We heard some drops during the night, dew or rain ?? John also said he heard a couple of animals fighting in the woods. It was during this brief moment that I happened to be sleeping. In the distance there is barking, so there are some houses near in these woods. The moon was out for awhile, but it gets overcast very fast. It wasn't as dark at night as I thought it was going to be. We had everything packed and ready to go by 7:30 a.m. Taking the tarp off of the cart. Rearranging all of the things we lay on top and cover up. We take the tent bag and roll up the blue sleeping mats and put them in first. Then we put in the pillows and blankets. We have one heavier green blanket for top and a lighter blue on the top of the mats. All of the sleeping wear is pushed inside of the rolled up mats as well. On top of that we place the tent and fly. The ground cover is placed next. The tent poles goe on the side. During the major part of the trip, we would put our shoes for the next day in there so they would be easily accessible in the morning. You punch them all down to get the air out and roll the top and secure it tight with the clips. For all of the rain we have endured, these bags have been awesome. Nothing has been wet from the outside. Putting wet things inside keeps them wet. The brown sandy gravel road wasn't too bad in the morning. Some ruts and areas with more water than others. We were very very sweaty early on. We crossed quite a few bridges. I am sad to say that people who are dumpers live in all states. These bridges have had everything and anything tossed over the sides and into the bodies of waters. We see garbage and household items. Refrigerators and dishwashers. What a shame it is to see this in what is gorgeous land. We finally get off of the dirt road and are now on a brand new road. The pavement is easier to run on and we enjoy that. No shoulders of course. About 7 miles or so J3 calls to find us. Cell coverage has been bad these last few days. He says we are "ZIPPING" right along. We will have to watch our mileage or we will be done before the 26th. We plan on staying in a motel tomorrow night and I look forward to that. Enough days in the wilderness in the south (Or I imagine anywhere) makes you want dryness and quiet. We will only have a few miles to go on our final day, which will be good. I like the idea of finishing slowly and calmly. Without having to deal with miles and hours on the road. Thanks to my planners, I am happy!! John and Heidi will be leaving Seattle this evening at 11:00 p.m. Last plane ride for Eli. Doctor says no more after this one. We are finally going to meet the little guy. Well with her permission pat the mama's belly. We reach Jackson County and see a building nearby with a church across the street. We are near Larue MS. We see the weather coming in and it is not pretty unless you are a storm watcher. It is menacing and coming in fast. We opt to stay right where we are and wait it out. They have long eaves that protect us and the cart when it comes in a deluge of water. When it rains it is serious. Sitting on the cement steps, fighting with the red ants and trying to catch up on the journal. Cars and trucks go by and no one is interested in us in the least. Not one person so much as rolled their window down and said "Hey what you doing!!" It is rumbling and grumbling upstairs and we know there is more to come. The parking lot becomes a lake with a river flowing out the sides of it in an S formation. The grassy areas become little ponds and still the rain comes down. The first storm was steady down pour. The second one that came through, you could see for miles. Big black angry clouds just a marching across the sky. This one came in with some wind to make it even more interesting. We had to cover everything even more. The pavement just steams as the rain hits it. The temperature is still high and the rain doesn't cool anything. Just makes things damper. When it looked like the sky was calming without the danger of more rain, we left. John went to the Church to fill our bottles. Thanks to the Larue Baptist Church we had full water bottles A pretty 2 lane country road with no shoulders we ran along. Some of it is managed by timber companies. They cut and reforest and before too long they are cutting again. It grows much faster here in the south. J3 calls to talk about the final plans. Final maps and changes. We didn't say it, but we all are excited about this adventure and the sucess of it. It was hot and humid and we knew it. Drinking a lot to keep hydrated we sweat. We are headed into Latimer where we plan to find our last camping site. :( OH REALLY !! John said there should be a church up here soon and we'll see what that brings. We are getting tired as we see the houses on top of the hill. There are dogs galore as usual. Snarling and charging. Most of the houses have huge chain link fences surrounding them. Thankfully!! Not one of the animals jumped. :) We see a church on top of the hill. THe Larue Assembly of God with one Pasto Mike Cauely. We find the phone number and John gives him a call and then one more. He said Sure you can stay there. In fact, we have an unoccupied house across from the church that has a carport and you feel free to set up under there. It has a table and chairs, electricity and water. If anyone bothers you just have them call me. Well, we thanked him and went across the expansive lawn of the church to our "LAST SITE" We had tons of places to spread out all of our wet gear and try to dry some of them for morning. John was very busy plugging everything in and rearranging gear. I tried to tet some blogging done. Catching up. It got darker and my eyes are older. Hard to see under a streetlight. We set the tent up under the carport and dared it to rain. There are mosquitos, ants, flies, salamanders, LARGE water bugs and who know what else. It was our home for the night and we are happy for it. J3 gets in touch with us and we FINALIZED some more running routes. Smiles on our faces we know the end is near. We get our final bag of ice from a very kind gentleman who's name we didn't get. He was out to go to a football game and said he would drop the ice off on his way home. Thanks to him. John woke up and got it about 10:30 and we settled down to sleep. Oh yeah K&J

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