Brothers Across America – Day 9

Before leaving Columbia, South Carolina, I decided to go down to Fort Jackson to see if I get a photo of a sign that said “Welcome to Fort Jackson” so I could take this picture

and put it next to present day me with the caption “12 Years and 130 Pounds Later” for comedic effect or something.

Alas, I couldn’t find a sign worth taking, and the security guard at the gate said I shouldn’t be taking pictures anyway, so I didn’t find one. However, we did drive around the post a bit, and I think I may have located where the schoolhouse and company area were, but my memory is a bit hazy these 12 1/2 years later and it wasn’t nearly as successful a trip as I thought it would be. It would have been even worse had we stopped by Fort Benning, which was my basic training post, but we only passed through the east side of Georgia and were no where near Columbus. 

Who would have thought that out trip through the Carolinas to Virginia would have been one of the roughest of the trip, at least since Day 1 and the trip through the Rockies. The wind was crazy, blowing against us from the north most of the trip. It was also the first day that we had to fuel up twice in one day, and I think it was partially the wind resistance that slowed us down a bit.

We were warned that there was snow in Virginia, but it wasn’t anything we weren’t used to. It was mostly a rain/snow mix by the time we got there, but it wasn’t anything that I hadn’t seen before. Nevertheless, it still isn’t that fun to drive through, and the wind was still pretty rough. We arrived safely in Arlington to crash with my sister and brother-in-law for a few days before heading north to my old stomping grounds in Connecticut the beginning of next week. If we do anything super exciting while we are here, I’ll update with pics and prose, but until then…