8/30 and 8/31 - Clarksville, TN, and HOME!

Yesterday's drive from Springfield to Clarksville, TN, was uneventful (always welcome) and pleasant with one minor exception. The roads were much better than the previous travel days but Illinois had seen fit to close both of the rest areas we needed. We finally found a place to stop but a warning about the closures certainly would have been nice.

Central Illinois farmland

Central Illinois is beautiful but very flat farmland....all corn and soybeans as far as the eye can see. Approaching the southern end of Illinois the terrain becomes rolling and hilly down to the Ohio River which is the border between Illinois and Kentucky.

Ohio River, the Illinois/Kentucky border

We crossed the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers while going across the southwestern end of Kentucky. The pictures look just like the Ohio (although smaller) so we won't post them. 

Our campground was right off I-24 at Clarksville, one mile over the Kentucky/Tennessee line. We stayed at the same place going west last summer and it was fine, but this time our site was separated from the interstate by just one row of trees so it was extremely noisy. The weather forecast was for approaching heavy rain but we got lucky and had only light showers overnight and it stayed dry while we broke down this morning.

I-24 between Clarksville and Nashville

The terrain in Tennessee is interesting and beautiful. In fact, it's one of the most picturesque states to drive through. We've been lucky to see so much of it on our trips to and from the north and west.

 Mountains from I-40 west of Knoxville

Coming into Knoxville, first signs for Asheville

We dodged the rain from Harvey all the way to the mountains. Then it let loose.

The very welcome NC state line in the Pigeon River gorge

I-40 in the gorge

Visibility was really bad for the final hour and a half, from just west of the Smokies all the way home, but we made it unscathed. We got the RV about halfway unloaded and will tackle the rest tomorrow. Lovie and the cats are all very happy to be home. We are so fortunate to have such good little travelers.

This was a wonderful final trip. We'll miss traveling with the RV but it's time to stop. As soon as everything is serviced and repaired on both RV and truck they'll be for sale, in case anyone knows of someone looking for a rig. Most of our future traveling will be to Florida for winters, although we still have to get to Alaska. We did accomplish our goal of getting to all of the lower-48 states but our bucket list isn't finished yet.