Epic Road Trip, Part 4: Across the Mississippi

September 5, 2025

Tonight it looks like Charlie isn’t doing great. Charlie isn’t thrilled to be away from home but I think he’ll be ok. He ate more than Petey did. He’s doing well on walks, and everything seems normal. Charlie doesn’t like the ramp to get into the car, so we utilized the dog-lifting sling to put him back in the car. It worked great because we each lifted one side so it was only 30 pounds for each of us, and Charlie didn’t even realize that he was being transported into the van. I’m glad I brought that thing.

I think Charlie will be fine. He would think we abandoned him if we had left him at the pet resort, or with a sitter. As it is, Tux is at the resort, and I am concerned enough.

Petey seems good. As usual he’s just afraid I’m going to leave him somewhere. The poor thing has been abandoned by so many people, but not us. We are his forever and ever family.

Charlie seems to know that Brad is his ticket back home. Every time Brad leaves the hotel room, Charlie waits at the door. Like Petey does with me.

Charlie snoozing in the hotel room

Today, I visited three new states: Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas. It’s funny because Memphis takes up a tiny corner of the southwestern part of Tennessee, and that’s the part I saw. Whereas MOST of Tennessee is actually closer to where we live, and yet I had never been there! Crazy to think about!

And until this very moment, I had forgotten that my dogs Charlie and Cooper came from Tennessee. I didn’t acknowledge that on the drive. Ugh.

We crossed the Mississippi River! By car! I have flown over the country, but I have never done it by car. So, this is something I’ve always wanted to do. For months, I’ve wondered should I just enjoy the moment, or record the crossing? At the last moment, I decided to record a video of us crossing the river. The water was hard to see. Really all you can see is the bridge, and the old bridge, as you’re going over.

Tomorrow, I will add Oklahoma to my list! DING

I colored in the blank map that I had printed at home. I’ve been to 29 states (including this trip, and previous ones).

States I have visited are shown in green.

I had forgotten about Wisconsin, which I visited when I was a very small child when my grandparents lived there. So I added that in tonight when I was coloring in the map.

Interstate 20 is a trucking route. This was kind of a fascinating learning experience for me. There’s an intermodal terminal along the Mississippi River near Memphis. This happens to be where the main FedEx hub is located, which we drove past — it’s huge.

While the area is very industrial looking, it was interesting to see how the boats, trucks and trains all come together to transport goods across the United States. This doesn’t even include airplanes. I’ve never thought about it until seeing the magnitude of the process while on the road. Next time you order something from Amazon or any other vendor (but wow we saw a lot of Amazon trucks, shipping containers and train cars) realize what it takes to get that little thing from point A to point B. It is no small feat, and some of these companies do it super fast. It’s a remarkable system, and one I felt was underappreciated (by me, at least) until it dawned on me what I was witnessing.

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September 6, 2025

Today, we went from Arkansas to Oklahoma. We could have probably gone to the Texas border, but we wanted a slightly shorter day of driving.

So, I’ve added Oklahoma to my list of states visited, and I colored it in on my map. 30 states!

Oops! Enteriing "Klahoma"!

We went to the Meher Baba center in Prague, Oklahoma. We’d been talking about this for months, and it’s so funny but the woman who runs the place is actually in Myrtle Beach this week!

She said someone was covering for her, but we called and then went by and knocked on the door, and no one responded to the phone call or our in-person visit. It’s really even funnier, because I had been wondering how I was going to handle the dogs being with us, and I was thinking we wouldn’t be allowed to bring them into the Baba Center. Well, problem solved because it wasn’t open.

We tried to find the spot where Meher Baba had a terrible car accident in 1952 just outside of Prague, Oklahoma. We were given specific instructions to find the place in the road, but even though we calculated the distance perfectly, we couldn’t figure out exactly where the crash occurred. We were told there were usually flowers around, and someone said the Prague Baba center had purchased the adjacent land and was going to build a memorial of some sort. We saw no indication of any of that. So, we just said some prayerful words as we drove past the spot where we thought it happened according to what we were told. Oh well. Wasn’t meant to be I guess!

Route 62 in Prague, approximately where Meher Baba's crash occurred in 1952
Some say this location is almost the "center of" the United States. Hmmm.

The dogs slept all day in the car, basically. I took them out twice at rest areas. We are exclusively using the sling to lift Charlie into the car now. So, the ramp is probably going to sit in the corner of the van for the rest of the trip. We are on the third day of a 30-day trip lol.

Speaking of Charlie, he had some tummy issues tonight. Sort of. I am a little concerned. The funny thing is both dogs ate tonight when we arrived at the hotel, so I thought that was good. But then we took them out for their last walk before bed, and let’s just say it wasn’t ideal. So I’m a little worried. I can’t imagine what we did wrong because he’s eating the same food he always has, and is drinking the same water we are drinking.

Today, I fulfilled another wish. I drove on I-40 alongside of old Route 66 which was decommissioned years ago, but which still exists in part, and some of it can still be driven on. It is now just a frontage road. But it meanders right alongside Interstate 40 westbound, until it disappears and then reappears again, because certain portions of Route 66 are gone.

I always dreamed of driving on Route 66. I didn’t realize the road is not used as a travel road anymore, until today. Guess I was out of the loop on that one.

So, I got as close as I could. Tomorrow, I will get even closer because I think I’m actually going to drive ON it, when we go to Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Texas.

Tonight, we’re staying at our third La Quinta Hotel. The address is “Highway 66” but it’s not that meandering road I saw while we were driving here. But that’s ok. It’s close. The Route 66 Museum is here in this town (Elk City, Oklahoma).

Funny, they couldn’t give us a ground-floor room tonight. I realize it’s Saturday, so I figured that was why. But with two dogs, we were thinking it’s kind of a pain to take them down stairs or on the elevator. In fact, Charlie is terrified of the elevator. When we got back from our evening walk, Brad was talking to a woman in the elevator, and he said “Wow, there are a lot of dogs here tonight.” And she said, “Oh, that’s because there’s a DOG SHOW in town.” He asked where, and she said it’s at the convention center about a mile down the road. It’s unbelievable we were able to get a room knowing that additional information. Many thanks to BringFido.com where I have been booking the rooms (on their app) it hasn’t let us down yet.

Petey says, "I'M not afraid of elevators, though."

This is the best of the three La Quintas we’ve stayed at on this trip. All three are great hotels, but this one is by far the nicest. There’s a great walking area for the dogs. The other two places (Alabama and Arkansas) were a little less safe in terms of dangers to dogs such as holes, cracks, sewer grates, broken glass, construction materials… this place is nice and tidy and NOT under construction.

It seems like everything is under construction right now. It’s September. Right after Labor Day. They must lie in wait all summer and then dive in to do repairs and renovations at these places. Two of the three La Quintas were under repair/renovation. Every Love’s truck stop we’ve gone to has been under repair/renovation.

It’s only been three days. I wonder how many more La Quintas we’ll stay at! If we come back the same route, maybe we’ll simply stay at the same ones again. Who knows?

The moon is almost full, and we can see it from our hotel window.

Tomorrow: Texas! I can’t believe I’m finally going to Texas!! More on that, next time.

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Before you go: My new book, “Dear Hobie: Letters to My Heart Dog” is available on Amazon and elsewhere. Hate Amazon? No worries, you can check get it on bookshop.org for the same price (ten bucks). Not interested in a print copy? Have no fear, the e-Book is available for just 99 cents. Thank you in advance for buying and reading. I appreciate you more than you know.

I wrote a book! Psst: it's a memoir.

Next Monday: Texas, Cadillac Ranch, Route 66!