Travel Day 1 (Asheville NC to Springfield TN) - Day 685 (Yr 2, Day 320)

Springfield, TN

I was going to keep track of my daily journey and then just publish it when the travels were complete.  But some of my family members want a daily report, so I will honor that.  Warning: it may be very boring!

We left Asheville this morning.  The goal was to leave at 9 am and for once, we actually met that goal!  There was about 40 miles in NC, and the rest was TN, where we still are, although towards the western side of the state.  The scenery going thru TN is really beautiful (mountains), but the drive was horrendous, as there are nothing but very windy roads and steep mountain grades.  Our truck, workhorse as it is, still doesn't like inclines; the engine starts to rev too high and we can't get above 35mph.  Then going downhill, you're not supposed to ride the brakes, so it's equally scary if someone's in front of you.  Fortunately, no one was.

We pretty much hit every rest area along the way, which was about every 100 miles.  We did a total of 320 miles today and drove a total of about 7 hours, (excluding the breaks--on the road for 9 hrs) and are currently "wallydocking" (parking in a Walmart parking lot).   We also crossed into the central time zone, so although we gained an hour, our bodies are telling us it's an hour later than it really is.  I made a quick dinner of scrambled eggs and leftover gefilte fish.  We then made the sandwiches we'll need for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, will watch a little "tv" and then go to bed early.  Mitch would like to get a very early start - i.e. about 3:00 am so that we don't have to deal with the rush hour traffic that will surely be on this one lane, 10 mile road that leads back to the highway.

The only last adventure was getting to this Walmart in Springfield.  We heard on a local radio station that there was a severe thunderstorm warning in the area, and we noticed the sky ahead was very dark.  It was around the time to stop anyway, so we looked at our resources and decided to go to the closest possible place, which was a Walmart 15 miles away (5 on the highway and 10 on a local 1 lane road).  This road was also very windy and hilly.  And of course, the torrential rains hit (I was the one driving).  It was one of those blinding rains, too, and there was absolutely no place to pull over to the side, so I just put on my flashers and went about 5mph in a 50 zone.  Too bad for the drivers behind me!  After about 7 miles, there was an area to pull over, so we did that until the rain let up, about 15 minutes later.  Naturally, by the time we drove the last 3 miles, the sun was back out.

We are very grateful that we made it through the first day of travel safely and without incident.

I absolutely HATE this kind of travel.  I would much rather do it at my own pace - no more than 150 miles or 4 hours in a day, and being able to stop and see some sights.  But this is not that type of trip.  Either way, we get there when we get there, taking our time and stopping as often as needed.  Hopefully the rest of the trip will be much easier as we'll be past the TN mountains.