December 31, 2005
Our Trip to Tennessee, Part I
TB came home from work on Friday (last week, not yesterday) and said that his boss was shutting down the company for the week. It was a big surprise, not of the good kind at first. Then we thought: why not go see Michele and David and the kids? We'd talked about visiting them and at first we decided against Christmas week because TB had so much work to do. It didn't make sense for him not to have the week off but who can argue with a boss? Anyway, we called Michele and got the name of a place we hoped to stay. Michele was very excited and needless to say, it didn't take much for us to get totally psyched too.
The first big drawback was that Heidi had to be back at work on Wednesday. It's too bad we didn't know the shop was going to be closed for a week because Heidi could have put in for time off. The second drawback--the nice place Michele recommended was booked up. Rats.
Right away I went online and started looking for a place to stay. There were lots of places where we could get a double room, I'm sure, but they have double beds and TB and I needed a much bigger bed. We also thought it would be nice for the four of us to have some privacy. I looked for places with suites. I found a few but almost all were booked. TB and I settled on one place that had a nice suite with a queen bed and a pull out sofa in the living room. We called Michele to see if she'd heard of it and she talked with David. Neither had and as we were all talking, the room disappeared! There was another one with two queens in the bedroom so I quickly booked that. Now...that should have told us something.
David called back a couple of times with the names of places that were closer to their place. One was a room with two beds and the other was a place with cabins but we'd have to stay in one Monday night and move to another for Tuesday night. Nah, we decided we'd stay where we were. David and Michele both warned us that the traffic there got crazy because of all the attractions and the outlets. Eh...we'd been in NJ and NY traffic, how bad could it be? Heh.
On Monday morning, TB was up bright and early. I was so excited or something I'd been unable to get to sleep until way after midnight so even with a shower I was still pretty dopey...and I was the navigator! We got the girls up and were out the door on time at 6 a.m. Billy stayed behind to take care of Buddy.
The first part of our trip went very quickly because we were going over familiar ground. When we got into the Baltimore area, I enjoyed pointing out Camden Yards and places I'd lived and worked. We stopped for breakfast in Jessup and went past the maximum security prison there--scary looking! Now, I'd been under the impression that Maryland was entirely smoke free and was bragging on it when we went into this truckers' diner. Imagine my surprise to find the place full of smoke and the non-smokers consigned to a little room off to the side! What's that all about? Well...it turns out that smoking is banned in public places but not everywhere. There's been voluntary compliance for years but the entire state isn't supposed to go smoke free for another year yet! Duh!
We made more great time into Virginia, passing Tyson's Corner--usually that's a real traffic nightmare! We passed Manassas--it sure is different! When I was an interpreter in 1978, the sixth grader I was signing for went on an outdoor education experience to Manassas. We stayed a week, visited the battlefield and learned about the area. We tramped through the woods learning to navigate with compasses, learned to identify trees and plants and all kinds of fun stuff. I'm sure the battlefield itself is preserved but the area around it looks like just another sprawling strip mall town. Too bad.
Then we got onto I-81 South. We were to be on that road for 375.5 miles and there was nothing to look at but cows and farms!
The girls were totally entranced...with their music and sleeping.
For fun, I tried taking a picture out the window as we were rolling along at 80mph:
Not bad, eh?
There was other lovely scenery as well.
Well...to me, anyway.
I wish I'd still had my camera out when we got into the Blue Ridge Mountains though. Those were totally awesome! I want to come back and drive along them when the fall colors are at peak and take pictures!
We'd been driving in Virginia for what seemed to be hours when we finally saw what we thought was our Exit--1B. We were so excited! Finally! We'd made great time! We'd get to see the family soon! As we exited though, I said--"Wait, this isn't I-40." Worse, up ahead in the distance I'd seen a sign for Knoxville 160-something miles *and* I'd seen a sign for Exit 73. I had this sinking feeling we weren't in Kansas but that we also weren't in Tennessee.
Sure enough, TB pulled off and we learned that many people make this mistake. We were looking for Exit 1 on the Tennessee side of the border and this was still Virginia, Dorothy. We sure didn't like to hear we had another hour or so of driving on I-81 but there you go.
Still, we made great time and it was 5:00 when we exited onto the road to Sevierville. I got on the phone with Michele who was totally surprised we were so close. We were hoping to all get together that night, once we'd checked into our hotel. No sooner had I hung up when we stopped dead. We were at the end of a barely crawling traffic jam that stretched on for miles and miles. It was the worst traffic I'd seen in years. Uh-oh.
At nearly 6, we'd barely covered 2 miles and still had 11 to go to the hotel. We were getting hungry and very aggravated with the traffic. What was causing it? No one was getting off the road! I suggested we pull off at Ruby Tuesday's and eat dinner. By then the traffic must surely get better! So we did....
to be continued....