Road Trip, Part One
Originally published at Examorata. Please leave any comments there.
It was the farthest I’d ever driven on my own. According to Google Maps, from my front door to the Dugan’s front door was 704 miles. If it’s a drive you ever get to take, across the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains, take it. It’s never less than lovely, and occasionally breathtaking.
And on the first day I was hell bent to drive through it as quickly as possible. It wasn’t precisely that I was in a rush to “get there” - on the first leg, there wasn’t a there to get to. I was going to drive until I was tired of driving and find a place to crash. My only plan was to push more than halfway, so that Saturday would be the easier day of driving. That way I’d arrive more refreshed and less worn-out, at least in theory. Also I wouldn’t have to get up as early to still make it there by early afternoon.
As I headed west on Route 66 (its motto should actually be: “Percentage of kicks gotten increases geometrically as you leave the greater Washington, D.C. area” but that’s not too snappy), I could feel myself settling into a groove. I’d lost my radio station about, oh, six or seven miles south of home as per usual, and ever since then I’d been on iPhone power. The USB connection for my car stereo was the best decision EVER. Thousands upon thousands of songs, available for me to sing along with! No one else there to get a vote! Or to protest if I decide to play the new Josh Ritter album like three times in a row. (It was more like two and a half times, really. On the drive down, at least.)
There are definitely a lot of joys on a shared road trip. Two sets of eyes find more things in the landscape, and conversation is a lot more surprising and engaging than picking what albums to sing with. But there was so much to get out of driving on my own. I listened to new music, yes, but I also listened to old music, albums that are well-worn friends. And it gave me so much time to myself, to think or not, to laugh or cry or just look at the beauty going past the windows.
The last city in Virginia as you head south on Route 81 is Bristol. It’s a good-sized city, sometimes crowded with tourists due to the big motor raceway there. Bristol is more or less the halfway point; certainly the most easily marked halfway point. Per my plan, then, I was going to drive past Bristol and find a place to stay. I got to Bristol around 6, maybe 6:30 p.m. It was a little early to stop, it seemed, and I still had spring in my step. In the back of my mind, though, was a conversation I’d recently had with a friend who had grown up in the general area:
FRIEND: So you’ll probably stop around Bristol?
ME: Enh, I was thinking I’d push past Bristol. I’d like to get a little more than halfway there.
FRIEND: There isn’t anything much past Bristol.
ME: There’s gotta be something between there and Knoxville.
FRIEND: Oh, there is. Eventually.
The hour between 6:30 and 7:30 saw my outlook completely change. All I’d eaten since I got on the road was the occasional handful of trail mix, a Cherry Coke Zero, and a bunch of water. The sky was starting to turn an ominous shade, reminiscent of some scary storms I’d driven through the last time I’d taken a road trip through Tennessee. Yep, it was time to find a hotel, and a place to eat, so I could get a good night’s sleep and let the scary storms pass me by after I got off the mountainous roads.
Except I was past Bristol. OH. Now I get it.
I was getting ready to white-knuckle it a little but the worst of the rain stayed away, as I drove along the storm boundary going southwest. I felt it all at once: I was tired, and hungry, and I’d actually gone close to two-thirds of the way there. I told myself, out loud, “Next hotel I see, I’m stopping.”
The next hotel I “saw” popped up on one of those blue “Lodging” signs. The associated “Food” and “Gas” signs were discouragingly empty and the hotel was…”MOTEL 36.” Right. Sure.
“The next chain hotel I see, preferably AAA rated, I’m stopping.”
And so I did, at a Best Western in Bulls Gap, TN, near the official historic birthplace of Davy Crockett. How colorful! How quaint! How quickly can I get in my dang room and out of the maybe-downpour?!
When it was time to eat I faced another choice. There was Tony’s BBQ. “Oh, a local eatery! How colorful! How qua…” I drove up to it and saw one car in the parking lot, and a very dark interior paired with a half-broken “OPEN” sign in bleeding neon. Nobody in the world, I thought to myself, knows quite where I am right now. Cell signal isn’t strong. I’m a smart, capable woman traveling on my own, and I’m gonna make a sound decision! “Right, so, Dairy Queen it is then!” And I took myself to the Dairy Queen across the street and I had a burger and I had a Blizzard because I’d been very good all day, eating trail mix and whatnot.
I slept well and showered well, with my own stuff because the Best Western featured a shampoo dispenser mounted on the wall which seemed chancy, ate a sub-par continental breakfast, and got back on the road. It was a brilliant, sunshiny day.
I did not get a prize for arriving during National Tourism Week.