Day 8 - The Final Stretch

We decided to avoid any sit-down restaurants on the way home, and order food "to go." As we drove along, I pointed out many of the landmarks that were not as easily visible in the dark. We left Louisiana, and as we went along, the signs of Hurricane Katrina became less evident in the landscape.

Since the ONN crew had left Chalmette before us, they occasionally called by cell phone to inform us of their progress and of potential driving delays. For example, in Alabama, police were pulling over anybody who was caught driving even a few miles per hour above the speed limit. We stopped for lunch and traded passengers for the next leg of the trip. I switched from riding in the minivan to riding in the car. We passed through the rest of Alabama without encountering any traffic accidents to delay us.

In Tennessee, we traded passengers again at a gas station during refueling. With little delay, we were back on the road again. I became the "navigator" again as we approached Nashville. I used the road atlas to check the instructions from Google Maps and determined that the route through Nashville would be different on the trip home. A cell phone conversation between both vehicle drivers covered the fact that the route was different. I did not get disoriented, and I did a good job of keeping track of exactly where we were on the route. A while later, we were driving out of Nashville.

We stopped for dinner at a gas station with a Subway restaurant next to it, ordered subs to go, and hit the road again. That was in Kentucky, after we had passed Elizabethtown and returned to Eastern Standard Time. We discussed the time left on the trip and concluded that we would be in Ohio before midnight.

As we rounded Louisville and merged onto I-71 North, I got to put away the driving directions and the road atlas. This area of the United States was familiar enough to the drivers that I did not need to be a "navigator" anymore. The sun went down before we reached Cincinnati, and all the city lights were on. As we crossed the Ohio River, I read the sign: "Ohio Welcomes You!"

When we were well into Ohio, we began trading trivia questions again, but this time they had a twist--they were questions about our week in Chalmette and New Orleans. Questions included "how many steps does a volunteer climb to get to the second floor of C.F. Rowley Elementary School," and "how did the refrigerator movers at the Monoplex get extra traction?"

Before we reached Columbus, the driver let me borrow his cell phone to call Dad. It was sometime after 11:00 P.M. when we arrived where we had started a week ago. A few minutes later, as we were saying our goodbyes, Dad drove into the parking lot. Then Dad helped me load up, and we headed home...