Yet another Day 1 of a road trip

The first day on the road brought a surprise. Remember the Great Kneecap Incident? Think it's all healed? I did. I was wrong. The first stop we made (breakfast, about 45 minutes into the trip) revealed a flaw in my thinking. Also a flaw in my leg. It did not like not flexing for 45 minutes. As I opened the door and started to move my leg out, the pain hit. So, for the next several hours of driving, I made an effort to move the leg around from time to time. Not an easy task. There is not enough room to completely stretch out the leg and have the seat in a comfortable position for driving.

I have managed to find a compromise. Mostly just putting up with the pain.

We arrived in Biloxi ahead of schedule. This was not because we found a new shortcut or because we left earlier than we had planned (we left late, as a matter of fact), it was because "we" miscalculated. By "we", of course, I meant "Faye". She forgot to deduct an hour for moving into an earlier time zone. She also unconsciously figured 12 hours instead of 10, thinking...we leave at 7 in the morning for a 10-11 hour trip. That should put us there at 7 PM. We also figured to stop for lunch and dinner but we didn't. The breakfast held up well and we did not get hungry until we were almost in Biloxi. We arrived shortly before 5 PM, Biloxi time.

Very routine trip except for some weird woman driving a Honda who would race up behind me then linger in my left rear "blind spot" when I moved out of her way. Eventually she would drift back or race forward. But she would catch up or slow down until we were close together again. Most often when there were trucks to get around or a "lumping" of traffic. We picked up this traffic parasite when we got on I-10 near Lake City and didn't lose her until after we approached Pensacola. She had finally stopped talking on the phone, too. Yeah, she was yakking away the whole time.

The only other odd thing was the number of police on the road. A lot. That's a good thing if you aren't a scofflaw. Since I set my cruise control at 4 MPH above the posted limit, I don't worry about tickets. I wish everyone would do that but I find they don't. And a lot of people never use cruise control. I used to be able to hold a steady speed but not anymore. What happens is I, like so many others it seems, tend to slow as I approach a car to pass then speed up when I get alongside, And I engage in Accelerator Creep when there are no other cars nearby. And then I risk tickets. I once found myself doing 115 in a Dodge van on the way to Las Vegas. I had no idea I was 50 MPH over the speed limit.

I woke up this morning with my leg feeling normal. Well, better than it did last night. I'll survive the drive.