is a chicken, rice, broccoli casserole that was a ‘Mom recipe’. We ate most of it!

Thursday. 2.

We slept in until 5 or 6 am! Lol! We exercised, fixed breakfast, and went for a short walk. I made my favorite Italian Dressing and packed it up with our salad fixings to take over to eat lunch with Mom and Dad. On our way we drove by the european bakery Ravelin and bought Rye sourdough and some apple cake and a couple of biscotti. Come to find out at lunchtime, Rye sourdough is a favorite of Mom’s! She rarely gets it. We scored! Lol! We stayed all afternoon. Darrell and Dad removed the old dishwasher. We helped prepare dinner for when Cyndy and 15 year old Kylie came home from work and school. We enjoyed family dinner time together. There was a big storm and it interrupted the delivery of Cyndy’s new dishwasher. Meanwhile we washed all the dishes like old times! 

Darrell and I have salads for lunch often. Mimolette, a french cheese is on the cutting board. We get fancy cheeses at Kroger by seeing what has been marked down.   

Quinn on a phone call with us! Oh how I love these little ones!!

Owen on a phone call with us.

Friday. 3.

We slept in again! Went through our morning routine and then did some computer work. Darrell has been working on researching our timelines, calendar and possible ways of exploring New Zealand later in the year. We have other computer work too, including budgets, cost tracking, my Nomad Diary, Darrell’s blog “knowyourbible.org”, and personal correspondence. Cyndy grilled steaks for dinner and we put together salads and baked potatoes with Mom.

Nomad Notes.

Road Trip Totals:

1900-2000 miles in 7 days, 6 nights. 

3 nights with family, and 3 nights at hotels@322.90.

5 gas fill ups@234.22

1 oil change@64.71

tolls@13.55

1 breakfast@26.00

7 lunches@199.58

4 dinners@102.61

6 snacks@34.38

Total costs listed@997.95