Here's a video about the Shell Brazil project I've been working on for the last year.

Day 1
Friday, August 21
Start Mile 0; End Mile 473; Miles/Day: 473
Destination: Hayti KOA, Missouri

We managed to leave around 7:30 AM (30 mins late – hope this is not a trend ?) and headed north on I-55. Today is mostly a travel day with a stop a drive by at Graceland in Memphis. To put us in a Graceland mood, we dialed in the Elvis channel on the XM radio. We heard most of the classics such as Jail House Rock, Hound Dog, All Shook Up, etc. Nathan now has a good Elvis imitation.

We arrived at Graceland around 2:00 PM. Instead of taking the full tour, we just parked on the short service road in front of Graceland. Behind a 6 foot tall stone fence, you could get a glimpse of the mansion through the trees at the top of a gently sloping hill. The stone fence was covered with graffiti such as “I love you Elvis.” Across the street were two of Elvis’ jet airplanes. One looked liked a 727 jet and other was somewhat smaller. We took a few pictures and hit the road again.

We needed to get a screw jack to provide additional support under the rear slide out when it is in the stowed position because the supports mounted in the ceiling rails have not held up very well on prior trips. We asked the GPS where the closest Home Depot was and headed out. When we rolled into the Home Depot parking lot, Kellie recognized the Home Depot and adjacent shopping mall; we had stopped there on the way back from the Buffalo River canoe trip last year to do a repair on the same slide out issue. What an amazing coincidence – we were all laughing! The screw jack idea is working out very well so far.

Within 3 miles of our destination, a KOA campground, we were involved in a serious accident. A car passed us on service road at high speed, swerved to give us room, fish tailed, ran off the road into a wide ditch, rolled at least once and landed upright on all four wheels. A motorist (a pastor) pulling a camper on the Interstate side of the ditch, pulled over and called 911. We pulled over and I went back down the road to see what happened. The driver was a woman and she was alone in the vehicle. Amazingly, she didn’t even have a scratch on her. The ambulance arrived within minutes, checked her out and left. The police took her statement and our statement. She said we didn’t cross the centerline when she passed us but was trying to give us extra room for the camper because the road was so narrow. There were only about 12 inches of shoulder and then a slopping drop off into the ditch; she went over too far, dropped off the edge and then went into the ditch. We were not held liable and were released to go. Needless to say, we were “All Shook Up!” We felt terrible because our presence on that narrow road caused the accident, however we gave Jesus credit for protecting the woman from injury. We’ve been praying for safety on this trip for several weeks leading up to today and, although the accident occurred, no one was hurt – Thank God. Obviously, this accident could have been much, MUCH worse. We spent a somber first evening in the camper.