Cody’s blog

Buffalo / I-40 / Exit 143 KOA Journey
473 Barren Hollow Road
Hurricane Mills, TN 37078

931-296-1306

August 10, 2021

Arrived in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee around 2 PM after driving straight through from the Memphis KOA. I’d planned to leave the cats in the trailer for an hour or so until I made it through Memphis, then stop and see how they were doing and take them into the truck if it seemed too hot, but there weren’t any places to stop until I was about 15 minutes from my destination, at which point it wasn’t really needed but I did it anyway for the sake of 15 minutes’ worth of peace of mind. The cats were fine and the trailer didn’t feel that hot — I’d leave the windows cracked while driving and the shades down and it didn’t overheat like the inside of a car or truck would, so the cats were fine.

The fun part of driving through Memphis was seeing the Memphis Pyramid along the side of the freeway. I had no idea what it was at first — just this big shiny mirror-tiled pyramid in the middle of the city! I had to look it up online to find out about it. Would love to visit it some day.

It was a very pretty campground, with lots of trees. It had the usual amenities for a KOA: bathhouse with laundry and showers, pool, pet run, game areas. They had a guy in a golf cart to lead you to your site. I was at the end of the row again — I think because my rig was relatively small, with a truck and 19′ trailer, they tended to put me in the smaller spots at the end of the row. Sometimes it was fine and sometimes a bit of a tight squeeze. At some point, I started entering my trailer length as 23′ to include the tongue to make sure they gave me enough room.

I cut off a pair of pants to make shorts, so I finally had some cooler clothes to work in. The temperature continued to be in the 90s, and once out of the desert southwest, the heat was even more oppressive. Didn’t look like I’d get much cooler weather until I got to New York. At one point along the way, I’d checked the weather to see if it would be better if I cut north at some point and came across on I-80 or some other highway, rather than taking I-40 all the way, but the temperatures weren’t any cooler farther north, so I just stayed on my route.