Day’s mileage total: 878 miles
Lunch: Arby’s, near Bristol, TN
Dinner: Iron Skillet, West Memphis, AR
Lodging: Super 8, West Memphis, AR
I kicked off the trip dark and early rolling out of the Longstreet Hostel around 6am. It definitely feels strange knowing that I am driving away from my home. As I rounded the bend to get onto Gallows Road I realized I won’t be driving this ever again…very weird. I lit up the morning with Mix CD 1 which I had made expressly for the trip! My goal today, the first leg of the trip, was to drive as far as I could. I knew I would never be as alert and excited as I would be the first day so I wanted to capitalize on that and my goal was to get to Memphis, TN. The route involves going west on 66, south on 81 an then hitting up Rt 40 west in Knoxville which goes all the way to California.

I was hit by a realization today which I have had in the past. Virginia drivers do not observe the rule that the left lane is for passing. VA drivers are notorious for camping out in the left lane, cruising just about the speed limit either trapping you behind them or forcing you to pass on the right. This is very irritating but more so when you have endless miles of boring Rt 81 to traverse and there is someone in a Crown Victoria chugging along in the left lane. MOVE OVER!!

This leg of the trip covered familiar ground. I had driven the route to Bristol, TN a few years earlier when I went to Dukesfest at the Bristol Motor Speedway. Yes, that is correct, an event dedicated to the Dukes of Hazard. You gotta problem with that?! Ha ha! The route all the way to Memphis was also covered as part of the “Grueling Pace, Meager Rations Roadshow” of 2005. So when I passed well loved sites such as Hungry Mother State Park, it brought back fond memories. Kirk Camry (my car) was also loving the sweet road action at this point and gobbling up the road miles like a beast!

The one hitch in the day’s travels was the crazy rain I hit in Tennessee. Apparently, this was part of the big storm that saturated the Southeast US. It was several hours driving in heavy rain which slowed the progress some. Tennessee is a beautiful state. The drive between Knoxville and Nashville is particularly nice as you wind your way through the Appalachians. We drove this part in the dark when I was here in ‘05, as I recall or maybe I was snoozing as someone else drove. In any event, I had not remembered it so it was quite nice. I am struck, as I always am, at the amazing courage and tenacity of early explorers and settlers who set off west by foot into the unknown. I drove past the Cumberland Gap, Davy Crockett’s birthplace, other Daniel Boone sites and imagined these guys out there in the wilderness. Crazy! I think I would like to read a biography of Daniel Boone. That would probably be a good read.

Actually, there was another crazy incident today. Driving through the mountains in Tennessee, this 18-wheeler in front of me had a blow-out on one of his tires or something and as he continued to drive, the tired got shredded and was flinging large hunks of rubber behind the truck which I had to dodge a couple larger ones. That definitely added some excitement!

Speaking of good reads, my time in the car has been delightfully passed listening to an audio version of War and Peace. I have always wanted to read it and what better excuse then a beast long road trip! I am a fan of books-on-tape so this was quite a gem. Although, I must say, it was not a real book-on-tape. Not only because it was on CD but it was actually a dramatized BBC Radio version of the book. But very entertaining anyway!

Anyway, by the time I got to Memphis, I was beat after 14 hours of driving! I decided to stop in Memphis for the night (my goal anyway) and started looking for a hotel. As this point I made a disconcerting discovery. You know how when you are driving, at the exit signs they show what hotels, food, gas stations, etc are there? They do not do that in big cities! So I am driving through Memphis at night looking for a place to stay and of course you can’t see anything from the highway so I just kept going. A couple times I noticed hotels at a particular exit but only after I had passed and I wasn’t going back baby…forward to nothing! So anyway, I ended up crossing the Mississippi River and staying at the HUGE truck stop which is West Memphis, Arkansas. My room at the Super 8 was immediately next to the truck stop but I was so beat tired that the roar of truck engines all night did not keep me awake. So that was Day 1 people…let the good times roll.