The wife and I had a good trip to the GO GREEN festival in Thayer Mo.
We hit the road mid morning Thursday ,drove through Birmingham and on just over the Mississippi line to Fulton and offloaded 9-10 sacks of wood at a McDonalds out building as I do often traveling long distances knowing on my return trip I will be coming back by and get the wood. We then turned north traveling along the Alabama and Mississippi line on county and state roads.
We went near Mississippi highest point (806 feet) and crossed the Natchez Trace and then drove west to Corinth Ms., north to Jackson Tn., Dyersburg and crossed the Mississippi River just south of Caruthersville Mo. And on to Kennett Mo. for the night.
The next morning we drove southwest and crossed into Arkansas near Cardwell Mo., drove west from here to Walnut Ridge AK and then North West to Mammoth spring AR where we had motel reservation.
We spent a couple hours there and drove a short distance to our host Jim and Kim Hart in Thayer MO. We spent a nice evening with Jim and Kim and drove back to Mammoth spring AR. The next morning we drove back to Thayer Mo. to the Go Green event and had a great day. We spoke to several hundred people; I put the truck on display at 8:30 and talked most of the day. I remember the fist time I set down was about 3:00 in the afternoon. I even talked and demoed while I ate dinner. (Not to be confused with supper)
As we were closing shop I had the opportunity to take a radio personality for a 15-20 mile ride (He was impressed and will be doing an interview for a radio show. ) Afterwards Jim and I drove about 20 miles to Grand Gulf State park and on to his house where he fed us again. Back to Mammoth Spring for the night.
Sunday Morning drove back to the Thayer Mo. to the Harts for coffee, retrieved the trailer and wood that I had left there and back to the event and displayed the truck for a couple hours.
We left the event about noon crossing into AR drove southeast crossing the Mississippi near Memphis. On through Tennessee into Mississippi stopping in Fulton at McDonalds to retrieve the wood we had ground squirreled, on into Alabama and home.
I had planed on Mrs. Keith taking pictures of the welcome sign each time we went into a new state. It work well for a while but waking her up to take a picture of a sign come past her at 60-70 mph proved not to be such a bright idea.
I don’t want to sound like I am bragging on the little truck but it ran flawless. No where on the trip did I have to add any gasoline but I did once just to demonstrate to the rider the extra power if I ever needed it. (Mike Evans the radio personality). I never needed to shake the grate and the vacuum ratio between the top and the bottom of the gasifier stayed right where it should be. When driving on the pine I was using, most of it being plucky, I could expect to get about 60 miles per hopper fill. Once I filled the hopper with good oak and got 97 miles. I have no drought if not pulling the trailer and driving a little slower I could get a hundred plus miles on the hopper full.
I thought of all the vehicles we saw lined up at gasoline stations on this thousand mile trip. The only choices they have are to pay what the oil company demands or walk. When I pull up to my wood pile the choices I have are pine, oak, poplar, willow, hickory and how much to load.
